At the beginning of the academic year, I made a comment in the early action thread (Union College Early Action for Fall 2025 Admission - #8 by beefeater) about the decline in Greek life at Union. At the time, it looked like it was 21-24% Greek. I just noticed in the newest CDS that they’re reporting just 10-12% Greek. Anyone with ideas on what’s going on? I’m guessing a reporting change somewhere, but I’m curious if there’s more to it that’s going on. I didn’t see anything in the school newspaper. D26 may attend a virtual info session to find out more. We weren’t going to visit since there was concern that it might be too Greek for her.
Beyond the two possibilities you have suggested, I’ve seen transcription mistakes on Common Data Sets, particularly when they have been newly released.
Yep, I could see this happening. But it’s interesting to see it as basically a steady decline from year to year with every year dropping by 10%.
Don’t know if you will see this but Union most likely wouldn’t be “too Greek” There are many activities & opportunities outside the Greek system there.
A couple of factors could be contributing to this:
First, fraternity & sorority participation is down nationally except at Power Five campuses. Union is not one of these, so they could simply be following the national trend.
Second, a study at Union in 2023 reported that 81% of students in Greek life were white while the overall enrollment at Union was only 67% white. Meanwhile, the white percentage at Union has been steadily declining. Six years ago in 2018-19, it was 70%; in the 2024-25 CDS, it was reported at 62%. That shift alone could explain some of the decline in Greek participation.
As an aside, I was at Union last spring. I asked a random student if he liked Union. He answered with an enthusiastic “yes”. I asked him what he liked best about best about Union. He thought for a minute a said “the sense of community”. It turns out that he was a sophomore from Boston and was white. I don’t want to overreach and generalize from a sample of one male student, but at least in his case, it didn’t seem that Greek life - whatever it’s participation is - was a deterrent to him feeling that he was part of a larger, close knit community.
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When we visited Union years ago, they were touting the Minerva Houses. If this program is embraced/active it may provide an alternative to Greek Life.