<p>musicamusica - You seem to be fine with your D carrying an expensive flashy designer handbag, but not with other people admiring it and concluding that your D might share similar values with them because of it.</p>
<p>“Many collegiate sports teams do similar pranks / hazing / forced brother-sister-hood whatever you want to call it. Is that equally bothersome?”</p>
<p>If it interrupts class or meals, yes, but I’ve never seen that happen personally. Maybe they tend to keep it more underground. I HAVE been annoyed and distracted by selective social organizations and their pledges. (Such as a pair of drunken jerks with a Sharpie running around asking girls to sign their a$$es.) It practically took over the school for a week at Bryn Mawr. It was difficult to get anything done.</p>
<p>"You seem to be fine with your D carrying an expensive flashy designer handbag------as I said, a gift from her generous NANA. " I detest label envy and NO I dont like her to carry it.And you will be relieved to know she no longer feels carrying it appropriate. That was four years ago and she knows better now. She was just shocked at the criteria used by the girls. Its those very materialistic values that we questioned.
Two weeks before this happened was the week that she arrived from New Orleans after having lost virtually ALL her material posessions. Her Nana sent her the purse, she used it. SORRY. She is strictly a Target girl now, not the kind of person most sororities on her campus feel akin to.</p>
<p>musicamusica - on some campuses, certainly not all. That is a vast generalization that is really not fair.
Well we all generalize on this forum. I never said ALL campuses are this way. I am speaking of my D’s specific bad experience—that is why I used the word MANY and not ALL.</p>
<p>So I have a question…related to the OP’s question. Bear with me here. It’s clear to me that there are quite a few on this board who are disgusted or have had bad experiences with greek life…especially fraternities. Of course, it’s all anecdotal but it seems to lean very negative…at least to me. And people can believe what they want to believe - no amount of discussion on this board is likely to change their minds.<br>
Those who will admit that their beliefs don’t apply to ALL greeks, STILL say things like - "in general - they’re awful " - leading me to believe they think there are only isolated exceptions to the rule.<br>
So - do you all think this is reflective of opinions in the larger world? Or is this the CC intellectual bubble? Sometimes I read these boards and fool myself into thinking it reflects the real world. But then I read the kids and parents complaining about a 720 math score on the SAT and I wonder…</p>
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<p>Which you are certainly entitled to do. I just want to point out that many people like designer handbags and other items because they are beautifully made, of excellent quality and craftmanship, and are beautiful to look at. Obviously, the designer industry is huge in our world, and not just because it is “materialistic.”</p>
<p>“I just want to point out that many people like designer handbags and other items because they are beautifully made, of excellent quality and craftmanship, and are beautiful to look at.”</p>
<p>Yeah, but do you really believe those girls who approached MM’s daughter were just seeking friends who shared their appreciation for fine craftsmanship?</p>
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<p>I think that would be awesome. Well, maybe not on campus, but I would totally go to a chuckee-cheese with friends at some point. And I’m a top 10% student at a top 15 LAC (I also happen to be Greek, but it is so different from the sterotypical sorority or frat than it hardley counts). Then again, I think nostolgic childhood-type fun is awesome. Not all of the time, but I’d hate to have to have “serious” or “adult” fun all of the time. I spend enough time in my week working really hard; as long as the fun I have doesn’t hurt anyone, what’s wrong with that?</p>
<p>(I think foam parties sound fun, BTW, though my campus does not have any).</p>
<p>Anyway, this is a little off topic. My thoughts on Greeks are basically that some can be awesome for the right people (I love mine to death), some can be really bad. Of course, I’m also coming from the POV of someone on a campus where Greeks ar eless than 10% of the campus, so it is a very different enviroment than a place where everyone feels the need t be greek (not that that is inherently bad, but I could see a lot more people getting hurt, physically via hazing but especially emotionally or even socially that way). But at some places, the idea of sisterhood/brotherhood/siblinghood is actaully taken very seriously .</p>
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<p>Maybe not, but I prefer to give people I don’t know the benefit of the doubt and not judge them so harshly when I don’t even know them. I have adult friends who purchase designer handbags and other things because of their high quality (and because they can afford them), and have passed down their appreciation for fine craftmanship to their children. I don’t think it is that unusual.</p>
<p>“many people like designer handbags and other items because they are beautifully made, of excellent quality and craftmanship, and are beautiful to look at.”
That, Bay, is the essence of materialism. I am questioning the choice of friends based on that sort of criteria. Would I like an expensive, as you put it
“flashy” bag. You bet! Do I choose the people I associate with based on the price of their purse? NEVER. But then again Im something of a freak.</p>
<p>I don’t see anything wrong with dressing up and trying to impress people you don’t know</p>
<p>Unless these people are in a position to hire you for a job you want- why would you try to impress them?
If you don’t know them- then you don’t know if their values/interests are aligned with yours and if it is worth your time to get to know them better- & I would say, that if they require you to dress a certain way to * impress* them, than they seem fairly superficial, and not the sort of people I would be interested in impressing anyway.</p>
<p>Why would you dress up for people who are in a position to hire you for a job you want?</p>
<p>Well, perhaps " dressing up" was the wrong term- but haven’t you ever heard of dressing appropriately?
A job interview is a formal situation- and in my field, as others- there are attire that shows you understand the nature of the job - and attire that does not.
If you dress inappropriately, for example if you are trying to be hired as a professional arborist, you are not going to be taken seriously, if you arrive in thin soled heels and a tight skirt-because it shows you don’t understand the nature of the job.</p>
<p>In sororities, there are many social events. It requires its members to get dressed for formals, semi formals, cocktail parties, brunch… Some people may think it’s superficial, but in the business world it is important to know how to dress and behave at those social functions. I think parents are doing a disservice to their kids if they don’t prepare their kids for it. I have met some very smart people at work that have absolutely no social skills. There were no sororities at my school, but I went to all the cocktail/wine and cheese parties. What I learned at those parties were a lot more useful than what I learned at classrooms.</p>
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<p>Of course I have, and I think there are plenty of situations in which appropriate attire is called for, not just a job interview.</p>
<p>As far as I know, there are no dress requirements for sorority rush. In my rush experience, we were invited into the homes of the sororities for short parties. In some locales, it would be inappropriate to show up in jeans, running shoes and a sweatshirt when invited into someone’s home for a party. (My father thinks its inappropriate to wear jeans any time you will be “around people.” lol) You may not be comfortable with those parameters, but many people are, and don’t feel it is superficial, rather it is simply appropriate.</p>
<p>“I don’t see anything wrong with dressing up and trying to impress people you don’t know”</p>
<p>This was written in response to my post #73</p>
<p>I don’t think there is anything wrong about dressing up either, but that was not my point. I guess I was not clear enough, but these girls were dressing up because they were going to be judged on how they looked, what they wore – it’s the whole status thing. They needed to be wearing the “right” thing to get in the “right” sorority.</p>
<p>Also, some posters have made the point that the soroities look at grades, but this obviously cannot be the case for schools where rush is at the beginning of the first semester.</p>
<p>“this obviously cannot be the case for schools where rush is at the beginning of the first semester.”</p>
<p>They look at high school grades, and sometimes SATs, too. This is moot in a school like UC Berkeley where every freshman was at the top of her high school class, but at most schools with fall rush, the freshman women can be differentiated academically.</p>
<p>To piggyback on Oldfort’s post you also have lunch/brunch/meetings with deans (academic, class and administrative deans), if you are part of a national organization, the officers of your national organization as well as alumni (some who can be very influential in assisting their brothers and sisters in getting from point A to Point B). You would be suprised the number of e-mails that go out concerning internships and job openings that come directly from within your greek organization. </p>
<p>D attended a school that does not allow students to pledge freshman year. She pledged as a sophomore and for her, it was a wonderful experience (it was also computer matching and every young woman who desired to be in a house was placed in a house). She was also a member of a senior society :eek: where member identity is not revealed until graduation (by the canes that they carry, and some societies do not reveal their membership at all). With the exception of perhaps one or 2 functions a year, every event thrown by the greeks are open to any non greek that wants to attend.</p>
<p>Most of the young women are very smart, accomplished and not at all catty. Her house has won awards for philanthropy (they raise a lot of $$ for the charity that their national organization is affiliated with), diversity, having the highest gpa on campus and being the greek organization of the year on several occassions. Most upon graduation many go on to Med, Law and grad school, others enter the world of work in both the private and public sector and lead productive lives. This is different from non-greeeks how??</p>
<p>sybbie - I think the way your daughter’s school handles rush sounds great - waiting unitl sophomore year and placing everyone would alleviate some of the major issues I had with it. </p>
<p>It is apparent that greek life vaires quite a bit from campus to campus. So I do understand that while I did not like the system/ atmosphere of it at my college, it can be different at other colleges.</p>
<p>Hanna - Who gives the SAT scores and grades of the potential pledges to the soroity? Are they self reported? I’m surprised the college gives out that info. Who would see the stats at the sorority? Just the officers or everyone?</p>
<p>helpingmom – there may be an actual sorority alum here who can tell you firsthand, but the applicants authorize release of their grades to the sororities, whether they are college or high school grades. Sororities are pretty hush-hush about how they do the selection, but my guess is that only officers would see the actual grades, and the other members would just be told “Jane is a grade risk” or “Mary would really bring up our house GPA.” When there are hundreds of rushees, every member in each house wouldn’t have time to look at each transcript.</p>
<p>(BTW, if you’re wondering why I take such an interest when I wasn’t a member, I was a psychology major, and the thesis I did not write was going to be about the social psychology of college clubs.)</p>