<p>interesteddad- Because opinions, particualrly of GLOs, change radically once at school, and so some people feel it's better to keep your horizons open. </p>
<p>When I was doing a search, I didn't want to go to any religiously affiliated university. I was eventually pushed to examine Georgetown, among others, because I was told my conceptions were wrong. And, to my interest, they were. Preferring a school with low binge drinking is certainly one thing that you can call personal preference- students frequently have well founded opinions on that.</p>
<p>But preferring a low Greek percentage is almost definitely based on misconceptions, preconceived notions, and prejudicial stereotypes. While there's obviously a correlation between the two things, its not the same to avoid Greek scenes and avoid heavy drinking culture.</p>
<p>^ Totally agree. It is all personal decision. Nobody physically forces anybody to do anything, and if they do, they are prosecuted as criminals. At the same time, one can be a part of crazy crowd without participating in frats. Sorry, no connection to Mother Theresa either. I actually do not see anything wrong with social drinking as long as it is limited to reasonable amounts.</p>
<p>"Why is it that whenever someone is expressing looking for advice on finding low-binge and low-greek schools, the thread gets hi-jacked by the notion that there is something wrong with even looking for those qualities in a school. Why not just let the OPs look for the kind of schools they want? Why the sales job on the value of heavy binge drinking and frat boys to a college experience?"</p>
<p>Ok, but the OP didn't ask for a list of non-binge or non-frat schools. While she did relate her son's preference for a school sans fraternities, here is what she actually asked:</p>
<p>"To students and parents alike, does a school with a high percentage of frats/sororities change the atmosphere very much on campus?"</p>
<p>She goes on to say:</p>
<p>"Some schools we are looking at have between 30% and 40% of their men and women "go Greek." They always say "but that means 60% don't!" but still that number seems like a lot to me. My husband and I have no experience with this aspect of college. Any thoughts/insights would be greatly appreciated."</p>
<p>When a person asks for "any thoughts/insights," they should be prepared to receive just that.</p>
<p>^then the OP's son should go to a community college and continue to live at home in his protected bubble to shield him from the supposed "dangers" of college life</p>
<p>The kid is still looking at schools that so happen to have lots of greeks. He is drawn to them for some reason or another that has nothing to do with their party culture. The OP wanted to know if going to a 40% greek school would cause a non drinker to feel alienated. My answer (from my experiences at a school where probably half the guys go greek) is that one can go to a school that is very greek as a non drinker and have a great time, and might even join a frat too.</p>
<p>Not wanting to join a frat is fine. However, would you tell someonw very interested in engineering to discount MIT and every big 10 school because of their frat scenes? It seems crazy to throw out almost all of the top 10 engineering schools because they have a fair number of greeks.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's not a misconception to prefer a college without a bunch of frat boys
looking at many of my friends in frats, frat brother does not always equal stereotypical frat boy.</p>
<p>Ok I'll bite. Based on current students and recent grads "self reported" experiences, I'd suggest the following for a kid interested in low-frat life (NB- I don't know the actual percentage of kids enrolled in fraternities, just schools where an anti-frat kid can have a good social life and living experience- so a good starting place to explore:)</p>
<p>Brandeis
Tufts
Brown
Bentley
Northeastern
Conn College
Wesleyan
Quinnipiac
BU
College of New Rochelle
Sarah Lawrence
Bennington
Bard
Fordham
St. John's
Baruch
Queens College
Brooklyn College
(these three don't have much campus life however- the kids either commute from home or live in apartments)
NYU
Skidmore
GW
Muhlenberg
Adelphi
Hofstra
Ithaca
Lawrence
Beloit
Swarthmore
Macalester
Pomona
Harvey Mudd
Rice
Rollins</p>
<p>There are probably a few hundred more but I live in the Northeast so we are somewhat parochial (and many people prefer to have a kid living on an Amtrak line which makes it cheaper to get home.) I am also not anti-public U- and there are thousands of kids at their flagship state school who have never set foot into a frat- but to a Freshman it can be hard finding the social outlets at a school with a high % of frat members (even if the size of the school means that there are thousands of other kids who are not members of frats.)</p>
<p>YMMV, just a starting point. However, having watched my own kids, dozens of nieces and nephew etc. go through the process- this would be a minor "tip factor" in my mind in selecting schools, and not a weed-out factor. Every college of critical mass (so I'm not talking a 200 Freshman class LAC) is going to have its vegan/crunchy/save the world types, its cello-playing physicists, its goth poetry writers, etc. Not to say that they can't join frats either- but kids whose primary ECs are performing arts, literary, or whatever, tend to form additional social networks that don't revolve around the frat even they are affiliated. My observation only.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Because opinions, particualrly of GLOs, change radically once at school, and so some people feel it's better to keep your horizons open.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Of course it changes when you find yourself at a university where 38% of the students are Greek, the university actively promotes greek membership, and you are concerned that you will be an outcast if you don't pledge. You bet an 18 year old kid, still wet behind the ears and a little insecure going off the college is going to toe the line.</p>
<p>It is precisely this dynamic that makes students who prefer non-frat social scenes to legitimately seek out colleges and universities where the greek system does not dominate the campus culture.</p>
<p>Or it changes because you actually experience first hand what it means to be a member of a Greek organization. You know, instead of basing it off of posts like yours, which imply the only positives are coercive social pressures that brainwash "wet behind the ears freshman". </p>
<p>You have a powerful command of rhetoric interesteddad, which includes a healthy dose of twisting logic.</p>
<p>^one of my friends chose his college with one of the factors being that it had a very small (if any) greek presence. After a year there he still doesn't drink, but finds himself going to lots of frat parties and having a lot of friends who are greek. He's even considering joining next semester. All this happened without a huge greek scene and without every guy he knows going greek.</p>
<p>Well, to tie together a couple of recent post ideas...the OP and son could look at Notre Dame...where fraternities and sororities have never been allowed, where students are encouraged to live in dorms on campus all four years and where parietals are still in effect.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Not wanting to join a frat is fine. However, would you tell someonw very interested in engineering to discount MIT
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I would certainly consider MIT's long-standing failure to invest in adequate residential housing and residential life for its students as a checkmark in the negative column. I don't see MIT's willingness to farm out residential life to frats as a "plus" relative to other schools that have invested in residential life over the years.</p>
<p>Whether or not that would disqualify MIT from my list would depend on how I rank my selection priorities. But, I would certainly consider that, historically, MIT didn't view its undergrads as a high enough priority to invest in their residential life, although I think that is starting to change.</p>
<p>You omitted this part of the original post:</p>
<p>He prefers a school with no frats."</p>
<p>No, I did not omit that part. Please re-read my post! </p>
<p>While the OP does state that her son prefers a college which has no frats (not omitted from my post), that was NOT her question. Her question had to do with how much Greeks influence the culture of the university if a significant percentage of the students do go Greek. She never asked for a list of universities which do not have Greeks, at least not in her OP.</p>
<p>It seems to me pretty clear that if (1) a large percentage of the students on campus are in fraternities and sororities and (2) major social events on campus are mostly Greek and (3) most of the parties on campus revolve around Greek life, then it is HIGHLY LIKELY that a person who does not drink will be somewhat cut off from social life there. Now, if the school is really big, it may be possible for the non-drinking student to find a totally different social setting, and to be perfectly happy.</p>
<p>I went to a very large state school which has a very visible Greek community. I did not pledge, and yet had a very active social life and rewarding academic experience. I had friends who were members of fraternities and sororities as well as friends who were also independents. I certainly never felt like an "outcast" because I didn't pledge. I also didn't notice that the Greeks were heavier drinkers/partiers than the independents. But when I was in college, the legal drinking age was 18, so perhaps without the alcohol taboo, we just applied less importance to drinking heavily, though certainly alcohol was usually present at most parties, Greek or otherwise. I personally wasn't interested in binge drinking, and I didn't hang around people who did party heavily, though I'm sure they were around.</p>
<p>For me, Greek/non-Greek was a non-issue. Perhaps because it was such a large school? I don't know.</p>
<p>I'm cuious if anyone has any thoughts about how a non-residential greek system might differ from a school where students live in frat and sorority houses. At Rhodes College, for example, I believe upwards of 50 percent of students are greek but they do not live in the greek houses. Someone posted about Swarthmore I think having a similar system, although with a much lower percent of students participating, and it was thought that having a place to have the parties (other than the dorms) was a good thing. My concern about greeks is actually not so much the drinking but the social atmosphere, the sense that if a student is not a memeber of a frat he is an outcast. I don't know that a non-residential system would make a difference as far as that goes.</p>
<p>Just one comment: although the OP and many of the responses are focusing on the alcohol aspects of greek life, academically intense campuses without frats also can include people/dorms with heavy drinking cultures--at least on the weekends. (S1 is at Mudd, S2 entering Rice this year; neither allows greek orgs, but both are unashamedly wet campuses)</p>
<p>I would be willing to bet substantially that Harvey Mudd College and Rice University are both well below national averages for binge drinking rates. Pomona is well below average and I would expect Mudd to be in a similar range. Vanderbilt, which is considered to be more of a party school than Rice is right at the national average (about 44%). Rice is so academically rigorous and science oriented that I would expect it be lower than Vandy.</p>
<p>Already:</p>
<p>Yes, I think non-residential frats make a difference by reducing the disconnection between the frat students and non frat students. To the extent that frats operate as extracurricular clubs rather than a 24/7 way of life, the college culture probably benefits.</p>
<p>Sorry everyone - my nonsensical post about international law was supposed to be a response to a comment on the law forum. If a mod wants to delete it, that would be great.</p>