<p>What do med schools thing of joining and being a member of a frat? Do they see it as a extracurricular activity?</p>
<p>look at my post at #2</p>
<p>I have never had someone use their interview time telling me about their frat. I would think it very odd, unrelated to any goals in medicine, and then I would worry about the depth of their commitment to a serious undertaking. </p>
<p>I would not hold their membership in a frat itself against them, I just would not care. I know lots of docs who were in frats, lots who were not, and the vast majority I have no idea about their frat status, because they don't spend time talking about it. </p>
<p>It an applicant wanted to tell me about it at length I would wonder whether they were really ready to finish college and move on.</p>
<p>Think of it this way: would you expect the interviewer to be impressed, or even stay awake, while you explained how wonderful your non frat dorm was? You lived with other people, you got along with them, so what? Everyone in college does that. You got up in the morning and ate breakfast too.</p>
<p>So join a frat if you want to. As long as the frat activities do not interfere with doing the things you need to prepare for med school, it will not matter.</p>
<p>See, I did talk about my fraternity experience during my interview. It was extremely relevant to my extensive involvement, because as a freshman there was one older member who took the time to really take me under his wing and encourage me to get involved, and that really helped me come into my own as a person. Further, as I mentioned in my post in the other thread, there's a difference between having to be around people you don't like in a dorm, and having to be around people you don't like in a fraternity - especially when you live in a chapter house, take all your meals together, go to the same parties together, have plenty of mutual friends, get put on the same committee to organize a philanthropic event, and so on. There's a level of inescapability that exists in fraternity life that can't be matched in the dorms. I have two friends from my fraternity days, each who absolutely abhor and despise everything the other stands for. I mean, you have never seen such pure hatred between people when they really get going at each other. But of course I'm friends with both, and they have plenty of other mutual friends in the house. They were both on our executive board at the same time (and thus were repeatedly forced to go to the same meetings and leadership retreats), and famously in the lore of our chapter were put together to manage a homecoming clothing drive. Even though they still cannot stand each other, I know one of them has said he's a better person because of the lessons he learned in dealing with the other.</p>
<p>But that's my experience, and the way that I would "sell" it. Obviously, if all my fraternity had been good for was booze and girls, then it wouldn't work, but as an interviewee, you need to be able to make that distinction and know your audience and what's going to be interesting and important to them.</p>
<p>And not nearly as uncommon as this presentation implies you think. I would rather hear a story about how one developed independence and coping skills in some way that is at least arguably unusual, being in a frat hardly qualifies.</p>
<p>Lot's of people do volunteer work without being in frats/sororities. How did the frat contribute to this? Why not just join one, or several, service organizations?</p>
<p>I would be far more interested in hearing about something much less insular than how great it was to eat, sleep, and work together with a small group of people who were self-selected for homogeneity. The more the frat brothers did everything together, the more it sounds like they used the frat as a retreat from the rest of the college population. </p>
<p>Now a frat with serious charitable purposes that enrolled members at random would generate some respect for the demonstrated ability to work with a variety of people toward a common goal. </p>
<p>The story as told makes me wonder, "how would this person function in a situation where the people to be dealt with were not all chosen to join this small isolated club?"</p>
<p>How did the fraternity contribute to my involvement?</p>
<p>At my alma mater, Greeks made up 15% of the student population, yet close to 85% of the members of the two senior honoraries were members of fraternities or sororities. Greeks made up 75% of the Student Government Senators, 80% of the executive board of Student Alumni Association, 65% of Student Ambassadors, and the majority of most Student Advisory Board members for the various colleges. Only the campus newspaper was a bastion of non-affiliated students. Being in a fraternity or sorority was the gateway membership that facilitated extensive campus involvement. Certainly some students found ways to get involved without this door opener, but their numbers are much smaller. When you have so many Greeks in positions of power on campus, being able to say "I'm an Eta" or "I'm a Tri-Pi" is an instant shot of credibility. I know the resumes that several of my current medical school classmates have (who graduated from the same undergrad), and hands down, the ones who were Greek have far more impressive lists of campus accomplishments. I'm definitely not saying this is the case at most, or even a significant number of colleges, just that it was at mine, and I know it happens at others. </p>
<p>That door opening, combined with the encouragement of older members led to my extensive involvement. </p>
<p>I can't engage you if you're going to essentially see a revisionist history view of what I'm saying. What you see as being a retreat, I'm trying to explain as how fraternity living differs from the dorms. You can avoid a person you don't like who lives on your dorm floor pretty easily. It's nearly impossible when you're in a fraternity. Further, I don't see how spending time with fraternity brothers is any different than spending time with any other select group of friends, and why one gets called a "retreat" and the other "normal". </p>
<p>Finally, as someone who didn't attend a particularly diverse college (a flagship state public with a student population that reflects the fairly undiverse state population) I think the homogeneity is overestimated. I can see this opinion at someplace where there is a significant amount of diversity and fraternities represent the white kids hanging out with the white kids or the black kids hanging out with the black kids, but when your school is only 11% underrepresented students, it's impossible to avoid homogeneity in the traditional sense.</p>
<p>@BRM</p>
<p>Since you ave gone through undergrad, can you tell me what qualifies someone to have a leadership position for a frat, student government, club, etc. especially at large schools?</p>
<p>BRM, you went to Cornell right? The reason that I am curious is b/c I have a GT there for next fall. So virtually, if I am not Greek or in a frat, I will have a hard time being involved? I mean isn't Cornell a really big school. I plan on doing research and maybe shadowing and stuff, but when you say big changes, you mean stuff like food drives and clothe drives, right? Basically, I sort of feel that I do not want to join a frat b/c it may be a distracting study environment and I do want to get involved. So is it nearly impossible w/o a frat?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Further, I don't see how spending time with fraternity brothers is any different than spending time with any other select group of friends, and why one gets called a "retreat" and the other "normal"
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree. That's why I don't think it is important, and certainly not impressive, that someone got along with his fraternity brothers. "I get along with my friends" is not likely to impress anyone.</p>
<p>The issue is not the diversity level of the college, at least not as that term is traditionally used. It is simply that frats are composed of people who wanted to join and who passed the elaborate screening involved in becoming a member. Take any group that is formed in that way and one would expect a high degree of homogeneity ON THE CRITERIA USED TO SELECT MEMBERS. </p>
<p>If you belong to an organization that selects people with whom you would like to live, the fact that you get along with them is pretty much exactly what one would expect. So why should you avoid them? You picked them because they were your friends.</p>
<p>If frats dominated certain areas that much at your college, it implies a culture where the non frat students were interested in other things. </p>
<p>If one managed to accomplish a lot, even if it was due to being in a frat, it would be way better to report on the actual accomplishments, rather than devote time to describing how great it was being in the frat.</p>
<p>Join the frat if it suits you, but do not expect medical schools to be impressed. </p>
<p>"You enjoyed being in a frat? That's nice. Now let's talk about something related to medical school"</p>
<p>I did not go to Cornell...which is why I said this </p>
<p>
[quote]
Finally, as someone who didn't attend a particularly diverse college (a flagship state public with a student population that reflects the fairly undiverse state population)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>above.</p>