<p>At MIT, a very large percentage of the student body was Greek (close to half the men and around 20% of the women). You get to choose your living group anyway, so it was simply another option that happened to have a certain cultural structure (the pledge period, the rituals, etc). There were a few “partisans” (extremely pro/anti-Greek) in both the Greek and non-Greek communities, but they were small in number, and most people were pretty chill about it.</p>
<p>Fraternity and sorority rush were at the beginning of freshman year, but while freshmen could be affiliated with Greek organizations, they weren’t allowed to live in their Greek houses until sophomore year (a policy disliked both by most Greeks and most non-Greeks).</p>
<p>The houses themselves varied quite widely. There were a few that I would have been happy to see shut down if not for the fact that then their people would have to live in the rest of our living groups, and some that I thought were really great, and plenty in various degrees in between. Average GPA also varied widely between houses. In the end, though, it’s MIT, everyone had to buckle down and study and do the work if they wanted to be allowed to stay at MIT and eventually graduate.</p>