<p>Yes! I Agree! I totally have the problem!</p>
<p>But that’s why I never considered joining, nor did I know anyone at college who did.</p>
<p>However, I do also agree that you are all free to join whatever private clubs you chose to join. </p>
<p>There are a lot of country clubs that I’ll never be a member of…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My D did rush/pledge a sorority (not one of the divine 9) and it was a positive experience for her. She crossed over with some of her friends from freshman year and met a new group of friends. </p>
<p>She and a number of friends in her pledge class are minority women in their sorority. She has managed to maintain relationships with friends who are not greeks and friends who have pledged other houses. </p>
<p>Even within the greek system you will find your niche of friends. She was happy with her sorority, lived in the house and was an officer. We did talk about the process up front and pays all of her dues out of her own monies.</p>
<p>One of the good things about their school is that freshmen are not allowed to pledge or rush. I think this waiting a year is beneficial because it does give the student more of an opportunity to decide whether or not greek life is for her.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, she graduated, was not a lush/slut/mean girl or any of the negative conntotations associated with sorority life, still devotes a lot of time to service and is on her way to law school.</p>
<p>I posted her experience with rush in the attached thread</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/121020-rush-sorority-not-rush.html?highlight=bid[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/121020-rush-sorority-not-rush.html?highlight=bid</a></p>
<p>…and any club that would have you as a member isn’t good enough?</p>
<p>(Sorry…thank you Groucho Marx) Just trying to add a bit of levity…</p>
<p>Is it this hard for fraternities?! I’m not trying to start a flame war, I’m just genuinely curious. A question for mothers who rushed in college, did your sons rush as well Greek? Any stories about frats?</p>
<p>Here at NYU, we have a ridiculously small amount of Greek Life, so I’m always curious about these kinds of things.</p>
<p>Re: Post 577:</p>
<p>I don’t know whether you think you’re clever, or merely obnoxious, to insert smiley faces into a hostile and insulting post, but really, your obsession with mockery really speaks more about you than about the objects of your mockery.</p>
<p>My response to which you refer was a legitimate particular response to an inappropriately general and judgmental “observation,” which was thoroughly inaccurate.</p>
<p>Like at least one other person here, I call them as I see them. This thread has an enormous amount of ugliness to it. I responded only to one of the many unattractive discussions, because the other ones don’t concern me. I can’t imagine needing a sorority to know what to wear, nor either of my daughters needing one to know what to wear, but to each her own. Clearly lots of people found value and lasting friendships through sororities.</p>
<p>When it comes to some stranger here – first one poster, then a second one behaving immaturely – essentially declaring that mothers are selfish, I intend to call anyone on such a shallow statement. If the first person who made that statement arranges her children’s playdates for her social convenience instead of the impetus of the children’s genuine friendships, that person needs to speak for herself, not for “mothers” in general, which is what she did.</p>
<p>Again, dictionaries are handy tools. You might want to become acquainted with one, instead of creating flames out of thin air.</p>
<p>Really, how immature.</p>
<p>How could you have a Greek Life when you don’t even have a Greek row at NYU?</p>
<p>The penthouses in one of the downtown dorms acts as Greek Life housing. Fraternities often rent apartments in midtown to act as their houses, as well. (I’ve been to a few of them, not too shabby!)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t have a daughter, so I don’t know, but if the daughter was like me, well, probably it’d be a hard sell. Despite my efforts, my son is clueless about sartorial matters. So is my husband, and I am barely better. So I guess that makes me a failure as a mother. Oh well.</p>
<p>epiphany - could you tell us exactly how you really feel? We need some clarity here.:)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>DD sorority is not a representative of MIT population but since they do have girls from each race means the sorority is not excluding anyone on the basis of race. Economic diversity is not apparently accessible so won’t be able to comment on that but since the semester dues are high whether or not student live in the house indicates there have to be some exclusion.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Lots of schools without a Greek row have a Greek life. At NYU it’s only about 2% of the student body, though.</p>
<p>Hannah wrote:
</p>
<p>I would like to see sororities and fraternities set up like residential colleges. This would overcome most of my personal objections with the system. It would do away with the idea that the point of sororities is to be exclusive/self-selecting. I tend to think my proposal would strengthen greek life overall.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Residential</a> Life | Freshmen | Office of Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.yale.edu/admit/freshmen/residential_life/index.html]Residential”>http://www.yale.edu/admit/freshmen/residential_life/index.html)</p>
<p>Hey Graciebee! What did you decide??</p>
<p>Add insanity to trainwreck and you have this thread summed up in a nutshell (and I stress nut).</p>
<p>“Certainly you see the difference between intentionally excluding as a matter of policy, and like-tending-to-attract-like.”</p>
<p>Yes and no. Almost all of the NPC sororities had national exclusionary clauses as recently as 1970. They lost some chapters at Northern schools like Dartmouth and Cornell when those chapters decided to go local in the 50s and 60s rather than follow National’s order to stay all-white (or all-Protestant). Nationals have long since dropped these exclusionary clauses, but it’s quite naive to exclude blacks for your first 100 years, drop that policy one day, and then attribute a lack of black pledges to “like attracts like” and “that’s who shows up to rush.” That history of systematic exclusion provides a lot of context for diverse girls’ decisions not to rush, or their sense that they are not “like” if they do rush. For example, venerating the sorority’s founders on Founders Day takes on a different cast if you know that those founders would have refused to shake your hand, much less consider you a sister, because of your color.</p>
<p>Of course, the vast majority of universities were once exclusionary, too. But they know that if they just dropped those policies and said “We’ll take the students who show up in the applicant pool,” they’d stay all white. Places like Princeton that didn’t admit blacks until the mid 20th century are diverse today because they made it a primary goal to recruit the formerly excluded and reverse the damage their policies had done. If sororities want to be as diverse as the universities that host them, they’ll have to do that too.</p>
<p>Even within a residential college, not everyone is bffs with everyone else. Cliques still form within. What’s the difference? People always find like minded friendship groups. You can’t legislate or engineer that away.</p>
<p>Hanna, I think the gals in the Divine Nine (of which I have many friends) are perfectly happy in their exclusive sororities. It is their choice to rush those organizations, just as they now have the option to rush NPC groups which are becoming more inclusive, just as the Divine 9 are becoming more inclusive - it’s not 1880 any more and to try to disparage women in 2010 based on the actions of women in the 1800’s is unfair. We vote now too.</p>
<p>My sorority’s chapter was founded in 1881 and a major residential college on campus was names for its founder who was also a national leader of some repute. I confess it never once occurred to me to wonder whether she would have accepted Jewish, Latina, Afr Am, etc sisters, but perhaps that’s white privilege on my part. Nonetheless, I would think it would be the attitude of the sisters today that would matter, not what their founders thought 100+ years ago.</p>
<p>Is it possible to find out how prevalent Greek life is at a particular college?</p>
<p>Do the exclusive eating clubs (etc) at HYP particularly care whether they are as diverse as the uni overall? Somehow I doubt the Skull and Bones crowd cares or that people are all full of helpful suggestions to increase their diversity.</p>
<p>And I don’t get this concept of “becoming” more inclusive. 25 years ago, at my Nirthern school, we had girls of every persuasion and no one thought twice. Maybe some other campuses are just catching up to this concept, but that’s reflective of that campus’ social mores, not the Greek system.</p>