The book mentions the working-class and lower middle class women who went to fraternity parties as vulnerable to sexual assault. I guess being in any sorority at all was protective, or the higher SES that all the sorority women had was protective. The sorority women didn’t realize that the fraternity guys were assaulting lower SES students. We don’t realize our privilege-- if I’d been one of those women, I wouldn’t realize that the guys I hung around with treated other women differently than they treated me.
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Very selective—Like UVa??? This book is utter BS which is why it is a book and not a journal accepted research piece. Here’s some real research on that.
I don’t like to think I’m Hannah, refusing to recognize her roommate just doesn’t have the same financial resources, but it has been difficult for me to get beyond wondering why the social isolates were seemingly so passive about their circumstances. They must have been incredibly aggressive/ambitious to get to college. College wasn’t a norm in their world and it was a completely new experience. They don’t know what to expect. Maybe they don’t understand the social isolation isn’t a college norm.
I said upthread the book reminded me of I am Charlotte Simmons and now I’m looking at appendices and see the authors also saw similarities. I also was relieved to see the section on ethical considerations.
OHmomof2:
My impression of some of the most selective colleges is that there is a “work hard, play hard” mentality. Students may not advertise how hard they are studying but they get the job done. Even though they may appear to be on the party pathway, they are really on the professional pathway. In I am Charlotte Simmons Hoyt doesn’t understand until too late his fraternity brothers are doing the work hard thing, but just not advertising the fact. He is disadvantaged post graduation by not being part of the upper class elite and understanding he was supposed to be studying all along. He resorts to blackmail in an attempt to leverage himself into a job. (Hoyt is obviously not supposed to be a sympathetic character)
I hope I’m remembering all this right. That book is long since gone to the library as a donation.
PG: Thanks for the book recommendation. I’m going to buy your sorority sister’s book and after reading it, donate to the local library. So your networking has the potential for far flung impact. 
My problem—sheep. People who believe anything because somebody wrote it in a book. To sell books. And have the cred to pass it off as actual science. And those that think every1 should get everything they want. Life is not like 6 YO kid soccer. 18 is nigh time to learn that.
Way back on 2/23, in post #181, CF wrote:
CF: I wondered if you wanted to write more about the system at Indiana, what you may be seeing the rest of us aren’t noticing, and how you would imagine changing *the rules of the game so that their objectionable tactics don’t work any more. * ? I feel like we got off track with the sorority discussions, even though they were worthwhile to me.
hey dstark: Are you reading this book?
alh - you have to buy it off Amazon Canada, fyi, as it’s not published here in the US AFAIK.
PG: Thanks, I couldn’t find it on amazon and just thought I’d order it through the local independent bookstore and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.
I can, maybe, weigh in on this.
Yes, you have to be incredibly aggressive/ambitious to get to college if that’s not what your norm is. However, at the same time, once you’re there it can be an absolutely terrifying experience. Everyone else seems to have their stuff together and parental help if they fail. Most lower SES kids don’t have that option. They sometimes walk on eggshells and try not to make waves.
Plus, there can be severe impostor syndrome. I know I suffer greatly from this and I am now heading to PhD programs. It can be inhibiting when it comes to challenging norms.
Romani: Thank you for that explanation.
Do you want to comment on the impact of helicoptering/non-helicoptering?
I’m about a third of the way in, and I have to confess I think I’m looking at the proverbial “blind man and the elephant” when the authors attempt to make sweeping conclusions, but do not find too much that is surprising about the girls on the floor. In short, a bit underwhelmed.
I’m still trying to reserve judgment, though.
“IMO it is a very different thing to not make a sorority because your looks or social skills or family connections are judged to be lacking, than it is to be cut from the varsity volleyball team because your spike goes out of bounds or you aren’t fast enough, or the school musical because you don’t sing well, or the elite debate team because your speaking or research skills aren’t up to par.”
Eh, the only one that can’t be worked on is the family connections and if you don’t have those you don’t have those. Most people don’t and it is hardly the end of the world. Sororities remind me of the pageant world and that is not a compliment but I still think they are only as important as you make them and any young girl whose world is shattered because she didn’t get to one house or another has problems. Also, the idea of a sorority for losers makes no sense to me either since it is supposed to be competitive and everyone knows it. Those other activities are rife with connected kids and charges of favoritism as well so I still see no difference at all.
I admit, I have not been following this thread at all- was that discussed somewhere (a reference post, please) or is it just a general question?
^^ Back in post #1, Cardinal Fang posed some book group questions and one was:
“How much should parents intervene in their children’s college career?”
There hasn’t been much discussion of that question yet.
Do you mean other than financial contribution and financial aid forms?
A fair amount of influence comes from pre-college activity. Can you imagine the same kid in three different families:
a. Parents who rigidly schedule study, piano, and violin time, select the student’s courses, berate him/her for A- grades, and dictate which colleges to apply to based on some published rankings.
b. Parents who do nothing to encourage learning, using the TV as the babysitter.
c. Parents who encourage learning activity without forcing it; for example, keeping a lot of interesting books at home and encouraging visits to the library to encourage reading.
Rom, I asked about helicoptering because in the book some of the women had parents that guided their kids, and sometimes intervened. The book presents this as almost entirely beneficial: the parents of the high SES kids moved them in or out of the dorm in question, according as they wanted or didn’t want the socialite dorm; they pushed the achievers into majors that would be better for them; one of the sets of parents had made sure that their daughter, an aspiring dentist, had the right activities and resume to get into dental school; and so forth. On CC we’re often told that helicoptering is bad, but that’s the opposite of the case for the young women in this book.
Ohhh ok. Been a while since I read the OP 
I guess I’m not sure what CF means by that question so I’ll just give a general answer.
I can clearly only go by my experiences as a child/student since I have no human children and my furry child is a brat so… 
I really think that by the time your child goes off to college, he or she is pretty much the person that they’re going to be. If they’re the kind of person that would systematically exclude someone because of their economic status, then that was likely part of who they were long before college.
If you’re the parent of the excluders, what are you going to do? Make your kids have a quota of friends from each economic strata? I just don’t see how parental involvement would make a difference.
If you’re the parents of the excludees, it can also be hard because they’ve likely not been to college themselves so they have no framework to work through what is “normal” and what isn’t. Plus, if that’s the chance that the child has to break out of poverty, it is hard to discourage them from continuing on.
I am NOT a fan of helicopter parenting in any way. I think kids are babied way too much and they’re not given a chance to develop and grow into their own person because of over-bearing parents. I think parents don’t give their kids enough credit and that intervening in every little situation will make them incapable of making tough decisions on their own. There, of course, is a point when you should interfere in any loved one’s life if they’re making incredibly self-destructive decisions or if there is severe psychological distress. (Again, I haven’t read the book so these are general comments).
The book also criticizes the advising system at Indiana as almost entirely lacking, and says that parents are taking up the slack.
Can you talk more about the imposter syndrome, romani?
I come from a family with solidly working-class roots, and a father who, by sheer force of personality, took us, well, if not literally from rags to riches, from a SES where college wasn’t expected to a SES where it most certainly was. However, even when we were in a modest rowhouse, we never had any sense that we weren’t as “worthy” as people who were more affluent, or that we needed to kowtow to them, or anything. So I’m really curious where this comes from and would like to hear more.