East Coast LACs like St Olaf?

It is on the news every night basically. The most left leaning schools harbor the biggest hypocrites in the world. I dare you to walk around Columbia with a Pro Israel t-shirt or start a small Pro Israel group and see how many parties you get invited to. Go ahead and do it @doschicos.

@SDonCC I was a waiting for that kind of response. When someone doesn’t like data the response is always that. Anything to deflect from the truth. The truth is some schools without Greek chapters have a 15-17 times greater incidence per 1,000 students than Lehigh, which is heavily Greek and 2 - 3 times higher than schools like Bucknell.

“don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”

Dang, my irony meter just broke. For you, a few anecdotes is support for an absurd, grandiose conclusion. But if someone else points out valid, substantial problems with a certain interpretation of a certain set of data, that’s dishonest.

No, that should be “This one particular set of data suggests that …”

I suggest you avoid talking about “the truth”, since you’re more interested in matching your biases than the truth.

BTW, since you’re so big on Lehigh, check out this article in their student newspaper:

http://thebrownandwhite.com/2015/04/13/does-greek-life-perpetuate-rape-culture/

Read the whole thing, it’s very interesting. But here’s some good, relevant snippets:

This seems to be getting way off track about east coast colleges like St Olaf’s

To the OP, I don’t know if anyone has suggested Ithaca College but it’s got a great music and theater department, small size and located in a town with many opportunities outside of school for creative endeavors. Good luck with the search!

There are plenty of great LACs that don’t have Greek Life (or secret clubs) out there, so if this is important to the OP’s duaghter, I think it should be respected. I was in a sorority, and my D said she would prefer a LAC with no Greek life. That was fine with me. She just finished her first year there, feels that it was definitely the right choice for her, and liked how the parties were all “all campus” ones. After talking to her friends who joined sororities on other campuses, she is even happier with her decision to find a more inclusive campus.

OP here – thanks very much, @morandi ! She’ll definitely look more closely at Ithaca College.

Although the conversation above got off-track, it’s been interesting!

It’s my understanding that Columbia has always had a sizeable Jewish population, so I doubt that someone would be treated badly for wearing a pro-Israel t-shirt

@citymama9 You are absolutely correct on the Columbia front. A robust Jewish population, in a city with a very size able Jewish population and close to the UWS neighborhood that also skews Jewish

@OnTheBubble If you want stats correlating sexual assault and fraternities, I suggest watching the documentary The Hunting Ground. To be fair, it also shows a correlation between assault and colleges with big time sports. And it absolutely supports the theory that many schools do their best not to have these assaults reported

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/09/opinion/foubert-fraternities-rape/

This article was written by someone who published a study on rapes and fraternities, and includes a link to at least one study.

So when you don’t agree with hard government data it is due to conspiracy, corrupt Title IX officers and cover-up?

The basic issue that many students and their parents don’t like socially competitive organizations like Frats and Sororities. That is fine but just don’t spin tall tails about sexual harassment because there is absolutely no proof of this, quite the contrary. Frats and sororities are just one form of socially competitive organization on campus. You don’t need Greek chapters for the same social competition to manifest itself somewhere else.

As far as Columbia goes,

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/02/23/columbia-leads-list-of-americas-top-10-colleges-with-most-antisemitic-activity/#

As someone commented in the comments under that article, there is a difference between being anti-Israel and being anti-semetic. Anyway, this seems so off topic

@OnTheBubble So when you don’t agree with hard government data it is due to conspiracy, corrupt Title IX officers and cover-up?

Numbers & ‘Facts’ are only as good as how they are collected.

Here’s a stat for you
Frat brothers rape 300% more. and the link
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/24/rape-sexual-assault-ban-frats

I think those would be “tall tales”. And did you look at the study linked to in the article I posted?

I almost don’t know how to respond to this paragraph. It bears no connection to reality, and shows that you’re making Herculean efforts to contort things to come up with some explanation you can tolerate of how many people feel about greek organizations.

It’s clear that you didn’t read any of the provided links. If you had, you would’ve seen things like:

That shows pretty clearly why people have negative feelings about greek life.

As to “hard government data”, it’s not clear what you’re referring to – I’m guessing the reported rape/sexual assault data you listed earlier in the thread. The issue there is not disagreeing with the data, rather it’s making unwarranted and unjustifiable interpretations/conclusions from that data. And multiple people have shown a variety of evidence and arguments for why such conclusions are not valid.

MODERATOR’S NOTE: This thread has veered way off course. Let’s resume the helpful suggestions of colleges similar to St Olaf.

My D2 is a violinist planning on majoring in psych and minoring in music and hoping to attend either St. Olaf or Skidmore in the fall of 2017. College of Wooster is another option, but we weren’t crazy about the violin instructor. I think she’ll apply there anyway because they have a music therapy program she’s interested in. We haven’t found anything comparable to these schools on the East Coast. Mount Holyoke’s instrumental music program is nothing special (though they have a FABULOUS! viola teacher), but vocal performance might be good, I’m not sure. Smith is an incredible school and we’ve heard good things about their music dept., but super liberal/activist/angry (I’m not opposed to that per se, but one should be prepared). We just completed the college process for D1 and she’s starting Carleton in the fall. We were also avoiding schools where Greek life was a major factor. She should look at Sarah Lawrence; my kids’ violin teacher’s daughter went there for vocal performance.

Oh and Ithaca College should be on her list for sure.

Thanks for the input @Earthmama68 She has put Ithaca on her list, and we will likely visit Mount Holyoke and see if she can meet with the voice teacher. Do you know much about the culture at Sarah Lawrence? Need to research and possibly visit to check out the vibe for fit.

Congrats to your D1 for her acceptance to Carleton! A friend’s son attends and has thrived there, despite the long winters (and he’s a North Carolina kid!)

Muhlenberg, Skidmore, Ithaca and Vassar are all great recommendations. I’ve heard good things recently about Drew (our choral director is an alum) and SUNY Fredonia (good vocal faculty) but those may not be BA programs.

My D is at Emory U, which has a BA music program, strong foreign language department, politically mid-stream and very welcoming to Jewiah students. Emory maintains a center at Univ. of Salamanca, one of their most well established study abroad programs (D was there last fall.) Greek life is 30 percent so it’s not overwhelming.

Emory’s Schwartz Center is a major stop for touring artists coming to Atlanta; the city is home to the Atlanta Opera, Atlanta Symphony and other professional organizations. I don’t know anything about the theater scene though.