<p>I have read greek life at Bucknell University is a must. My son wants to go but I have some doubts. Can anyone give me some insighst to greek life at Bucknell</p>
<p>You also try posting on Bucknell forum.</p>
<p>D is a junior at Bucknell and in a sorority. What do you want to know?</p>
<p>Yes Greek Life is very big at Bucknell, mostly centered on alcohol (not drugs).</p>
<p>Some frats are more alcohol centered than others. last year, Bucknell had its last House Party Weekend which was the huge Greek Fest. Not everyone participates in Greek Life however.</p>
<p>While I am a parent and did not go to Bucknell I worked this past summer with a young woman who is now a Junior. We talked a lot because my own daughter was starting to look at schools. As other posters mentioned, greek life is pretty big at Bucknell, but it has really evolved over the years. It is no longer called “rushing” but “recruitment” and some schools don’t even do that. You can simply join. Greek life contributes to the entire schools’ social life and there is not that much of “us vs. them” anymore. I would encourage you to reach out to the Panhellenic council on campus and learn more. My daughter was very anti-greek and in fact that was one reason she would not consider Bucknell, but after meeting some sororities sisters at Villanova (one of the schools she is considering) she realizes they are not a bunch of snobby kids. We are visiting another school shortly and I simply emailed one of the sorority officers to ask if we could stop into their house. She could not have been more enthusiastic. </p>
<p>Also know that your son does not have to join a fraternity in his freshman year. Some schools, like Villanova, even delay their recruitment until second semester to give kids a chance to learn more about the school and themselves. I would suggest you identify where your concerns are and look to speak to someone at Bucknell. Worse comes to worse, if he did join and he did not like it, you can always request to be released of your membership. That does happen on occasion. </p>
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<p>Alcohol is a recreational drug, although legal for some people (probably about a fourth of traditional age college students).</p>
<p><a href=“Bucknell University Housing & Campus Life | CollegeData”>https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg05_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=179</a> says that 59% of women are in sororities and 52% of men are in fraternities.</p>
<p>Alcohol laws in Pennsylvania are described here:
<a href=“http://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/APIS_State_Profile.html?state=PA”>http://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/APIS_State_Profile.html?state=PA</a>
<a href=“Alcohol laws of Pennsylvania - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_Pennsylvania</a></p>
<p>At Bucknell recruitment for fraternities and sororities is sophomore year</p>
<p>Also, my daughter initially was not interested in Greek life and thought she would never rush- she too thought it was for snobby girls. She found out she was wrong! The sororities have minimum GPA requirements and do a lot of service activities! </p>
<p>^Yeah, I think it’s often the case that students who thought they would never be interested in Greek life and go to heavily Greek schools find that it’s different than they expected. At Bucknell fully 40% of the young women are in sororities. They can’t ALL be snobby, and many many times the sorority GPA is higher than the overall college average. I’ve worked with fraternity and sorority life on my university campus and these students work HARD. They’re every bit as intelligent and hard-working as the non-Greek students, they just wanted a unique kind of social experience. But they also raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities and do many hours of community service. They also host well-put together events on campus that attract both Greek and non-Greek students - and by events I don’t mean their parties, but the socially- or career-oriented events they had. Some of the most accomplished undergrads I had the pleasure of working with were in Greek organizations and very active in Greek life on campus.</p>
<p>And sure, they drink - but so do about 50% of college students, Greek or not. In fact, in my experience most of the problems I’ve witnessed when working with Greek parties with alcohol were actually with non-Greek students who happened to be at the party. The Greek students realized that any transgressions reflected badly not only on them, but on their entire chapter and organization, and they had strict university guidelines by which to abide otherwise their chapter’s charter and housing were in trouble. The non-Greek students don’t have that kind of burden to shoulder.</p>