<p>My S is trying to decide between 2 colleges and one big difference, socially, is the # of students in fraternities/sororities. My H & I don't have experience with Greek life (well, we have seen "Animal House" a number of times). </p>
<p>Give me the good, the bad etc. of attending a college where social life is dominated by fraternities. I'm having trouble picturing my S as a frat boy.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I think the fraternity/sorority experience today is somewhat different from what those of us who attended college in the 70s and 80s experienced - but here are some thoughts. Greek life can have positives - friendship, community service and academic support. But a campus that is dominated by Greek life can be a lonely place if you don’t pledge. I attended Lafayette College in the 80s - as Greek (at the time) as it gets. Had no idea of what I was getting myself into. Weekends were dominated by frat parties - there was nothing else to do. The underage drinking was out of control. I joined a sorority, but can’t say I loved it. In my opinion, Greek life can really bring out stereotypical bad boy/chauvanistic/frat boy behavior and sorority life can be Mean Girls on steroids. But, that was then and I do think it has improved since.</p>
<p>My main focus would be if the campus has a lot of Greek life - what else is there to do? What do the non-Greek students do on the weekends? Do boys in fraternities live in frat houses or do they live in dorms? Do they just give lip-service to mentoring and community service programs, or are these really meaningful activities? I would not eliminate a college with active Greek life - but I would investigate and in particular - speak with students who are and who are not involved with Greek life.</p>
<p>This cannot be answered without knowing the specific college that you’re thinking about. It is so different from campus to campus. You could have two campuses with, say, 20% of students in Greek life - and in one, Greeks dominate campus social life and in the other, it’s all live-and-let-live. Can you share the campus name?</p>
<p>This is no different than the country club nearest to you. Some country clubs are simply places that have some tennis courts and a restaurant. Anyone in the universe can drop in,get a day pass and play some tennis – or anyone can join (and get towel service) simply by paying the monthly fee. </p>
<p>Other country clubs are by invitation only and some of those are filled with snotty boozers. </p>
<p>How do you tell which is which? Visit the neighborhood and ask around. </p>
<p>A big red flag for me is if there is freshmen “rush”. Rush is that week or two of intense social activities when the frat looks at the kid and the kid looks at the frat. Many colleges have moved rush to fall of the sophomore year. This is much, much healthier. The kid has a chance to get his feet on the ground, learn the campus, learn the reputations of the different groups and see the array of options. If the campus he is viewing has freshman rush, you can advise him not to rush as a freshman but say you will support his analysis if he decides to rush as a sophomore. </p>
<p>As a parent, I would want to know about any hazing incidents on campus (call campus security and ask admissions and ask the tour guide when you stroll around). </p>
<p>Ask what the different frats are known for. Ask which frat has the high GPA trophy for the last year (usually the Greek council has one). That crowd could actually be good for your kid because clearly they are doing some things right. Some groups are keenly proud of their consistent high GPA and, absolutely true, the hairy junior that growls at your kid “don’t FXXX up our GPA” will likely get more action than a thousand calls from Mom saying “remember to do your work, dear.”</p>
<p>Ask lots of questions. At the end of the day, look your son in the eye and say “This is your college experience, not mine. What do you see as the pros and cons AND what is your heart’s desire?” (Two very different questions).</p>
<p>Agree wholeheartedly with previous post, particularly on freshman rush. Second semester freshman year is bad enough - but I am shocked by the practice of a lot of southern universities that have sorority rush in August - before the first semester of school even begins. How can a girl decide which soroity she wants to join before even spending a week on campus? I realize many of them join their mother’s or grandmother’s sorority - but I personally find this practice very disturbing.</p>
<p>ELY,
My S1 is verrrrrrrry active in a fraternity at his school. In fact he went to their national convention last summer and was elected one of 2 undergraduate members of their governing board. But at his school, the fraternities are not residential and I think that makes a big difference in evaluating fraternity life. In his case, in additional to the requisite off-campus parties, the fraternity centers around a couple of philanthropic associations through the year and also sponsors on-campus social activities. He’s particularly proud of the fact that his school is dedicating a dorm to Greek housing next year (a multi-year negotiation process that he participated in) and he is planning to move back on-campus after two years off.</p>
<p>Anyways, I agree with the above posters that it’s important to get information not only on the specific fraternities, but also on the particular school. There’s no one-fraternity-atmosphere-fits all. Best to ask current students.</p>
<p>Thank you, thank you, for your responses!
You’ve given me a lot to process & I do feel better educated. We are off to accepted student day at Lehigh tomorrow & I have great questions to ask and some starting points for conversations with my S.</p>
<p>Lehigh?? When you come in to Lehigh from the back and down the mountain, you will pass all the frat houses. When I did a drive through on a Saturday morning with my S about a year ago, the houses were a mess with beer cans and furniture on the lawn. I hope you get a better impression, but it was a real turn off for S.</p>
<p>Is Lehigh his first choice? Does he plan on attending? From what I’ve heard, drinking and Greek Life dominate the campus (not in a good way).</p>
<p>as the mother of two out of three sons who joined fraternities, this is my take. The two who joined were socially immature in HS. They both blossomed in frats. The one who did not join had a very active social life in HS and had no need to join a frat to make friends or have a social life in college. One thing to keep in mind, once your child joins a frat, their social life revolves around that frat. So, even in a large school, they end up with a rather small sphere of social experience.</p>
<p>Ely: Last year when my son was looking at schools he liked one in particular but it had a very active Greek life and he was not thrilled with the whole notion of “fraternity life”. We told him to keep an open mind and that he always had the choice to remain independent since 50% of the school was Greek.<br>
He enrolled, kept his open mind and when he was home at Christmas told us that he had decided to rush when he returned for the spring semester. I will tell you that I was surprised by his change of heart and he told me that he spent his first semester getting to know kids from different frats and liked what “fraternity life” might offer him. My son has always had a very active social life and he is an outgoing kid so he didn’t need a group of boys to pull him out of his shell. He liked the brotherhood aspect of the frats but since I am unfamiliar with them I will say that I don’t completely understand them.
He received a bid to his first choice and has spent his entire semester pledging. It is very, very time consuming to say the least. My son had to drop a class and give up playing a Club Sport to accomodate the time committment. He obviously felt it was worth it and he has loved his experience. Much of it he cannot talk about (which is a whole other discussion) but we have seen a maturity growth in him since January. Socially, yes he is always busy. But he is now doing things that he probably wouldn’t have done had he not joined. A few weeks ago he went to the Carolina Cup in SC and this weekend he and his brothers and dates are all on a spring weekend down in Myrtle Beach. He has participated in many campus wide events for athletics and charities. I am not sure if he would have gotten so involved had he not joined the frat and this was a kid who was pretty outgoing to begin with.<br>
At his school the fraternity members who live on campus all live together in a section of a dorm so he is all set for his housing for next year. He is pledging the same frat with 3 very good friends that he made on his freshman floor so I think this has just enhanced his experience. As for the comment about them having a limited social circle, I have to disagree with that. By joining a fraternity I think he had meet many more kids than he would have had he remained independent. They are constantly socializing with different soroities and he has become very good friends with many upperclassman. He meets lots of different people based upon the things he chooses to be involved with. I think he would have been just fine had he not pledged, but for him, the experience has been very positive.
The only downside I can see is if his grades take a hit because of the time he has spent with pledging. That remains to be seen but that is why he dropped a class realizing that it may have an impact. Luckily, it lasts for only a semester.<br>
My advice to you would be to tell your son not to judge something because he thinks he won’t like it. If he keeps an open mind he will make the decision that is best for him.</p>
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<p>No, no, no. That is not a universal statement. It depends on the college.</p>
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<p>Again, no, no, no. Not a universal statement either. There are plenty of places in which there is no way the students would need to compromise on their classes or other activities in any way.</p>
<p>Having said that - I have no first hand knowledge but have always heard that Lehigh is pretty fratty, so that’s one of those where I might say proceed with caution.</p>
<p>S has one friend we have met who is in a frat. S liked having his packages delivered to that friend because someone was generally home so he could go buy & pick things up at his convenience. The guy is very serious and on ROTC scholarship. I met him & he’s very nice & I believe he’s doing well & scheduled to graduate on schedule this spring with S. Another kid we know from S’s HS got into a frat, low his merit award & is now home selling cars. Everyone is sad and surprised. Sorry, don’t know the details, but know the young man wants to go back & had enjoyed the university; his twin brother is at a different smaller U w/o frat scene & on track to graduate in engineering on schedule next spring.</p>
<p>The U my kids are attending is known to have a pretty active Greek scene, with live-in frat & sorority houses. My kids aren’t into partying and as far as we know have little or nothing to do with them (other than S found the frat house to be a very convenient post office when he was getting a lot of packages from eBay).</p>
<p>I guess part of the issue, as others have mentioned is, What else is there to do? Who else is doing things non-Greek? How vibrant is non-Greek campus life?</p>
<p>Good luck–visits should be somewhat helpful on these issues.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: just want to comment on your reply. I was merely explaining my son’s pledging experience and was in no way making a universal statement. I think most people will tell you that pledging a fraternity is extremely time consuming. As I stated it should ease up after the pledging process is over this semester. From what I understand the sorority rush process at my son’s university is quite time consuming but their pledge process is quite short so I believe pledging varies by universities. I have read several posts here on CC that the pledge process is quite demanding and that often times it will effect a student’s GPA. I think to tell a prospective student this is not true is unfair and they may want to take the time demand into consideration when considering all options.</p>
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I would agree with Pizzagirl, in disagreeing with the above statement. For my son, the pledge process was fun and social. It was only when he was the brother running the pledge process that it became time-consuming. But it certainly never impacted his GPA or academic achievements. I think we could agree that every fraternity chapter on every campus is a little bit different in their approach and obligations.</p>
<p>finding more info on each college is the key. Rockvillemom tells us lafayette was “as Greek as it gets” in the 80’s yet today, slightly less than half of the women are in sororities, and only 25% of men are in frats there.
It is easy to get false impressions from movies such as “Anim House” and the “Nerd” series. Those films would lead us to believe all students are in one frat or another, except for a few oddballs that are not accepted.
That just isn’t true.</p>
<p>Start with hard data such as student population and % that go Greek. There are many sites where one can obtain such collegedata. Then seek actual opinions on campus.</p>
<p>CON: My son attends a college that has a large fraternity presence (not quite 40%). He’s a freshman, in a dorm that is on the edge of campus and nearby many of the frat houses. Every weekend it seemed there was partying and tons of kids who just wanted to get drunk. By now, my son has made his own circle of friends and knows where he wants to live next year: far away from the frat houses.</p>
<p>PRO: Frats can be lots of fun, very social, and foster many connections in years to come. If you go to a college with a “heavy frat presence”, I suggest you join. Otherwise you’ll miss out.</p>
<p>Having said that, I wonder if there’s one comment you might want to examine:
It’s hard to imagine our kids drinking and partying (especially when you think about Animal House). But do you not see your son as a “frat boy” because of your prejudices and your own worries or is it really who your son is?</p>
<p>You can go to the College Board website to find out the percent of Greek participation at various colleges. Click on campus activities.</p>
<p>In Ohio, Miami University and Denison are considered to have serious Greek influence, yet the number of students involved in Greek life is about 25% at Miami and, at Denison, 25 percent of women and 20 percent of men. So keep that in mind. I can’t explain those stats, but that’s how it is. I would consider a school fairly Greek if the percentage is 20+. A school that has a 50 percent participation would be extremely Greek and perhaps a lonesome place for someone not interested in that scene.</p>
<p>Another Lafayette alum from the early 80’s here. Also I’m a wife of a Lafayette fraternity brother and the parent of a current Lafayette student, and DS is now in the same frat there that his dad was in.</p>
<p>First, younghoss is right. Lafayette is down to less than 1/3 of guys in frats, so things have changed there a lot. I’d say the changes have mostly been for the better. From what I hear, however, Lehigh has not changed nearly as much. I think if your kid is strongly opposed to frats then Lehigh is probably not the school for him. (I say that with the understanding that it is exceedingly hard for a Lafayette alum to have much positive to say about arch-rival Lehigh).</p>
<p>That said, not all frats are alike. DS says his frat is “not really a ‘fratty’ frat.” Their average GPA is actually higher than the all-campus average GPA. Their pledging took 3 weeks and wasn’t excessively time-consuming, he said he could kind of do as much as he wanted. This year they de-pledged one kid who NEVER showed up, but otherwise they were pretty low key. S went to college with zero interest in pledging, and maintained that opinion until mid-way thru Soph year. Next thing I knew he pledged and became an officer in his frat, and he loves it. So, you never know.</p>
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<p>No. I stand by my statement. It differs by college. At some, the pledge activities are confined to weekends, the ongoing obligations are weekly chapter meetings that consist of a group dinner and then a short business meeting afterwards, and then other activities as the member sees fit (philanthropy, scholarship). In these chapters, joining a fraternity wouldn’t interfere with academics, EC’s or campus jobs at all (or, any more than any other activity a student might choose to do). You cannot paint them all with the same brush.</p>