<ol>
<li>If I want to succeed later in life, is it recommended that I join one? Is it true that people who join frats are better off after graduation? If it's not going to help my with my future then I'm probably not joining one.</li>
<li>I don't drink or smoke, for many reasons I won't list here. I'm not a crazy partier either, although I don't refuse them; I just think there are more fun things to do than parties. Is there a peer pressure to drink, smoke, party?</li>
<li>How much time do the frats put in activities per week? I'm not talking about parties, but more about things like community service, etc.</li>
<li>And what's up with this "bond of brotherhood that I can't form anywhere else"? Why is it so hard to find it anywhere else besides a frat?</li>
<li>If I want to get it one, what should I do during rushes to sell myself?</li>
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<p>I dont think the frat life is for you. If you’re not into the idea of being in a frat, all the frat events and stuff that you HAVE to go to will become tedious and a pain in the ass. Most of the social frats are really centered around the partying and drinking aspect, and hazing will inevitably see you drinking some crazy amount like 4 4lokos and touching what you’ll later find out was a guys balls while you were blindfolded. While there are academic frats centered around say engineering, or entrepreneurship, I personally haven’t seen any magical connections through these that got people jobs that I couldnt have otherwise gotten.</p>
<p>Thanks, NiklasK. For now I’ll just wait for more answers to make up my mind.</p>
<p>One more question: How much is privacy respected in frat houses, if I choose to live in one?</p>
<ol>
<li>These statistics are posted a lot. Alumni connections are great after graduation.</li>
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<ul>
<li>2% of the population are members of Greek organizations.</li>
<li>All but two Presidents since 1825 have been Greek.</li>
<li>Since 1910, 85% of the Supreme Court Justices have been Greek.</li>
<li>85% of the Fortune 500 key executives are Greek.</li>
<li>76% of Who’s Who in America are Greek.</li>
<li>Of North America’s 50 largest corporations, 43 are headed by Greek men and women</li>
<li>Nationally, 71% of all Greeks graduate, while only 50% of non-Greeks graduate.</li>
<li>70% of the U.S. Presidents’ cabinet members since 1900 have been Greek.</li>
<li>76% of U.S. Senators are Greek.</li>
<li>All of the Apollo 11 astronauts were Greek</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li><p>There is no peer pressure to do anything you don’t want to do. There are straight edge brothers in my Fraternity.</p></li>
<li><p>It depends on what campus and what Fraternity you join. The Fraternities at my campus run almost everything. We give back a lot to the community. You choose how involved or not you want to be.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s a whole different experience.</p></li>
<li><p>Be yourself because you want to join the house where you and the brothers connect with each other.</p></li>
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<p>Thank you, cabhax.</p>
<p>Could you elaborate on number 4 about how it’s a whole different experience than simply joining a club and being very active in it?</p>
<p>^ Imagine if you lived, ate, attended parties and socials, and volunteered alongside your current group of closest friends every single day. You’d essentially become family. You probably don’t have many opportunities to live with and do everything with 15+ of your closest friends.</p>
<p>Obviously you won’t be best friends with every single person in your fraternity, but it’s still about being together. Ideally, you share the same interests and ideals with your brothers, so all that time together would be something you enjoy.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>While I think the connections help, I think it’s more of the kind of people fraternities attract than anything else. Men who decide on fraternity life are likely to be more outgoing, extroverted, and personable, and those are qualities that definitely help when looking for a job. Most fraternities value leadership and community service, something that can only help your resume. </p></li>
<li><p>I think there’s definitely peer pressure to drink and party, even if it isn’t explicit. You’re part of a fraternity, and you’re expected to host parties and attend socials where alcohol will be served. </p></li>
<li><p>It depends on the fraternity, chapter, and yourself. At MIT, most fraternities are heavily involved with community service. THON, the largest student-run philanthropy in America, is run by Penn State’s Greek community (it’s official name pays tribute to this fact). You are expected to perform at the very least some service. If your chapter isn’t as involved as you’d like to be, there are always other non-Greek options.</p></li>
<li><p>No matter how cliched it sounds, now more than ever you need to be yourself. It needs to be a two-way street; you need to be able to see yourself as part of their brotherhood, and they need to see you as someone that embodies their ideals. If you’re being yourself and they don’t like it, you’ll never be happy there, even if you think it’s the greatest fraternity you’ve ever seen. Just go find another one. You can’t fake your way through fraternity life.</p></li>
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<p>@cabhax, what fraternity are you involved in if you don’t mind me asking?</p>
<ol>
<li>If you rush right way, you and the Fraternity that choose to give you a bid will have a lot of common with each other. The pledging process for every Fraternity is different but essentially the people in your pledge class, if you choose to accept your bid, will get to know each other very well. You guys do almost everything together.</li>
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