OnTheBubble, Gettysburg’s 30-35% seems lower but only because First Year’s or Freshman can’t join. So yes 30-35% take part in Greek life but fully 25% aren’t even eligible! It is a little misleading. The percentage of sophomores, juniors and seniors in Greek life is higher, almost half in some years. And for kids who want Greek life, that is great. For kids who don’t want Greek life it is kind of a disingenuous situation.
Also, Greek life is predominent on campus. And they’re not like Beloit’s “greeks”, who are on the dorky/quirky/nerdy/unusual side, they’re the real deal.
Excellent for kids who want dynamic fraternities.
Not a good pick for someone who doesn’t want Greek life.
By percentage of fraternity participation, Gettysburg places 50th in the country.
High schools kids have no idea what “greek life” really is, just what they read. Kids really shouldn’t write schools off without seeing it with their own eyes. The majority of them would see they aren’t all that bad, and they might even take an interest in them.
Many schools have other organizations that function just like Greek Houses but seemingly they are OK with it. Most of what is happening on liberal campuses is 100 times worse than even outlying Greek Houses.
This isn’t the mid-80’s anymore, Greek Houses have been defanged across the country. They hardly resemble that era.
@merc81 Gettysburg was also ranked #42 in students doing community service by Washington Monthly, so maybe the frats and sororities do some good as well.
“High schools kids have no idea what “greek life” really is, just what they read”
It depends on the kid. My D has a very good idea of what it entails these days, as her older sister belongs to a sorority at a university. My D has seen first-hand how hard it can be if your friends pledge and you don’t–friendships can still be maintained, but it’s hard when your friends have heavy sorority time commitments, and less time to hang out with you.
My younger D has decided that between academics and her strong music interests, she won’t have time to devote to a sorority. And she’d rather be on a campus where the level of Greek participation is 25% or less.
It is true that the excesses of Greek life have been reined in significantly over the last 5-10 years. “Risk management” is a big part of how frats and sororities are run these days, at least at my older D’s school.
@OnTheBubble : I’m entirely open to that of course. The stat I acquired from USNWR (post 22) was intended as a neutral observation.
That’s how I took it…I guess my point is that high school students are very naive if they think schools without chapters aren’t socially competitive or automatically friendly in the sand box. Ask any freshman boy at a school without chapters if they got into the Crew House parties this fall. I doubt it. And I don’t think anyone would fair well socially walking around Vassar or Oberlin wearing a Pro Life T-Shirt.
So kids should not put any credence in what they see or read or hear about, instead they should base it on, what, a 15-minute presentation by a few greek kids on their best behavior? That’s a real good plan.
I’m not saying there aren’t positives to greek life, but there are plenty of negatives, and they most likely wouldn’t be seen on any brief pre-college visit. So I think it’s great that there are other sources that cover them.
This is too absurd a statement to be taken seriously. You do realize that vicious rapes have occurred at not-even outlying greek houses.
In any case, the OP has indicated they don’t want a school with much greek life. Don’t presume that you know better, or that you’re going to “correct their misunderstanding”, just answer their questions. Really, if you can’t do that, you shouldn’t bother responding.
But many of the other schools allow freshman to rush – so not sure that ranking is apples to apples. And 50th is still pretty high out of the thousands of schools.
@csdad2 For everyone’s benefit please show your evidence linking rape to greek organizations. Social exclusion is far worse on liberal campuses. If you don’t believe that you are incredibly naive.
I will stand by original statement that the vast majority of high students have no idea what Greek organizations really are. They just react to media hype and cherry picked stories. Greek participation nationwide has been growing by high single digits rates for years now so obviously lots of students find interest in these social organizations,
@csdad2 BTW Brown had the most reported rapes last year with only about 7% greek participation school-wide.
Re #31, it should be noted that by enrollment-adjusted data, Brown was not in the top ten by those statistics.
You are 100% correct. Reed was actually #1. No Greek, No Sports.
The top three by enrollment were:
Reed College: 12.9 (reports per 1,000)
Wesleyan: 11.5
Swarthmore College: 11.0
I don’t see any correlation of this issue to Greek life or conservative schools. In fact a study of three Southern schools found that men in Greek chapters were less likely.
We shouldn’t derail the thread on the +/- of Greek organizations. Suffice to say they exist and if OP isn’t interested, it’d be as pointless as to push Engineering on someone who wants to major in English, or suggesting Brown for a kid who’s looking for a college similar to Wheaton (IL).
BTW, I don’t think “Greek” is an antonym for “liberal” or a synonym for “conservative”. Many liberal campuses have Greek organizations and many conservative campuses don’t.
PSA: please do NOT confuse rape reports with the incidence of rapes. Schools that have a higher reported rate may actually have a stronger culture of and support system for reporting incidents of sexual assaults. When schools become more aggressive in implementing systems and encouraging reporting, the reports usually go up. Please DON’T make the mistake of equating higher reports with higher incidence of sexual violence when comparing campuses. Thank you and please return to your regularly scheduled topic…
Just do a web search for “rapes frat houses”, include “studies” if you like, and you’ll find plenty of evidence. But then you’ll probably just try to downplay/discredit this evidence. I’m not interested in debating such studies, and it’s not really relevant. If you don’t believe rapes happen at frat houses – well, that’s incredibly naive.
You’re kinda already doing that, with the reported rape numbers. Well, @SDonCC has already responded to that nicely. Part of the problem with rapes/sexual assaults on campus is that schools/local police downplay them, don’t investigate them as thoroughly as they should, so you can’t necessarily trust report numbers. I’ll just add that to point out that rapes happen at schools in other contexts than frat houses/greek life in no way defends what happens there.
And to suggest that “social exclusion” is “100 times worse” than even one rape – again, that’s absurd. It shows your bias.
BTW, I might agree with you that HS students have no idea what Greek organizations are really like – they might be a lot worse than they’ve heard!
Without wading into the rape debate, I’d like to add that LACs with no Greek life have wonderful social scenes, many of them, and do not suffer from “social exclusion”–as a parent I’m seeking out LACs with no Greek life or the equivalent organizations that you find at for example Yale or Princeton. Mine is only an opinion and not a generalized rule for everyone. Clubs, secret and/or ritualized, mean by their nature inclusion and therefore exclusion. I’m just not into that stuff. Please accept my apologies.
@Dustyfeathers: That matches my impression, and I too am looking for such schools, since it’s one of my son’s preferences (that he came up with on his own!).
And taking things further, when people are looking for such schools, they typically don’t just say “little/no greek life”, they talk more generally about inclusion, acceptance, diversity, and collaborativeness. That shows that they’re thinking more deeply than just “greek life == bad”.
“For everyone’s benefit please show your evidence linking rape to greek organizations. Social exclusion is far worse on liberal campuses. If you don’t believe that you are incredibly naive.”
@OnTheBubble For everyone’s benefit, please show your evidence that social exclusion is far worse on liberal campuses. 