Hi! This is a senior preparing for college!
So, I’ve been searching for the housing options for my college, and I don’t understand how Greek organization housing works.
If I want to be part of a sorority or fraternity, should I must live in the houses for the organization?
And is the cost of housing for Greek organizations included in the room & board fee for the college? Or should I pay it again as I get into one?
It is different at every school. Some schools have no Greek housing, so the students have the same choices as other students - dorms, apartments, homes. At some of the ‘no house’ schools, the schools will designate a dorm floor or section for a Greek house and some or all members live there.
At schools that do have houses, rarely are those houses big enough for all members to live in the house, so they have some system for figuring out who lives in. Usually all the upper officers do, and then often sophomores. In the biggest houses at southern schools, there might be 300 members but only room in the house for 60. Often all member do eat at the house and may live with groups from the sorority in other housing (not required but fun).
Sometimes the colleges do own the housing, At both of my kids’ schools, this is the case. One lives in the sorority house right on campus, but her room and board is paid to the chapter directly, not billed through the school. The other school has a Greek village owned and run by the school. Each chapter gets a 3 story building (the complex used to be an apartment complex owned privately) which has 12 private bedrooms and a meeting room. Housing is billed directly from the school. My daughter doesn’t live in the housing, so she pays a ‘parlor fee’ for the use of the chapter room, any food provided while she’s at the house, and basic maintenance.
For freshmen, usually you live in the dorms. D’s chapter also required all freshmen to eat at the house, so the chapter billed her but the school released her from her meal plan (the sorority was cheaper).