<p>DD applied to Rhodes, and I was very concerned about how prevalent the Greek system is there. After I spoke with several alums and current students, I understood that their Greek system is nothing like the fakey/‘i’m so waaaasted’ Greek system I knew- which is a GREAT thing!!!</p>
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<p>I could have written that post! My sister-in-law kept encouraging me to pledge and I am SO glad I never had any interest in it. That being said, D1 had a wonderful sorority experience at Syracuse, which has allowed me to see that it all depends on the school and the reputation of its Greek system. After living in the Midwest (and having daughters attend school on the East Coast) I do have a better attitude about them.</p>
<p>I will say that the sorority did have some serious time demands for D1 and I know at times it was frustrating for her. The other thing someone should consider are their housing requirements. Do they have a house? If so, are sophomores/juniors required to live there (to keep rent money coming in from occupation)? That was one restriction D1 was not thrilled with and felt some pressure to live there, when she had a better offer. So be prepared for the housing obligations that come with some sororities.</p>
<p>Teri: did D2 join a sorority? curious about the greek system at the 'berg as compared to SU…</p>
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<p>I am so relieved to read this. This is one of D’s major concerns about Rhodes.</p>
<p>You can make lifelong friends without belonging to a sorority- just saw one yesterday.</p>
<p>I am still good friends with several sorority sisters - both from my year and the year ahead of me. One group has a mini reunion every year. Only the seniors could live in the house with few exceptions. I was an exception because two seniors my junior year chose to stay with their non-Greek roommates rather than move into the house so my roommate and I were in for two years. We all had non-Greek friends and good friends in other sororities so there was very little cliquishness. I went to a state school in the south and we had girls from a variety of income levels. I suspect that I was at or very near the low end of the spectrum, having come from a working and very rural farm. My mother made my dress for the formal pledge dance. I never thought to hide that fact and no one reacted. We borrowed dresses all the time for formals. The other end of the spectrum was represented by a girl whose parents flew their Lear jet down from New York to deliver Italian food to the entire house from her favorite restaurant. This girl was as down to earth as anyone I have ever known, however. I had no idea she was wealthy until the parents showed up with dinner.</p>
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<p>No, she did not, although she has friends in them who have encouraged her to join. Frankly, she has so many other outside activities going on that, if they required the same amount of time that D1’s did, she wouldn’t have made it. From what I gather, though, the Greek life at the 'Berg is moderately prominent, but the students are more likely to be inclusive of non-Greeks (and visa versa) at their events. She has many friends in one of the fraternities at the 'Berg and gets invited to a lot of their events. </p>
<p>I would still add that, at neither SU or 'Berg, do the Greeks have the sort of reputation as they do at a place like UT-Austin. I think you replied to a thread I began last week regarding D1’s current job offer… it came via a sorority sister whose boss knows the guy who hired D1. So there’s a lot to be said about the networking. And it wasn’t the first interview she got through her sorority network.</p>
<p>I always thought- perhaps erroneously- that the process of getting into a sorority would be quite unpleasant for some, maybe even painful. What I imagine are lots of social events, girls judging you based on little information after the fact, and one ultimately being ranked or selected (or not selected). Ouch. Perhaps those that have been through it can explain how it works but from the outside, that is my (mis)perception.</p>
<p>One negative from my experience was that our house required initiates to live in the house until there were enough new initiates to take their place. Some girls wanted to move out to apartments, but we could not allow this because we needed their $$ to support the house. (Our house was very nice but our surrounding community was also nice, so not everyone wanted to live in the house). Girls who moved out were required to resign their membership. This type of problem obviously would not occur where there are student housing shortages.</p>
<p>Bay, yes, this is what I was talking about. However, since D1’s school didn’t allow rush until second semester of freshman year, they could not really demand that they move in first semester sophomore year, since by the end of pledging period, the girls already had to have put in their deposits for housing for the following housing year. D managed to not live there her sophomore year at all (can’t remember why she didn’t second semester), but did live there junior and senior years (minus the semester she was abroad). While she was in London for the semester, she did live in a flat, so she had some minimal experience of living off-campus when she graduated. I do think that is important - and dependent on where you go to school and available off-campus housing. D2 has decided to get an apartment her senior year with a friend, and I’m kind of glad she’ll have the experience prior to graduation.</p>
<p>“I always thought- perhaps erroneously- that the process of getting into a sorority would be quite unpleasant for some, maybe even painful. What I imagine are lots of social events, girls judging you based on little information after the fact, and one ultimately being ranked or selected (or not selected). Ouch. Perhaps those that have been through it can explain how it works but from the outside, that is my (mis)perception”</p>
<p>That is sort of the way it works, but its actually a great skill to be able to make a good impression and market yourself to someone who has little information to work with in a short amount of time. Life is like that, when you apply for a job if you’re lucky enough to get an interview you have to have these skills and they will be judging you on things you may consider to be shallow.</p>
<p>^ I agree that making a good impression in a short time in a professional context is a valuable skill. Though you seem to be suggesting that somehow this experience in college with a sorority is somehow developmental-- I don’t see how going through this process teaches this skill (are you implying you provide feedback? or being able to sell yourself to college girls in a sorority somehow makes you more likely to ace a professional interview later on?).</p>
<p>I was actually hoping my impressions were incorrect. Most businesses have a lot more to go on, including one’s education, resumes, tests, and so forth; and those that hire well (not to mention avoid lawsuits) disregard the superficial (gender, sexual orientation, appearance, ethnicity) for more objective assessments of skill matter for the job itself. </p>
<p>Moreover it seems a bit creepy to apply the same process of ‘marketing oneself’ to those who are now selecting their ‘lifelong friends’ to socialize with. And we wonder where the bad impressions of greeks come from? Life is not like that-- where your future friends select and reject you with a process that looks a lot like “marketing oneself” for a job interview.</p>
<p>^Yes, but the <em>mature</em> reaction to the process is that there is only so much time to make a decision about who you choose to co-habitate with in a very large house for the next year, so decisions must be made on superficialities, and those who are not chosen should not take it too personally. Foremost, sorority life is a living situation. But it is understandably and unfortunately very difficult for some girls to not get their feelings hurt under these circumstances.</p>
<p>Guess what though? You select your friends the same way–just less structured. What’s the essential difference between going to a party, meeting new people, and deciding you like Debbie and Suzy but not Mary and Heather? And so you make it a point to hang out with Debbie and Suzy, and you don’t go out of your way to hang around Mary and Heather. </p>
<p>Girls make connections at rush parties based on the same things they’d make connections on at any party, gathering or social occasion. Is this person friendly? Interesting? Likes the same things I tend to like? Someone I can see being friends with? </p>
<p>The “judging on your designer labels” crowd is a subset of the Greek system, not the whole thing. But if you abolished the Greek system tomorrow, the witchy girls who judge you on your designer labels would still be exactly the same. They’d just be judging you on your designer labels in an environment other than a rush party. </p>
<p>I’m an introvert by nature. I was a rush counselor and a rush director. I found it invaluable in learning how to socialize, make small talk, work a room, and present myself well in interviewing situations. </p>
<p>The Greek system of a campus reflects the students that are attracted there. Please don’t confuse the party school model with the serious schools.</p>
<p>Yeah but its a lot more gentle in real life, right? It’s gradual, its usually across different contexts, its not programmed, it’s based on a lot more than meeting at some parties, and there isn’t a critical point where one gets a vote or not. And if we don’t connect, we don’t notice; if we don’t follow up, its subtle and gradual and attributed to a million other things. Come to think of it, I don’t think I met my friends at parties in college but in class and sports.</p>
<p>There is something uniquely odd and distorted about going to parties, and people ranking/selecting the ones they liked best and announcing it (assuming its like the movies). And everyone knows what the point of them all being there is. I can’t think of a comparable real life social situation where you go to sell and get chosen and its ultimately ‘we pick you and you and you to live with us…and sorry, not you and you and you’. </p>
<p>And how much contact hours are there really? I mean its a party or a few. how do you get to know someone in such a context- I mean their real values, political views, personality? It doesn’t seem like real life at all. It seems, just by the sheer logistics of it, has to based on things that don’t matter (not even for life long friendships). Seems one could as easily select by random lottery and have as good a match. </p>
<p>I dunno. Maybe I’m too sensitive? I can imagine it would be quite hurtful; yet I’ve never found making (or not making) friends in real life to create any kind of hurt or sense of social rejection as I think this process could (except maybe middle school). But maybe I’m completely wrong: maybe everyone gets into a sorority and lives happily after that. Any sorority rejects out there to tell us about it?</p>
<p>Its true that some sorority girls make decisions based on very catty reasons like, “She stole that guy I wanted!” As I have gotten older, the sad truth is that many women, even in their 40s and 50s, make decisions about who they like or dislike based on similar superficial reasons. I’m surprised you have not experienced this.</p>
<p>My daughter went through close to 15 rounds of job interviews in matter of 2 days. Each interviewer was different and she had half an hour to make an impression. She said it was really no different than her sorority rush, except those job interviews included technical questions also, but 60% of it was about “fit.” (will you be able to fit into our club) She didn’t like every interviewer and not every interview went well, but she had to pick herself up after bad interview and be enthusiastic for the next one. Since freshman year she has been on the other side of the rush. She’s had to size up people in very short period of time, that has also helped her in how to best present herself in order to make a good impression. She was invited to few receptions for her job interviews. They wanted to observe how she’s able to mix and mingle with people she didn’t know well. All in all, she would say her sorority experience has helped her.</p>
<p>For those who are interested, if anyone is, at my southern sorority in the 70’s, it was based on a whole lot more than a few minutes conversation at a party. It was sure a surprise to me the first time I was on the sorority side of the rush experience. Our house slept 60+/- girls and we had around 200 active members. If memory is correct we all had to live at the house for a week of rush preparation and then rush week itself. When we arrived for rush prep the rush committee had already taped in strategic places in the house, including the doors of the toilet stalls, the resumes and photos of the top girls we would be trying to recruit. We already had our hoped-for pledge class picked out before those girls ever arrived on campus for rush. Every night after a party, we discussed each invitee. First someone summarized her sheet: where she was from, who her parents were, Church membership, HS attended, GPA (a very modest minimum was required) whether she was a legacy. (Legacy was a very big deal. The common wisdom was that there were too many legacies to accept them all as a courtesy. A decision had to be made on legacies after the second party, that we were either giving them a bid or cutting them loose so they didn’t miss out on realistic opportunities. The ones cut loose got flowers delivered to their dorm rooms. And their mamas got a heads-up phone call.) Then the girls who had talked with her gave some kind of rating. Then we voted on whether to keep her for the next party or not. It had very little to do with what she said or did at the party. It had a whole lot to do with her <em>look</em> and who her parents were, where she came from. “Is this someone we want wearing our shirt on campus? Do we want everyone to know she is in our sorority?” On several occasions look mattered more than family background to us. Then alarmed alums came and lectured us until we gave invitations to girls they thought deserved them. There was a really big fight one night. A girl with the right background but a really wrong look was voted out. She was fat. BUT her family was really good friends with the family of two of our actives, sisters, whose younger sister was going through rush and they threatened if we dropped this girl their sister was going to follow her to another house. There was screaming. It became very factional. And that night the alums couldn’t convince us to back down, even though they called in reinforcements. I went home and told my mom I was ready to quit. She talked me out of it. She told me it was better than in her day. In her day they wouldn’t have let in some of the girls we had now with the right look but no family background. She saw this as progressive.</p>
<p>I know campuses are different. I know all sororities aren’t like this. A good friend, in a different sorority at a different school asked me a couple of years back to write a rec for her daughter going through rush at exactly the sort of college I attended. After her daughter’s first experience on the other side of rush, my friend called and said her daughter was pretty freaked out and wondered how she ever got in. My friend was also wondering how her daughter ever got in and was finally getting a sense of how very different her sorority experience had been from mine.</p>
<p>So yup, its great if you make it through the gauntlet. But the OP’s question was what are the disadvantages. So far, what I’m reading confirms my thoughts: it can be a painful experience if one isn’t ‘successful’ in getting in (and it does nothing to develop you as a person having gone through rush, unless of course later you too get to choose people based on superficial information). </p>
<p>An interview rejection is one thing - being rejected by a single person, or a company culture, for work related reasons is one thing; being rejected on social grounds by an entire social organization is quite another. </p>
<p>I really came into this with a genuine question and open mind but the more I read, the more I hope my daughter would steer clear of anything like this. I guess for me, the whole idea of having to select your social world based on so little, voting people ‘into’ or ‘out of’ the social group just doesn’t sit well with me.</p>
<p>I also have real problems with the whole ‘selection’ process, and with the exclusivity of sororities. My older sister was the president of her sorority in the 70’s, and knew a girl from back home, a wonderful, smart, friendly girl who also walked really funny because of a birth defect. She went to bat for this girl, and it got ugly because the majority in the house didn’t want a girl with a physical defect. Plain as that. I also knew the girl and I never really saw her disability, I just saw her and she was a great girl. She did not get in. That was pretty disgusting.</p>
<p>That being said, I never really liked the sororities because it seemed like all the girls in a sorority were so much “the same”. In college I was looking to experience, explore, change myself as I got to know myself better. I felt sorority life too constricting and didn’t have money for the clothes necessary to fit it.</p>
<p>Don’t feel bad or me, though. I graduated cum laude with an accounting degree, interviewed all over the Midwest and I really was a top recruit (even a small bidding war between 2 big firms). I also made life-long friends, especially within my major and kept in touch with them as we ventured out into similar careers. My college had plenty of seminars on interviewing skills and selling yourself. I pretty much think the people interviewing me were impressed by my grades first, my people skills second, and my interesting life. At least that’s what I would reasonably guess.</p>
<p>Also, the friends I made were such a great variety of people, some able-bodied, some not, some athletes, some not. Hmm. I don’t think any of them were sorority girls. I think they stuck to their own at my college. Or they weren’t in the accounting program, also likely, or I would have known them as we all knew each other.</p>
<p>Still, I won’t rule out for my daughter if her experience would be a positive, different one.</p>