Colleges with no Greek Life

College Search & Selection
21

The Common Data Set, section F1 (“Student Life”), usually shows the percentage of students who join fraternities and sororities. I haven’t found a comprehensive list of colleges where the percentage is zero in both cases. For 50 of the most selective schools, here’s what I found:



Greek % M  ... Greek % F ... COLLEGE
0%  … 0%  … Amherst
0%  … 0%  … Boston College
0%  … 0%  … Carleton
0%  … 0%  … Claremont McKenna
0%  … 0%  … Harvey Mudd
0%  … 0%  … Haverford
0%  … 0%  … Middlebury
0%  … 0%  … Notre Dame
0%  … 0%  … Princeton (has "eating clubs")
0%  … 0%  … Rice
0%  … 0%  … Scripps
0%  … 0%  … Vassar
0%  … 0%  … Williams

5%  … 0%  … Pomona
4%  … 1%  … Wesleyan
11% … 5%  … Swarthmore
8%  … 10% … Columbia
8%  … 12% … Chicago
8%  … 12% … Northeastern
10% … 10% … UC Berkeley
10% … 10% … UCSD
12% … 9%  … Brown
13% … 13% … UCLA
17% … 14% … Carnegie Mellon
11% … 21% … Colgate
18% … 18% … Tufts

20% … 20% … Stanford
30% … 16% … Rensselaer
28% … 18% … Hamilton
23% … 25% … JHU
23% … 25% … UVA
25% … 25% … Cornell
25% … 25% … Washington U
26% … 27% … USC
25% … 30% … GA Tech
26% … 31% … Emory
30% … 27% … Penn
29% … 32% … Northwestern
26% … 36% … W&M
29% … 42% … Duke
48% … 36% … MIT
35% … 53% … Vanderbilt
43% … 47% … Dartmouth
73% … 75% … W&L

unk … unk … Bowdoin (CDS F1 rows have "NA", which may be intended to mean 0%)
unk … unk … Cal Tech (CDS F1 rows are blank)
unk … unk … Georgetown (CDS F1 rows have "N/A", which may be intended to mean 0%)
unk … unk … Harvard (CDS F1 rows are blank)
unk … unk … Wellesley (CDS F1 rows have "N/A", which may be intended to mean 0%)
unk … unk … Yale (CDS F1 rows are blank)

Sources: Common Data Set section F1 (most recent version I could access) or, when not available, USNWR “student life” entries. The above list is sorted first by the average of the M & F percentages, then alphabetically among ties.

1 Like
22

How interesting and inaccurate that Princeton reports zero sorority participation on their Common Data Set. Some Princeton students do belong to sororities, but apparently the university does not recognize them.

Here’s a link with more information about Greek life at Princeton:
http://www.hercampus.com/school/princeton/greek-life-princeton

23

Here’s a link to Yale’s Panhellenic association, which governs Yale’s sororities:
http://www.yalesororities.com/

24

Here’s an article from the Crimson describing the increasing popularity of sororities on the Harvard campus:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/2/22/sororities-greek-bid-2015/

25

This list underscores the value of probing further even when a campus is officially designated as zero greek life. Amherst, which is designated as zero greek life, had underground/not officially-recognized fraternities. Amherst has now banned them, with students who participate subject to discipline.

When weighing the role of greek life or other exclusive societies on campus, it might even be easier to compare when the organizations are official and therefore recognized and regulated by the school.

26

Dickinson has Greek organizations, but they are definitely not dominant. My D went there, did not participate in Greek life, and had a great experience.

27

Guilford and some of the other historically Friends/Quaker schools. I would second also looking into Jesuit colleges.

28

Union claims to have no greek life but my understanding is that it moved off campus.

29

@Dustyfeathers Union College does not say there is no Greek Life and the Greek Life is on campus. https://www.union.edu/offices/fraternity-sorority/ https://www.union.edu/campus/life/housing/greek/

30

I agree that as a second choice look at schools that have frats/sororities but no fraternity or sorority houses AND delay rush until first semester sophomore year. I believe Union College in upstate NY is an example.

31

@brantly I believe you are right about sophomore rush at Union. We happened to look at a number of LACs which had sophomore rush (and my D did attend one such LAC and joined a sorority sophomore year much to my surprise)… My D felt sophomore rush was a very good thing as it allowed strong freshman friendships to develop and at least in her case, she stayed close with people who did not join her sorority/didn’t join Greek Life. However, even with sophomore rush, the Greek Life did play a role in her freshman experience as teh frats and sororities sponsored parties/events on campus. So if someone is looking to avoid Greek Life, I’m not sure sophomore rush would make a big enough difference. And as an aside, sophomore rush can make statistics showing % of participation in Greek Life look lower than it really is as freshmen are automatically excluded from the numerator but not the denominator of the ratio (the percentage of upperclassmen in Greek Life is understated).

32

@happy1 good to know. Thanks.

33

Below are participation rates for Greek societies at 25 more colleges
(source, again, is the CDS or USNWR “Student Life” entry):



Greek % M  ... Greek % F ... College
0%  … 0%  … Brandeis
0%  … 0%  … Colby
0%  … 0%  … Grinnell
0%  … 0%  … Oberlin

7%  … 6%  … NYU
9%  … 9%  … UC Irvine
8%  … 13% … UCSB
11% … 11% … Colorado College
16% … 15% … UWashington
18% … 20% … Kenyon
19% … 19% … UMiami 

20% … 20% … UNC-CH
17% … 24% … Michigan<br>
22% … 24% … Rochester
21% … 27% … UIUC
21% … 29% … Richmond
34% … 39% … Case Western
35% … 57% … Wake Forest
39% … 70% … Davidson

<ul>
<li>  … unk … Barnard (CDS F1 rows are blank)
unk … unk … Bates   (CDS F1 rows have "n/a", which may be intended to mean 0%)</li>
<li>  … unk … Bryn Mawr   (CDS F1 rows are blank)
unk … unk … Macalester  (CDS F1 rows have "n/a", which may be intended to mean 0%)</li>
<li>  … unk … Smith   (CDS F1 rows are blank)
unk … unk … UC Davis    (CDS F1 rows have "N/A", which may be intended to mean 0%)
34

UC Davis has an active Greek system, with over 3000 students participating in 68 fraternities and sororities. I am puzzled about why UC Davis would not report this on their Common Data Set.

Here’s the official link from the UC Davis website:
http://greeklife.ucdavis.edu/join/index.html

35

I checked the UC Davis CDS files back to 2010-11 (at https://www.sariweb.ucdavis.edu/).
The F1 fraternity/sorority lines are blank. The current USNWR “student life” entry for Greek participation is “N/A”.

Maybe Davis just does not track that data.

36

They stopped recognizing them long ago (1984) but officially banned even off campus ones 3 years ago. Amherst never had sororities to my knowledge.

There are some secret societies and student organizations though. An example of the latter is the Muck Rake, a satirical magazine whose writers are secretly recruited and not “unmasked” until graduation. It began in 1908 and still goes about making fun of all things Amherst. There are theme houses (arts, languages, etc) and sports teams often live together in suites, which is about as close to attending a frat party as Amherst gets, in my secondhand knowledge.

37

I believe Macalester has zero Greek presence.

38

Brandeis also has Greek life. It’s just not “officially recognized.”

http:// brandeishoot.com /2016/09/16/the-evolution-of-greek-life-at-brandeis/

So zero REPORTED Greek life might be a good first cut, but you have to dig deeper. Also, zero isn’t essential – even if it’s 20-30%, then you need to figure out if it’s dominant in the social scene, or just another set of loose associations.

39

Urban schools can be good for students who don’t want a campus dominated by Greek Life because there are so many other outlets for students.

40

The fact that both Macalester and UC Davis gave the same answer (or non-answer) to this question on their CDSs is another reason to scream Caveat Emptor when it comes to evaluating colleges. Don’t rely on a single data source or methodology when making your choice.

Macalester has zero Greek (or so close to zero as to be immeasurable) and UC Davis has a Greek presence…it’s substantial by UC standards but small (both in percentage and influence) when compared to big southern universities.