<p>Money speaks. loudly. 
There is only one truly universal language-MONEY.</p>
<p>“So I guess you have no facts NewHope33?”</p>
<p>Actually I do. Hendrix was the better guitarist because he was thinner and he played left-handed. Those are the facts Ma’am.</p>
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<p>Calling mini and interesteddad? They are the leaders of the “Close the Greeks” organizations.</p>
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<p>Then you are very young and very naive 
You are judged whether you like it or not every time you walk out the door and confront society. Whether you choose to temper your behavior, actions, appearance, etc. based on other’s judgement is your choice. But, it is any individual/group’s choice to accept you or not.</p>
<p>Perhaps I phrased it incorrectly. I will only adapt my behavior to satisfy people who pay me. Everyone else will have to live with who I am, and I don’t like the idea of having to audition to be friends with a bunch of people. Sorry, I am who I am, take it or leave it. NYU’s got 20,000 undergrads and 20,000 grad students. The NYC metro area has 18 million people. I won’t have a problem finding friends.</p>
<p>Obviously I didn’t rush a frat, neither do I have any intention of doing so. I have no interest in being judged or criticized by people who aren’t going to pay me. Actually you’re free to criticize me all you want, but I mostly only accept criticism from people who pay me. Frankly I don’t understand the concept of a frat anyway-it’s all propaganda. Brotherhood-please, once you finish university, you all go your separate ways and a lot of you never talk to each other again. And let’s make it clear-just because the two of you belong to the same social club doesn’t mean you now have blood ties. If you want a brother, ask your parents.</p>
<p>“What’s the difference if they call themselves Kappa Phi Whatever, versus if they are just the snobby kids down the hall”</p>
<p>To play Devil’s advocate, the difference at many campuses is that the university endorses Kappa Phi Whatever, provides university housing to them and then allows them to decide which students may live in that university housing, and in some cases greatly subsidizes them. (The University of Alabama, for example, leases the very valuable land on which some Greek houses sit to the Greek organizations for $1/year.)</p>
<p>It makes it a lot harder to just ignore Kappa Phi Whatever when they have a mansion in the heart of campus and they choose the elite few who get to live in the mansion instead of in a grotty cinderblock dorm four blocks further away from class. (I’m thinking of Penn in this example.)</p>
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<p>Yes, clearly, you don’t. I can assure you that after finishing university, many fraternity members stay close for life. My father was a DU at MIT in the early 40’s, and he still maintains contact with many of his “brothers” from that era, and he mourns their deaths (as they are happening more and more frequently these days) as if he has lost a blood relation. He has shared memories with those guys that I will never truly comprehend, although I love to hear the tales. </p>
<p>I and my husband were Greek in the 80’s, we are still close with members and maintain contact. I also have stayed in contact with people who weren’t in my sorority, so obviously, I wasn’t only able to have friendships within the confines of my house.</p>
<p>My older son had no interest in fraternities, and he was happily an independent; my middle son is in a fraternity and loves it. I hope he develops the types of life long friendships that my father, husband and I were able to form. But, I have no doubt that my “independent” son will have the same types of friendships outside of Greek life.</p>
<p>You don’t have to be a member of any type of club to form lifelong friendships, and I hope seriously for your sake that you do while you are at NYU. It would be a shame if, after 4 years there, you were able to just “go your separate ways and never talk to each other again” with the people you befriend. I would hope that you could develop friendships more deep and true than such a surface relationship where you could walk away and not miss it.</p>
<p><<perhaps i=“” phrased=“” it=“” incorrectly.=“” will=“” only=“” adapt=“” my=“” behavior=“” to=“” satisfy=“” people=“” who=“” pay=“” me.=“”>></perhaps></p>
<p>That sounds like a definition of prostitution. </p>
<p>I’d suggest that you consider redefining yourself, along the lines of “I will only adapt my behavior on the basis of someone else’s desires if I examine their assessment and come to the conclusion that they are correct.”</p>
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<p>I don’t know that CC treats Greeks with disdain, but since you asked… </p>
<p>My own prejudices against fraternities were formed during my college days when I saw with my own eyes the problems with alcohol abuse, drug use, academic cheating, racism, misogynistic party themes, vandalism, theft, bullying, boorish behavior, dangerous hazing, social elitism, disregard for the rights of others, etc.</p>
<p>Yes, I understand that this doesn’t describe all fraternities, but I personally have no use for a school-sanctioned system that condones the behavior I witnessed. Most pit bulls won’t rip your face off, but the entire breed has a bad name because of those that do.</p>
<p>Oh yes, ban all the frats and all that boorish behavior and drinking will go away.
Just ask the students at Williams - or the janitors who clean the “stuff” they spread on the walls.<br>
All this ranting about greeks and drinking and boorish behavior doesn’t really make sense to me. Many residential COLLEGE STUDENTS (greek or not) are guilty of this behavior (especially males…but increasingly females). Does this mean I should stay away from sending my kid to college? Or how about I just don’t send my kid to SELECTIVE colleges? After all, they reject so many worthy students. And I just don’t know why. Some even ask for pics with the applications…maybe that’s it. It’s all SO exclusive and snobby - why even participate?<br>
I know…thread drift for sure…</p>
<p>^^ Agree w/ toneranger. As I asked on my original thread (#35), is there " less problems with alcohol abuse, drug use, academic cheating, racism, misogynistic party themes, vandalism, theft, bullying, boorish behavior, dangerous hazing, social elitism, disregard for the rights of others, etc." (post #48) at schools w/ no greeks? (oh yeah, post #48 confirms there is no judgement on cc)</p>
<p>As I stated on my post, I would like to see some facts. I actually addressed th OP’s question in my thread. (Last paragraph, so therefore no thread drift) Next thread, criticizing me, only expresssing opinions about greeks, once again. Having to live up to this persons, or some peoples, standards? Whose standards??</p>
<p>As I stated, I did not try to join a sorority. It was actually for many of the reasons stated. I did not need or want to be voted on to be accepted. I’ve come to learn that this is the way things work, even if not formally. My experience, in many,many yrs., is this exactly how the world works!</p>
<p>I would be willing to bet that many of you anti-greek folk are hoping to get your kids in to a very selective college (this selectivity is ok - right?), belong to country clubs, are the in social group in your town, or whatever the elite groups are in your area.</p>
<p>By the way NewHope33-- Hendrix is dead, The dead usually get the vote. J.R. Vaughn is damn good.</p>
<p>I hate them because they invented democracy. Look what democracy has brought to America: George Bush twice!</p>
<p>^^^
Now I get it. Must have been those darn pit bulls who voted him in…</p>
<p>“I would be willing to bet that many of you anti-greek folk are hoping to get your kids in to a very selective college (this selectivity is ok - right?)”</p>
<p>Well, yes. The college doesn’t claim to be a sisterhood based on friendship. I’m not saying that that sort of selectivity is wrong, but it’s certainly different from what colleges do.</p>
<p>I’m going to guess because frat boys are mostly the guys who stuffed the smaller guys into lockers at high school.</p>
<p>At the Greek system I was a part of it, the quotas for sororities were essentially set by adding up the number of girls who were going through rush and dividing by the # of sororities, so essentially every girl who wanted in got in somewhere, though it may not have been her first choice. I can see that it’s a far different system on campuses where there are, say, 3x girls competing for x slots. And I can’t speak to how the guys did it.</p>
<p>With a student body that has a decent proportion of nerds in it, I actually found Greek system a <em>good</em> way of making friends for those who weren’t otherwise inclined to join other clubs. And certainly it’s silly to suggest that you are “buying friends” insofar as no one is friends with all 100 or so people in their house. Like any group (dorm? large club?), you find the ones who appeal to you most, and you’re merely friendly and courteous towards the rest. I myself found lifelong friendships throughout my sorority, but that was maybe a dozen … the other hundred or so were people I was in a shared activity with, not some exclusive BFF-club.</p>
<p>I also found that rush was outstanding preparation for the job interview process. It’s really very similar … the dance of “do you think we are right for one another?”</p>
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<p>The OP asked “why do people hate Greeks” in the title of the thread, and I gave the reasons why I am biased against the system. I know there are jerks everywhere. (Except Williams! No! Say it isn’t true!) In my day, at my school, these jerks seemed to be drawn to the frats.</p>
<p>Back then, it was the frats or frat members who were wallpapering the campus with “LAGNAF” party posters every month (lets all get naked and…), “pulling a train” (taking turns with passed-out freshmen girls), hanging nooses over their doorways on MLK day, stealing park benches from campus, breaking into the dorm snack bar for munchies, tearing down the bathroom stalls in the union, setting fire to the tents of aparteid protesters in the quad, shoving sofas out of third-story windows, throwing up on the neighbor’s shrubs, crashing their cars into dumpsters after parties,…</p>
<p>Yes, I know most Greeks aren’t jerks and most pit bulls are adorable little puppies. (On the other hand, if the previous paragraph describes you or your frat then we have nothing more to discuss…) You want to go Greek or adopt a pit bull, you go right ahead and more power to you. I’m not trying to change anybody’s mind, just illustrating why some people might have a low opinion of Greek life based on their experiences. I personally was so put-off by the actions of the school-sanctioned jerk colonies that I witnessed thirty years ago that I want nothing to do with the whole system, period. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.</p>
<p>(I’ll leave the analysis of elitism and tribal rituals to the sociologists and anthropologists out there.)</p>
<p>Gosh, what school did you go to? I cannot imagine a college administration letting students get away with all that you post. I went to a heavily Greek school back in the 80’s and nothing like those things occurred. And, the administration heavily oversaw the goings on at fraternities, you couldn’t go to parties on the weekends without the “school patrols” checking in on them. </p>
<p>Ultimately, it may be more of a product of the types of students that are at a particular campus. Those boors that you describe didn’t come into college “angels” obviously. They had no class or self control before they got there, and let their primal urges take over once they were among more of their kind.</p>
<p>And, Williams was that school a number of years ago where a group of drunk students smeared feces on the walls of the dorms - infamous! I don’t think the administration is going to live that one down for a long time.</p>
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<p>How is this a method to ensure that every girl gets in somewhere? What happens to the young women that no one wants? They get in nowhere, right?</p>
<p>Yes, PizzaGirl, your system is more humane than a system designed to leave some women out in the cold (and the in-group/out-group mentality is one of my problems with frats/sororities). And, as CF points out, the fact that it is numerically possible to accommodate all the young women who rush doesn’t mean that in fact they are all invited to join.</p>