<p>D. loves her sorority, they do not have a house, they do not live together. We had parent weekend organized very well. Other than that, we are not involved, just paying fees. According to D., it is a great support away from home. She went to National convention and loved it also.</p>
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<p>Ok, I’ll try to be open-minded, but obviously her kids do not attend your alma mater because you say there is no longer any Greek life there.</p>
<p>Hopefully, no one on this thread has kids in the Greek system at Cornell or UMaryland (where apparently Marian’s kids attend/ed), as Marian informs us that her children have proclaimed them to be “undesirable.”</p>
<p>Oh, Bay, try not to let the “undesirable” label get under your skin. Some people would say athletes are undesirable. Or band geeks. Or moms who bottle feed. Or the _________ religion. Right or wrong there are stigmas and stereotypes for every choice we make. Getting worked up about it causes gray hair. I say shrug it off. :)</p>
<p>Hey, I can’t help it if my kids noticed that once they reached the stage in college when some people moved into Greek houses, there was a noticeable decrease in dorm vandalism, vomit all over the bathrooms, and other irritants. My kids were not saying that everyone who joins a Greek house is the sort of person who destroys smoke detectors in the dorms for fun. But there does seem to be a pattern in which the people who do such things tend to be attracted to Greek houses.</p>
<p>No, Marian, of course you can’t help anything about your kids’ judgment at this stage in their lives. But you can avoid being rude on a message board. </p>
<p>Thanks, DougBetsy, you are right.</p>
<p>Neither H or I attended schools with Greek life; D is in a sorority but we’re really not involved with it other than 1. paying the bills and 2. listening to the reports of fun/activities. We’re glad she pledged.</p>
<p>Marian might be interested to know that my son’s frat has a higher average GPA than the non-Greek average for men at his college. </p>
<p>OTOH, my son will be the first to tell you that while his frat does not meet the stereotypical “frat boy” image, there are other frats on campus that definitely do.</p>
<p>I love Bay’s comment! I also have to note that this thread is too broad to be meaningful. It’s kinda like “What do you feel about college kids today?” or “What do you think about the state of religion in the world?”-- it’s just too much country to cover. </p>
<p>I was a Greek and have to say it wasn’t a good fit for me. DS is a Greek and he loves it . I do worry that he spends too much time on it but he’s always been an immersion sort of guy. I would pick the social skill building of being in a frat over reaching level 999 on some shootem up video game. </p>
<p>Each college, each Greek group and each student is different. So is every sport and every athlete and every math team and every math team member. You can have drunken louts anywhere. You can also have some hard working social kids who are making great choices (most of the time).</p>
<p>It seems like my son’s frat is a “home away from home” at a big university. There’s a lot of students - young men and women - studying what he is studying. I was surprised that my son joined a frat, but so far it has seemed like a good choice for him. I always say that “our children take us down roads we never thought we’d travel.”</p>
<p>I was a commuter and going Greek is what made college for me. Why is it that any thread about Greek life brings out the haters who spew every Animal House stereotype in the book?</p>
<p>I hear Greek life stinks since the financial system collapsed.</p>
<p>I wonder how actual Greeks feel about Americans calling drunken college students Greeks.</p>
<p>What if we called it something other than Greek? Can you imagine how ridiculous it would sound?</p>
<p>“Hey, I’m moving into the Hutu house next semester. You should rush!”</p>
<p>“Sorry, I already pledged the Tutsis. They have better parties.”</p>
<p>“Man, this campus sure has a vibrant African life.”</p>
<p>^^ It reminds me of the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the father is talking about how Greeks invented everything. I think that the homage to the greek culture is not a bad thing.</p>
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<p>Interesting. How do you mean?</p>
<p>I frankly don’t get it.
(I went to a college that does not allow fraternities).</p>
<p>The thing that bothers me is the exclusionary nature of it. I really have a problem with a bunch of 20 year olds sitting in judgment of the “social acceptability” of a bunch of 18 year olds.</p>
<p>College is the time for meeting new people and being exposed to new things and ideas. Joining an exclusionary organization when you arrive is antithetical to what the entire experience is supposed to be about.</p>
<p>After you graduate you will have plenty of time to join a restricted country club or live in a gated community, but it should not be during your college years.</p>
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<p>I think that’s a bit bias. Just because some people are different and decide to do something different doesn’t make them undesirable, maybe undesirable to non-Greeks. I bet you just as many non-Greeks joined in the vandalism and vomiting freshman year. Maybe their behavior was so vulgar that people in the Greek life viewed them as undesirable.</p>
<p>DougBetsy, I meant the financial system in the country of Greece, nothing to do with fraternities and sororities.</p>
<p>Doh! Duh. :D</p>
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<p>If I’m in a dorm and we have a few dorm parties and I decide that I want to hang around people A, B, C and D (and the feeling is mutual) and I don’t really have a lot in common with people W, X, Y and Z (and that feeling is mutual), I am not “sitting in judgment of their social acceptability.” Are you sitting in judgment of the “social acceptability” of every parent in your kids’ school that you choose not to hang around with, or are you simply choosing not to hang around them? There’s little essential difference between this and forming natural groups of friends, except that this is more structured. We all find people we like to hang around with and people we don’t.</p>
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<p>So… you’re ok with restricted country clubs and communities?</p>
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<p>You make my point exactly. This will happen naturally without the need to have a sanctioned and defined method of social segregation. Furthermore, I’m quite certain that most people are rejected from fraternities and sororities not because they don’t have “interests” in common with the members, but because they are not the “right” race/religion/social class, etc. I’ve even read about a sorority that ejected a bunch of members for being overweight and/or unattractive.</p>
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<p>If you haven’t experienced it, don’t sit in judgement on it. Neither my husband nor son are close-minded or exclusionary based on religion, race, appearances, socio-economics or anything else. But they have enjoyed sharing a “brotherhood” bond with others who also chose to share that bond. They have (or in H’s case, had) many friends outside of their frat as well. </p>
<p>There are some frats and sororities that are “exclusionary,” and others that aren’t. Back in our day, 80% of the guys at our campus joined frats. With that many frats to choose from, most frats had a particular “type” - one was the band frat, one was “animal house,” one was the track guys, there were two football frats, one was the super-preppy-rich guys, etc. But there were a few that defied those labels - one had an Epsilon in its name, and it was joked that it stood for “everyone,” because they accepted anyone who wanted to pledge. H’s frat also defied type - they had international students, some athletes, some musicians, just a real mix of kids. The sororities were the same way - one was athletes, one was rich-thin-snotty types, but a few sort of defied description - they were just girls who liked the idea of having a sisterhood. </p>
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<p>Since your college doesn’t have Greeks, how can you be “quite certain” of that?</p>
<p>Don’t paint all Greek organizations with one brush. That’s as bad as creating your own gated community.</p>