How do parent feel about Greek Life?

Parents Forum
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<p>Normally, people decide based on their initial meeting / several meetings how much they like other people in determining whether they want to develop the relationship further. That’s known as life. </p>

<p>If you are in my dorm, and I meet you a few times at dorm events, and I decide I don’t really have a lot in common with you, you’re just not my type and vice versa, I am not “obligated” to invite you to my room or to go to dinner or to hang out at parties with you. I am, of course, obligated to be polite and cordial to you when our paths cross. But I don’t have to make you my new BFF if I don’t want to, nor am I obligated to do so to “preserve your college experience.” </p>

<p>I think where you are extremely confused is that you seem to think that “cutting someone from a house” means “and therefore I am obligated to be nasty to you, turn my head the other way when you pass by, and go out of my way to make fun of you or point you out to other people.” It means nothing of the sort.</p>

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<p>I’m too old to be a “hater.” Frankly, the guys from Animal House seemed a lot nicer than the frat members I came into contact with at my university. </p>

<p>I’m unclear why there is such defensiveness about fraternities and sorieties. There are pluses and there are minuses. My two BILs and my SIL loved their greek experience. I know it can be a wonderful thing. I also know it can be a disaster. Isn’t that true of most things?</p>

<p>I too have a problem with the exclusionary nature of most greek life. It didn’t used to bother me as much but then I saw some friends children go through the process of being rejected and it was wretched. I had the same feeling about the dining clubs at Princeton that reject members. My son felt the same way, it’s why he chose to exclude colleges with a large greek presence.</p>

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<p>But you cannot vote them out of the dorm.</p>

<p>After someone invests their time, money and hopes into joining a group, it hurts to be rejected. Perhaps it was simple on your end of things, I think you are down playing what its like to be on the other end of it.</p>

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<p>I think you have to distinguish between the “intense” systems, where 3X people are competing for X number of spots and there’s a big social hierarchy, and the laid-back systems, in which pretty much everyone who wants to join will find a spot someplace, unless they are complete jerks. I was a product of the latter system. It was quite rare that someone who wanted to be Greek didn’t find a house with like-minded people and were left hanging. Typically, the Southern systems are more intense than the Northern systems, but that’s a very broad generalization with many exceptions.</p>

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<p>I would respectfully ask what you think in regards to the exclusionary nature of most college acceptance life. Emphasis on the respectfully. I truly am curious, having seen a few of these threads on this board, why it is that people find the exclusionary nature of greek life offensive and not the even more exclusionary nature of the college application process.</p>

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<p>In my case, it is because I am personally offended (I know I need to try not to be) by non-Greek parents and students calling Greek members “the most undesirable” students on campus, that their lifestyle choice “makes my skin crawl,” and on other threads that some sororities have “fat and ugly girls,” and a host of other negative descriptors. (oh the irony) All the while knowing that Greeks and their parents are participating on the thread!</p>

<p>Substitute those descriptions of Greeks with University of Chicago students, and I think you will see what I mean.</p>

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<p>I say this as a GDI: Maybe the problem lay with the people who invest their time, money, and hopes into joining a group, and not with the group as such. Personally, I don’t care to belong to a group that requires me to invest my time, money, and hopes. I just want to hang around with people I like.</p>

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<p>The students who chose to join frats have decided to live with the people they consider most desirable. Why is it any more objectionable for the people who don’t choose frats to be happy to be with the people they consider most desirable?</p>

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<p>Because, CF, there is a difference between saying “I consider this group of people desirable / the people I want to be friends with / live with” – which is what joining a fraternity is, or just making friends in general – and saying “I consider this group of people undesirable and can’t wait for them to get away from me.” Marian’s comment above – that her children valued the Greek system since it enabled the “undesirables” to move away – is the latter. </p>

<p>Some of you have really weird, completely-at-odds-with-reality notions of what joining a Greek organization means. Some of you honestly think it must mean that you can’t ever talk with, interact with, or be friends with someone who isn’t in a Greek system.</p>

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<p>The most disappointment, IMO, occurs when a rushee decides that of the (say) 10 houses on campus, she has GOT to be a Kappa Chi Whatever because that’s the cute house or the popular house or the house-that-attracts-the-guys or whatever – gets her sights set on them – and then completely ignores or doesn’t give the other houses a chance. She spends her time dreaming about one house and might be overlooking really great girls in other houses that she might really click with. THAT’s where the hurt tends to come in, IMO. In the laid-back systems, as long as a girl keeps her mind open, there’s little reason that she wouldn’t find some house to belong to.</p>

<p>In that regard, it’s rather like the student who decides he must have Harvard, has to be Harvard, nothing else will do, puts it on a pedestal and then is crushed when he’s rejected, instead of keeping an open mind to many schools.</p>

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<p>Are they trying to join a specific group, or join the overall system? Those are two very different things.</p>

<p>Also, I’m not sure what money is invested (perhaps there is a nominal registration fee on some campuses, I don’t know). Only 2 of the colleges that my D is looking at have Greek systems, and they appear to be both of the “laid-back” variety. I do not care whether she rushes / joins or not – whatever makes her happy – but she would be bringing some nicer clothing to campus anyway in anticipation of special events, so I fail to see what extra money would be spent.</p>

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<p>Oh also one more thing, having gossip sites around like CollegeACB does NOT help the reputation of Greek Life one bit (only found out about it because my name got tossed out there once lol)</p>

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<p>It is funny that colleges can be ever so exclusive but its Greek organizations that get hammered for having a selection process. It’s fun to be invited – and no fun to be snubbed. That’s the root of a lot of the feelings that are on this board. The best campus experiences have a path so that a student gets a pretty good previous look to make up his/her mind and a pretty good notion of whether they will be invited to join before filling out a bid.</p>

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<p>There is no definitive answer to the question about how much dues are because they vary widely depending on where the school is/what sort of accommodations are offered/what is included. In general I can say that it is less expensive to live in a sorority than in the dorms or an apartment.</p>

<p>As for how members are accepted/rejected. When I was in college and yes, sororities at my universities were religiously segregated, but nonetheless: We stood in circles…held up a picture…examined their dental charts…and sang humpty dumpty. Now: daughter’s school (which was my school) stand in concentric circles wearing gold lame robes…they examine the girl’s dental records/preference in fizzy water (pelligrino or perrier) and thongs…and then they sing kumbaya…</p>

<p>Or perhaps they truly try to find other people (regardless of race/religion/ethnic origin/country of origin) with whom they can share college and life beyond.</p>

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<p>I don’t know that I find it offensive so much as off putting. </p>

<p>It seems your experience was different than the process as it has been explained to me by friends and their children. There are a lot of socials in which the young women are expected to dress nicely and to not wear the same thing over and over, that’s money and time. Once the woman chooses which sororiety she likes, then she spends even more time getting to know those young women specificially.</p>

<p>I really don’t see the comparision to school admissions. If young women applied to at the end of their senior high school and were given plenty of choices so as to virtually assure a place at one of them plus given plenty of notice when not accepted, I could see it. But that’s not how one “applies” to greek life. At least not how it’s been described to me.</p>

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<p>I disagree with you on this. Rush is most certainly a process of culling the desirables from the undesirables. You said that the only ones who didn’t get in at your college were “jerks.” How is that different than “undesirables?”</p>

<p>It’s nice that your system was a laid back one and that people in your greek system were just as likely to socialize and be friends with non-greeks but surely you know that is not always the case. it’s hardly “weird” to make note of that. Not in all schools but it’s certainly not unheard of either. One of my closest friends from high school dropped out of her soriety because of all the grief she got for having too many friends that weren’t greek. </p>

<p>I don’t see the point of pretending that all frats are like Animal House anymore than I see the point in pretending that nearly all greek life is laid back and non-exclusive in nature. People are surely influenced by their own experiences but that’s no reason to claim another person’s experience is “at odds with reality.”</p>

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<p>Let’s try it this way. Suppose, in the dorm, we all socialize and A, B, C, D find out they like one another, E, F, G, and H find out they like one another, etc. A does not DESIRE to hang around E, room with her, go out with her, etc. – but A isn’t labeling E a jerk, just someone that she isn’t interested in being friends with or being anything other than cordial and polite. </p>

<p>I meant what I said in my sister. As a sorority member, the girls who I might not have personally taken to weren’t “jerks” – they were perfectly nice girls that I just didn’t click with, and so they found houses / places elsewhere with other girls who were more their style. Just like A, B, C, and D formed a friendship group, and E, F, G and H formed a friendship group. The girls who didn’t find a spot were either those who: a) determined upfront that if they couldn’t be a Such-and-Such they weren’t going to give other houses a chance and cut off their noses to spite their faces; or b) were, actually, girls who were jerks, who were rude, not-nice, condescending, etc. That’s a very different thing from nice-but-not-my-type.</p>

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<p>You know, come to think of it, I agree with you.
There are laid-back Greek systems where pretty much everyone who goes through can find a place, Greeks and non-Greeks socialize, and it’s a structured social and philanthropic space such as I described. </p>

<p>There ARE those intense, make-a-huge-production, what-does-daddy-make, over-the-top sorority campus where heaven forbid a DG talk to a Kappa. But yk something? They tend to be at campuses that have an entire social atmosphere that I personally find offputting, they tend to be at campuses where academic pursuits are not highly valued, and most importantly – they tend to be campuses where I would make every effort possible NOT to send my kids there in the first place. IOW, their Greek systems are just reflective of the overall caliber of kids who go there. If a school is where debutantes go to get their MRS degrees and maybe attend a class or two along the way, and the big activity on campus is the football game and not the academics, their Greek system will be that way as well.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately, even schools where the ‘caliber’ of the kids is considered high have major problems with Greek organizations. They may not be as ‘exclusionary’ as some schools (I have no idea) but they are still very active on these campuses and have just as many problems as ‘non-elite’ schools. And it occurs just as much in the NE as it does in the South.</p>

<p>[Princeton</a> Alumni Weekly: Hazing charges prompt review of thriving Greek organizations](<a href=“http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2010/06/02/pages/8377/index.xml]Princeton”>Hazing charges prompt review of thriving Greek organizations | Princeton Alumni Weekly)</p>

<p>[fraternities</a> > IvyGate](<a href=“http://www.ivygateblog.com/tag/fraternities/]fraternities”>http://www.ivygateblog.com/tag/fraternities/)</p>

<p>[It’s</a> all Greek to me | Going Greek across the Ivies | Interactive feature | The Daily Pennsylvanian](<a href=“http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/node/58195]It’s”>http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/node/58195)</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/933700-after-big-drug-bust-dartmouth-fraternity-now.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/933700-after-big-drug-bust-dartmouth-fraternity-now.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In fact, Dartmouth has one of the highest percentages of Greeks in the country (60%) and they have had non-stop problems with the fraternities there. So, I really don’t think you can generalize that there is a correlation between the ‘caliber’ of the students and the quality of Greek life or even its presence or absent on any particular campus.</p>

<p>Although, I think Princeton may be on to something:</p>

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<p>Well, if she wants to be a member of Kappa Chi Whatever, why is she not entitled to be?
Why does Kappa Chi Whatever get to use arbitrary social criteria to determine who gets to be a member? Would you be ok if someone were thrown out of the “Future Dentists” club because some of the other members just plain didn’t like them? I would say that every student that wants to be a member of Kappa Chi Whatever is entitled to be a member.</p>

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<p>College applications are evaluated by qualified professionals who have a job to ensure that applicants are suitable to attend a given college. There is a huge difference between this and a bunch of “kids” determining if another kid is “their sort of person.”</p>