I was accepted ED and will be attending Brown in the fall, and even though I know freshmen don’t rush immediately I was just curious what each sorority is like, and how the Greek system interacts with the campus as a whole?
Hey!! I also got accepted ED and will be going to Brown next year! I was wondering about Greek life at specific frats and sororities at brown too. And does anyone know if athletes can join a frat?
Yes, in 2005-2009 Thete was the football frat, DPhi was golf/lax, and Sigma Chi was a lot of rugby. A large chunk of the wrestlers were in DTau prior to my arrival on campus.
Greek life is probably on the way out at Brown. Probably not in the 4 years you’ll be there, but given the last couple years the system could easily die out in the next decade or so. Several of the chapters have broken away from their national orgs, Phi Psi was banned, and the greek houses are no longer allowed to throw events with alcohol in the buildings like they did when I was there. Maybe since the latter was never a part of sorority life they will survive longer than the others. It’s only a matter of time before Brown starts actively forcing them off campus. It’s clearly been a goal since Paxson became president.
But aren’t sororities soaring in popularity? http://www.browndailyherald.com/2016/02/19/sorority-rush-bids-reach-record-numbers/ – "A record-high 293 female-identifying undergraduates participated in sorority recruitment "
I was surprised that over 35% of the Brown freshmen girls are participating in sorority rush. Contrast that to a large southern university like UNC Chapel Hill where only 20% are Greek.
Going in, my daughter had absolutely zero interest in greek life, but ended up in a sorority at Brown, and loves it.
@fireandrain yes, which makes the situation all the more sad. I always felt that the key to expanding Brown’s greek system was to expand the sorority system, but while the university would prefer to have more greek houses with national policies that require a dry house than ones that allow alcohol (most frats allow alcohol just require that it be purchased by individuals, not the organization), they’ve made it pretty clear to alumni connected to the greek houses that they’d rather see the system go than thrive.
Don’t conflate those two numbers - they are two different stats. One is the number of kids who are actually members of greek houses, the other is the number of kids who put their name down on a piece of paper at at least one rush event. In contrast to UNC’s 20% of girls greek, ~5% of Brown girls are.