<p>I don’t really believe the international students explanation. I think ~10% of undergrads are international while ~40% are in FSILG so even if every international student was in a FSILG and got a 5.0 it would only explain a ~.2 difference and obviously both of those assumptions are far from true. I’m not sure in aggregate international students are more likely to be in FSILGs (which is what matters. Surely some FSILGs have lots but so do some dorms/sections of entries). My impression is that Chinese internationals are less likely while Korean internationals are more likely but I don’t have a high degree of confidence in these assessments. </p>
<p>From my memory, the only fraternity with a significant number of internationals was Sigma Nu, and their GPA is listed at 4.1/5.0. </p>
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<p>I think fraternities are actually pretty helpful for academics. You get a lot of… support that you might not get otherwise.</p>
<p>^ The numbers don’t show it.</p>
<p>^You don’t find it at all impressive that 37/39 FSILGs have an average GPA above 4.0? </p>
<p>The thing I find weird about these numbers is that there’s so much fluctuation from semester to semester. FSILGs aren’t uniformly small, and there are only a certain distribution of GPAs available at MIT, since there are no +/- modifiers. And since these are spring 2012-fall 2013 numbers, these should actually be exactly the same people having their GPAs analyzed.</p>
<p>I would offer the idea that MIT GPA distribution is heavily right-skewed, with the mode and median higher than the mean. Presumably the relatively small number of people in the left tail are too busy trying to keep their heads above water to participate in anything, FSILGs included, and clipping them off the distribution results in a much more favorable mean GPA for any organization.</p>
<p>If my estimate of an average GPA in the range of 4.3-4.4 is correct than the vast majority of FSILGs having average GPAs above 4.0 doesn’t really impress me. I do find the massive fluctuations in average GPAs of individual FSILGs a little odd. A right-skewed GPA distribution seems likely but given that people often join FSILGs in the first month or so I’m not sure I really believe the left tail are already so overwhelmed by them to join a FSILG. A more plausible to me argument may be that the left tail is very socially isolated and hence tends not to be in FSILGs but average greek GPAs are similar to average GPAs at other top schools so I’m don’t think this is actually borne out by data. </p>
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<p>Well, it depends on what the actual average at MIT is, but they seem on par with what I’ve heard it quoted as. It’d be interesting to compare to dorm stats, though. But I haven’t seen those made available :(</p>
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<p>Fun fact: When I left pika, all but three members left along with me. I don’t think that’s normal, but throwing it out there 
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<p>Though spring '12 and fall '13 means that you have 1/3 turnover. A lot of the fluctuation looks like .1 or so between terms. I know a lot of people who tended to have a really hard term that sucked, then taking it easy the next term and having a breather. I’m not sure how common that is throughout MIT, but I thought it happened a lot.</p>
<p>(I’m assuming the GPAs are per-term rather than cumulative. It’s not clear to me which they mean.)</p>
<p>I dug through my email to find some slightly older stats, and found this for fall 2009 (from when I was LGC rep):</p>
<p>All-FSILG Average: 4.26
All-IFC Average: 4.22
All-Panhellenic Average: 4.31
All-LGC Average: 4.32</p>
<p>I’m starting to think that perhaps MIT isn’t so immune to grade inflation…</p>
<p>I’m not sure why MIT would be immune to grade inflation although that’s still a pretty rapid increase in the average FSILG gpa (.03/year).</p>
<p>According to gradeinflation.com, MIT too suffers from grade inflation, though seemingly not as much as Duke,</p>
<p>However, their GPA history seems to only run from 1952 to 1999, with significant gaps in data.
<a href=“MIT”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/MIT.html</a></p>
<p>(Should we assume that the GPAs listed are on a 4.0 scale?)</p>
<p>I am much less sure than Piper. I have gone back 25 years to look at the GPA figures, on the grounds that there weren’t many sororities back then. Back then, the IFC GPA was still higher than the dorm GPA every single term stretching back years. As a result, I conclude that the frats are actually pretty helpful for academics. The question of why that is so is a much harder one. Shravas suggests that this may be due to additional support, and indeed it is common in frats for underclassmen to be specifically paired with upperclassmen (the big brother/little brother system), but I am not sure that that support is enough to explain the difference. Perhaps it has something to do with the MIT students who self-select for the FSILG system, but I am genuinely unsure.</p>
<p>^ Where are you getting data, out of curiosity?</p>
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I do not think this is the, erm, support being referred to. And if the support that I suspect is being referred to actually successfully pulls up GPAs to that extent then I am horrified but not surprised.</p>
<p>@Mikalye I am too am most curious on where you are getting the FSILG average gpa as well as the dorm average gpa for every term stretching back for 25 years given that the existence of this data appears to be a well guarded secret.</p>
<p>FSILG GPA averages are pretty well advertised by the MIT Division of Student Life.
<a href=“http://studentlife.mit.edu/fsilg/organizations”>http://studentlife.mit.edu/fsilg/organizations</a></p>
<p>But, dorm GPA data is not readily available.</p>
<p>^ @nakoruru, am I missing where the past 25 years of data is? I only see three terms of it.</p>
<p>I also haven’t seen FSILG average gpas going back 25 years although I admit I haven’t too looked much into that. I have spent a considerable amount of time looking for actual statistics on average gpas and haven’t found anything backed up with real citations despite plenty of differing assertions. The best source on average gpa seems to be the 2008 CUP report I linked to previously but that is somewhat old, only has average gpa for sophomores, and isn’t very clear on what the actual average is.</p>
<p>@PiperXP I never mentioned anything regarding ‘25 years of data’. I think that is something Mikalye mentioned…</p>
<p>@nakoruru, I thought you were responding to the recent comments. My mistake.</p>
<p>To be clear, I do not have data continuously going back 25 years. I can find data from the 80’s, then I cannot find any data until a few years ago. I am aware that the FSILG system of that era is quite different than it is now (for example freshmen moved into frats at the beginning of their freshman year), and direct comparisons are tricky. Nonetheless according to data published then by the office of the dean for student affairs, the FSILG had a higher mean GPA (with no doubt wild variances) than the mean dorm GPA. This was discussed at the 15 November 1989 faculty meeting, when the Potter committee presented their recommendation that Frosh should be required to live in campus dorms their first year, and when that recommendation was rejected by the faculty. If I remember correctly, it also cropped up in the UA report of the Freshman housing committee that year. It has been quite a while since I read it last, but they quoted some 10 years of data at that time. A LOT of changes have taken place in MIT housing since that time, however, I quoted it as a rebuttal to the view that it is the panhellenic association that causes the high mean.</p>