Nervous wreck over fraternity rush!

Parents Forum
81

<p>It's funny that you mention being worthy and having to be "approved". Perhaps it was because on my campus Greeks tended to hold positions of power in student organizations, but I seem to remember that nearly every organization I joined had some sort of interview process and some students just didn't match up. </p>

<p>I know I had to apply for the College of Arts & Sciences Student Advisory Board, the College of A&S Student Ambassador program and Greek Ambassadors...I had to be voted on to the A&S curriculum committee, apply and interview to be a TA for a leadership class, and my nominations to Omicron Delta Kappa leadership honorary, Alpha Kappa Delta sociology honorary and Homecoming Royalty also included applications. In all those organizations there were people who wanted to be a member but weren't good enough... I had friends in many, many other organizations - University Ambassadors, Student Alumni Association, Committee for Fees Allocation, College of Business Ambasadors or Advisory Board, Mortar Board, the Spirit Squad, Stadium Skybox Hosts, Dance Marathon Organizing Committee, Honors Program Advisory Board, Residence Hall Association and so on that all required an application, an interview, or an election to become a member. I haven't even covered the obvious - Student government. The club sports teams all had tryouts, the newspaper required submission of a portfolio, the Band required tryouts, hell the music majors HAD TO AUDITION just to major in that field...</p>

<p>Are all these groups to be condemned for being selective?</p>

<p>I fail to see how there is much of a difference between someone applying to be on an Advisory Board for their college and being selected because they're the best person to carry out the responsibilities of the board and someone going through rush/recruitment and being selected because the members think that they're one of the best "applicants" (rushees, potential new members) to carry out the responsibilities of the chapter in the future. </p>

<p>Further, what about all these selective colleges everyone applies to? Isn't that problematic? Don't they run into the same issues (or even greater ones) as fraternities and sororities because not everyone can be a part of their campus community? If you're all for diversity, shouldn't intellectual diversity be a consideration? I never see anyone on here ask "are there are a lot of dumb people at this school, because I really want the whole mix"...</p>

82

<p>sac: I didn't even know that there are religious frats. Is this something new? Or, am I just "out of it". I didn't attend a college with any religious frats.</p>

83

<p>Rileydog....</p>

<p>Virginia is south of the Mason Dixon line. It is the south.</p>

<p>If the south (and your son's college) is so vastly different from where y'all are from, be happy! Your son is being exposed to some diversity. If he has an open mind, he'll get a first hand exposure to views other than the ones that he's been immersed in for 18 years. Are you afraid of him hearing other views? </p>

<p>My son will likely be attending a college that leans heavily to the left (a northeastern school - as if you couldn't guess!), but we're not afraid of him hearing liberal views.</p>

84

<p>I totally disagree with an opinion expressed "...best students on campus"- by whose accounting? I recall at UW in the early 70's frats and sororities were at a low point- definitely single digit percentages (and never that much higher). In the dorm we felt sorry for those who felt a need to join a sorority- I am so glad they were/are a negligble part of campus life. I'm sure others who were in them thought they mattered, fortunately the other 90+ % didn't care. Tells you something about the flavor of a campus. I must admit I did join one sorority-for freshman women with a high gpa, got a piece of paper, went to some function once and that was it. Missed out on Phi Beta Kappa, the only other one I would have cared to join (the friend who made it of us honors program grads had to be collected from a library Saturday nights...). I know you're talking about social clubs here, couldn't resist having some fun. Why limit yourself to such groups- insecurities? Again, showing the bias of someone who thinks of college in terms of academics and independence/liberal thinking, not clubs.</p>

85

<p>jlauer95, I think one historic reason behind Jewish fraternities and sororities is that Jews were historically excluded from all the other ones. (See Cheers post #74 -- apparently the practice has not died). So basically, the excluded groups had no choice but to set up their own. </p>

<p>None of that provides justification for the continuation of the practice -- but its the same thing that lead to the development of many Jewish country clubs (which is what once prompted Groucho Marx's famous remark that he would refuse to join any club that would have him as a member. But - despite the remark, he actually did join the club in question).</p>

86

<p>Bigredmed - are you really in med school? I hope you are going into pathology or radiology, maybe surgery, if you really think there is no difference between requiring skills for a sport or a position, or requiring academic strength and background for rigorous colleges, and requiring votes for a social club. Healthcare, my own field, requires physicians to be inclusive and see all patients equally. You can't choose your patients based on how much you like them, or by their ability to follow through on your orders, or their ability to speak your language, wear clothes that you wear, etc, in many cases you can't even select patients based on their ability to pay. Despite your argument, I am happy you had a good experience with your frat. You have been involved in many things and used your opportunities in the frat well. I suspect you would have been active and involved in the campus in many ways even if you were not in a frat. I appreciate, though, that your frat wasn't the type we see in Animal House. No doubt I would be happier if my son's frat was filled with students of your character!</p>

<p>Re: Motherdear. One thing that has definitely turned my head re: this school or area is an experience I had taking my son out to dinner with some of his friends. At the time of the visit, my younger son was dating a Jewish girl. Indeed we live in a largely Jewish area and my boys grew up with mostly Jewish friends. At dinner I mentioned the younger brother's new girlfriend by name to my son, an obviously Jewish name. I was immediately treated to the friends' shock and then jeering that little brother was dating a "Jewish" girl - it really was unbelievable and horrible - I felt like I had landed on Mars. My son gave me a look and later said Mom, everybody talks like that here, you just get used to it. He was accepting it - the whole thing just made me sick. I wish that was the end of my unpleasant experiences in VA but I will just leave it at that since the nuances are hard to convey sometimes. As I said before, I want to encourage parents to think about the political and social environments as well as everything else - and - of course - about how that might work with YOUR child. I taught my children that people mean more than religion, and that politics are everything (smile) - I hope that he doesn't forget that in his new environment and in the frat house.</p>

<p>Motherdear - Thanks for the post - don't remember it but seems like it was meant in a lighthearted way. My apologies to all Virginians who aren't "rednecky" (smile). Clearly I was still in shock myself.</p>

<p>Motherdear - I wish I had a tape recording, no a video-recording of the responses I receive when I tell people where my son goes to school. They range from isn't that a cooking school to didn't he get into any schools around here. We know it is a good school but it is disappointing when the mother next to you says their kid is at Tufts or Providence College or Northeastern and everyone goes WOW, great, while to me they say "oh". Bostonians recognize those names at least. I suspect that Connecticut is more connected to WM - I believe they take more students from CT. I think only 5 were taken from MA the year my son applied. Bottomline is that many people don't recognize the school's name here or they have "heard of it" but don't think of it the way many CC members do. I know people don't believe me about this - ieverytime I speak about my experiences people get upset with me. I thought everyone would say WOW but typically I have to make WM's case. </p>

<p>Rileydog</p>

87

<p>It's a bit of a shame that certain areas of the country can't look beyond the Hudson River for their education. Very few from the Boston area heard of Carnegie Mellon when I went to college either. </p>

<p>There are many fine Jewish fraternities and sororities that are still in existance. A college student of that faith isn't required to join only one of those groups nor are these groups only limited to Jewish students. They are
ΑΕΠ - Alpha Epsilon Pi, ΑΕΦ - Alpha Epsilon Phi, ΣΑΜ - Sigma Alpha Mu, ΣΑΡ - Sigma Alpha Rho, ΣΔΤ - Sigma Delta Tau, ΘΧ - Theta Chi, ΖΒΤ - Zeta Beta Tau </p>

<p>I think we might be from the same suburb based on how you just described it.</p>

88

<p>I don't know what Boston area you folks are from, but here in my part of the Boston area we know all about Carnegie Mellon, as well as William and Mary. We know kids who have gone to Elon, to the University of Richmond, University of Miami, even...shudder...to Texas for Rice.</p>

<p>Yes, Bostonians tend to be rather myopic, but there are many of us who are well versed on colleges throughout the country, not those simply within a 400 mile radius.</p>

89

<p>Would I be wasting my time to say that I was in a non-religion affiliated sorority in the deep south and we had a Jewish girl as a member? We didn't care what religion she was because she was a great girl! I'm sure we would have had more if more had gone through rush.</p>

<p>Also, some one brought up hiring and job interviews.... In the south being a member of a Greek organization is a networking opportunity. Although I have not brought up my affiliation in a job interview, it has been brought up in two job interviews by the person doing the interviewing. (I've had friends who this also happened to during an interview.) Because I held a leadership role in my chapter, they asked me to translate those experiences to employment. As president of my chapter I managed 23 officers that not only ran a chapter, but also ran a household that had employees and expenses. We had a housemother, cooks, and cleaning staff for the common areas of the house. We also had 46 girls who all lived together and occasionally had conflicts that needed mediating. I dealt with discipline issues, scholarship issues, and financial issues. It was a fantastic experience and I know many others who would say the same. I also had the opportunity to attend leadership conventions both through my group and the Panhellenic organization. My parents have both said often that I learned as much through my sorority as I did in class. In class I learned to be book smart and in my sorority I learned to work with people and how to be a leader. Acquiring these skills is rarely something that is frowned upon by an employer in this part of the country.</p>

90

<p>With any organization, whether it is a church, a charitable organization, a corporation, fraternity, sports team, whatever- you’re going to have incidents of corruption, unethical behavior, violence, and so on. You can’t paint everyone by a broad brush. Yes, hazing has been a real problem in the past. But I believe that within the past 10 years, universities and law enforcement agencies have made a lot of progress toward eradicating it. Here in Florida we have one of the toughest laws in the nation against hazing- it’s a felony. Those guys up at FAMU are likely to find themselves in prison for a long time. Hopefully the rest of the country will follow suit and adopt similar tough laws.</p>

<p>As far as job interviews- there are going to be those who hold it against people who have been in frats. Just like there are those who think that all football players are of a certain ilk. That’s too bad but so be it. That’s the least of my reasons why I’d discourage my son from joining a frat. The biggest concern I have is that he continues maintaining the highest standards when it comes to academic achievement and his own conduct. As long as he does that, I don’t care whether he joins a frat. He’s a big boy; I think he’s capable of deciding whether they’re doing something he knows in his heart to be wrong. Whether he acts on it is a matter of his own conscience. </p>

<p>Anti-Semitism is everywhere, by the way, not just in fraternities and sororities. All Greeks are not cut of the same cloth either. At any given school, you’ll see that different frats have different “flavors”- the body builders, the jocks, the super smart kids, the big partiers, the middle of the road good old boys, the super leader types, and so on. The kids are aware of this.</p>

<p>We’ve told our son- don’t ever do anything that goes against you’re grain. If anyone else does anything that disrespects you, get out of there. That goes for any situation, not just for frats.</p>

91

<p>rileydog--at least your younger son wasn't dating some macaca! </p>

<p>That would really have upset the frat brothers.</p>

<p>By the way, our son decided not to pledge (sigh of relief). Which was not a surprise given the cost, his lack of income, and my unwillingness to chip in $$$.</p>

92

<p>When I pledged a sorority, you wouldn't believe the things that happened.</p>

<p>Aside from costing almost 500$ a semester (100$ was per each pledge and sister for the "slush fund" and was not part of the dues that went to nationals), there was significant hazing. Some examples:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>We had to paint a certain item on the campus that is "Greek" - it's something that every fraternity and sorority do. You are required to stay out all night regardless of weather, to protect the item from any other Greeks from painting it. If it was snowing or raining, we had to coat the thing with vaseline. We were not allowed to sleep (a sister was always on guard, they rotated 2 hour shifts) or wear mittens.</p></li>
<li><p>Around midnight one night, we were blindfolded and kidnapped from the dorms and thrown into a car. We were told to shut up or that they would make us get out of the car. It was 5 or 6 sisters per pledge in each car. Where we ended up was laughable (an all night arcade) but it freaked the heck out of us.</p></li>
<li><p>One pledge made a mistake and called a sister's name out without addressing her "Sister...(name). So we all had to visit each sister (in the middle of the night) and apologize, together. There were over 60 sisters. If 2 lived together, you had to apologize to each one.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>You see, everything you do as a pledge, you have to do together and earn "Pearls". One pledge had just had knee surgery and was on crutches. The dorms did not have elevators and had at least 4 or 5 floors in each. </p>

<p>So we had to apologize in unison, then sing any sorority song they requested. Needless to say, we p'ed off a lot of sleeping people. It took about 5 hours to cover the campus, becuase the poor girl had crutches. Oh and it was icy (February).</p>

<ol>
<li><p>We were the 9th pledge class of that sorority on that campus, and one night we had to drink 9 shots in honor of it.</p></li>
<li><p>We were placed in the chapter room in the dark and told that we had to line up according to bra size. We were not allowed to talk, so we had to figure out a way to do this. Without going into detail, I am sure you can imagine what happened.</p></li>
<li><p>If we were caught without our pledgebook, pledge scarf, or pledge pin, even in class (we had to be touching our pledgebook at all times), a sister would take your pledgebook and put it somewhere secret on campus and as a class you had to find it. Sisters called other pledges out of classes, meetings, etc. so that everyone could do it together. Pledges wore pagers, and they had to make an excuse to leave class.</p></li>
<li><p>We were blindfolded and forced to cross a river on campus, that had iced over. We had to crawl on our hands and knees and were required to be touching the person in front of us.</p></li>
<li><p>During initiantion week, we were not allowed to shower or change clothes. Even if it was during our you-know-whats of the month.</p></li>
<li><p>Again during initiation week, we had to wear bra and underwear and the sisters used permanent markers and drew circles on our fat areas. One poor girl had chubby cheeks because she was taking some medicine and had 2 huge blue circles on her face.</p></li>
<li><p>During rush week, sisters voted on rushees using polaroids and a slide show. There were several checkboxes, in addition to "personality", "grades", etc., including "skin", "hair", "clothing", "religion" (most sisters were of a certain religion), "fashion sense" and if she had anything designer on. They made fun of a girl who had a fake Prada purse.</p></li>
<li><p>As sisters, we were told to "Keep Rushing our Pledges", meaning no matter what, make them think that their chances were slim to get it.</p></li>
<li><p>If a girl de-pledged, we spoke an oath to never begin a conversation with her. If she spoke to us, we were to make an excuse to not talk to her. </p></li>
<li><p>If a girl de-pledged, we immediately came to her room, took away all sorority related items, ripped all sorority items off the walls and door (these were usually decorated) and when she was not there, put a large X on her door in electric tape.</p></li>
<li><p>If a girl de-pledged and she was in any photo, we would paste a sad face drawing over hers.</p></li>
<li><p>We gave merits and demerits based on anything you could think of - poor choice of shoes or messy hair and "making us look bad", not seeing and greeting a sister before she saw you, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>We weighed pledges weekly in front of the whole sorority. If a pledge gained weight, she was banned from all activities for the week. This meant that they couldn't do anything as a group and would not receive a pearl.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I left my sorority the semester after I was initiated. I couldn't beleive that a group that stood for friendship, sisterhood, etc. could do these things with a clear conscience.</p>

93

<p>mackenzie,</p>

<p>When and where?</p>

94

<p>I won't say where because I feel reprisal. I still go there.</p>

95

<p>Of course hazing is a fraternity thing and doesn't happen outside of them or at schools where fraternities don't exist.
Whoops: <a href="http://www.ncaahazing.com/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ncaahazing.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The difference: The national organizations of fraternities are trying to crack down. The NCAA pretends it doesnt exist.</p>

<p>As for the "exclusivity" argument - you have to be kidding me. The way Rileydog phrases it, when I'm picking roommates in the future or say . . . getting married, I shouldn't pick people I like or people I get along with - I should pick a name out of a hat. That's completely ridiculous. If I am going to be living with someone for the next two and a half years, I'm sorry if it is someone I want to get along with. I think most colleges let you choose who you room with after frosh year and how many of you parents on this board are currently living with people who were randomly chosen for you as opposed to people you chose? Did you pick your spouses out of a hat? Or did you have written criteria as to what your spouse needs to be like? This is one argument I simply don't understand - why should we let someone live with us who we don't get along with? As for this leading to cookie-cutter fraternities. My fraternity is three times as diverse as the school I go to. Our percentages of black, hispanic and jewish brothers are all higher than the percentage of those students in the school. And my pledge class is proud to have the highest GPA of any of last year's pledge classes - one much higher than the non-Greek average. In fact, half of my pledge brothers are here on merit scholarships (including me) and I go to a top 20 LAC. We have a meeting tonight - one of our main topics of discussion is going to be our involvement with the charity organization Up Til Dawn - which works with St. Jude's (cancer research). We have an officer whose soul job is to organize charity events and keep track of the charity work all our members have been doing. If it weren't for Greek organizations, there would be a lot less charity work done at this school. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Beware the Greeks. They come banging on the door as soon as you drop your freshmen kids off.

[/quote]
Actually earlier than that, most of my fraternity showed up for move-in day to help freshmen and their parents move in. And considering we have winter rush and you get a chance to adjust to the school before formal recruitment, I wouldn't say we're exactly preying on the freshmen.</p>

<p>But my main point in this post is the ridiculousness of the exclusivity argument. I don't see one reason why I should accept as my brother someone I don't get along with. And shocking as it is, I can get along with people who don't look, think, or act like me (otherwise I wouldn't get along with most people at my school)</p>

96

<p>Here's my youngest son's take on frats:</p>

<p>Mom, remember in third grade when I was never allowed in those dumb clubs the kids invented? Now that I am grown up, why would I want to LIVE with those kids?</p>

<p>I thought it was pretty funny.</p>

97

<p>MAckenzie, PM me if you like. I am of the parental category so would have no idea who you are, but I might know which school you are speaking of.</p>

98

<p>Mackenzie,</p>

<p>sent you a pm (private mail...check your messages in the top corner of the screen).</p>

99

<p>mackenzie</p>

<p>How terrible.</p>

<p>BTW... I dont' think that Fountain knows you; I think that Fountain is just familiar with that particular tradition.</p>

<p>That sorority needs to be reported - to the campus, to national, to panhellenic.</p>

<hr>

<p>BTW -- while I was pledging, our chapter president was Jewish -- I never thought anything about it until the above posts. I still keep in touch with her; I'll ask her if she ever encountered any prejudice in the sorority.</p>

100

<p>A point of clarification to post #87, Theta Chi is not a "Jewish frat". (My 100% Irish father and uncle would be very surprised to hear if it were). Like many frats today, it is open to those of all faiths, and it now has a sizable number of Jewish members (this was not the case many years ago).</p>

<p>I'm not a frat/sorority person, and one of the reasons I picked the college I went to was that it had done away with frats 10 years before I got there. </p>

<p>My son is currently pledging a fraternity. While I don't think I'll ever "get it", I was pleasantly surprised to find that the process at his school today is much more open and accepting than described in many of the posts above. All sophomores who rush are guaranteed at least one bid; all of the houses are religiously and racially diverse. Some of this environment is probably due to the increased oversight of Greek life by this particular school.</p>

<p>Mackenzie's story above is just terrible.</p>