Hi I am a senior who is strongly considering going to Georgetown. I have one concern based on things I have heard about Georgetown’s student culture. I’m going to an elite boarding school for high school and people are very snobby and judgemental here, and the social scene is entirely determined by wealth. I hate that as I am a very social person but am limited due to my socioeconomic status. I have heard that Georgetown is similar, is this true? Because I would love to go to this school but I don’t want to go through the same social scene again, where you can only have social status if you are rich.
Social life at Georgetown is not determined by the Greek system , which helps in students being open to larger circles of friendships. Georgetown is diverse in many areas. There are many many clubs and organizations to become involved with and that is where many friendships are formed. You will find your people there.
One of the things that I liked the most about Georgetown was the lack of a Greek system and an accompanying lack of obsession over “social status.” It’s a big, diverse place, where social circles tend to be determined by what activities you’re involved in, as well as who you ended up living with. Everyone throws parties, so there’s no concern about who can get into the ‘cool’ ones, as tends to be the case at Greek-dominated institutions. I found it to very much be a ‘choose your own adventure’ kind of social scene.
Of course, there are plenty of very affluent folks, and some of them do prefer to travel in similar circles socially to the exclusion of others. But in my experience, there’s not all that many who are like that, and it’s just as easy to avoid them as it is for them to ignore you.
Long story short: it’s not high school, no one really cares about cool kid cliques. Well, maybe with the exception of the basketball team, everyone thinks they’re cool haha.
There are a lot of wealthy people at Georgetown, but I wouldn’t say that wealth is a social factor here. I have friends on full financial aid, and friends who routinely jet-set over breaks. It’s pretty much a non-issue unless you’re inherently annoyed when people (hopefully, accidentally) drop hints about their wealth.