<p>are the RA's strict or pretty lax? when does like frat/sorority rush and all that stuff happen? what kind of things do you do at orientation?</p>
<p>Not a good place to ask this question. PM a moderater like roger_dooley explaining how you put it in the wrong area and asking him to move it.</p>
<p>RAs can be either way. Most are fairly lax. One of my RAs is completely apathetic and wouldn't move if you set a bomb off in front of his door. My other RA is so chill she will hang out with us and even drinks with kids on the hall on occasion. RAs 1. don't want to make extra work for themselves, and 2. are college students just like you who want to do the same things you do. As mine said, "we'll write you up if you put us in a bad situation. Don't walk down the hallway drinking from a bottle of vodka, or throw the cans from your 30 pack in the hall trash room. If you're screaming with 10 friends about pouring more shots from inside your room and we hear you down the hall, we're going to have to investigate." A perfect example of this is an RA (the one who is chill and drinks with the residents on occasion) who was walking down a hall with the RHS (residence hall director, aka the big boss) and the RHD goes "do you smell that?" referring to the faint marajuana fumes coming through someone's door. the RA had no choice but to write the kid up for smoking pot in his room. However, the same RHD, once saw one of the infamous red or blue party cups in someones hand as the kid came out of a room, hung a u turn, and went right back in. the RHD knocked on the door because the kid acted mad suspicious, and the kids took like 30 seconds to hide stuff before they opened the door. the RDH came in, glanced around and said, "Be careful, alright girls?" because she was chill, they weren't being disruptive or particularly irresponsible, etc., and the RHD knew they probably wouldn't be a problem. However, there is one nazi RA in court who the other RAs get mad at because he writes so many kids up for stupid stuff like breathing too loud, etc. ;)</p>
<p>According to the greek life website/handbook "recruitment is a year round process" (paraphrase). greek members will be friendly with you all freshman year long, because young blood is what keeps the greek system alive. Official rush week is the last week of winter break. you go around to the houses, meet the guys/girls, and have a good time. At the end you sign a bid from one of the houses which offered one to you, and then the second semester is the pledge process of hazing and stuff like that. Starting your sophomore year you're a full brother or sister. For girls, rush is annoying becuse you have to look pretty and try and get sororities to want you and it's cold and you're in a skirt, and for guys rush is really chill--just drinking, strippers, and the frat guys trying to get you to like them. (frats compete for male pledges, while female pledges compete for sororities). The pledge process is happy and friendly for the most part for girls, and a bit of a b**ch for guys. It's all in the name of bonding and commitment, but being locked in the frat house for a week (this is called "hell week" i think) and driven to only your required appointments, classes, etc., and not able to see anybody else, yeah that might suck. But it's nothing that bad. As one brother said, if they ask you to do something you don't feel comfortable doing, just don't do it--nobody is forcing you.</p>
<p>So yeah, rush is the last week of winter break. Some students think they will complain about coming back a week early, but in truth you're coming back a week early for a week full of PARTYING and FUN. Stop whining. would you rather be sitting with your parents for the fifth week in a row?</p>
<p>At orientation you do what I said in post #2 of this thread: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=127636%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=127636</a></p>
<p>That all sounds very fun and amusing, but as a mom I'm thinking I might not really love to finance it. Perhaps I can tell my son the frat thing is his choice, but he'll have to pay the dues. And that begs the question, approximately what are frat dues, annually??</p>
<p>A fraternity from a parental point of view can best be viewed as a residence, meal plan, social club/network, and investment in employment connections.</p>
<p>The cost of living in a fraternity with a frat meal plan is often less than living in an apartment or in campus housing with a campus meal plan. Financial aid, if available to you, will cover fraternity living in the same ways it covered on campus living.</p>
<p>Also, while a being in a fraternity may include partying, a big part of fraternity life is the regular activities the brothers do together, which range from inter-house sports to community service. If alcohol is part of your son's lifestyle, I don't think you'll be financing it more just because his house is an official organization as opposed to an informal group of guys who chose to live together at the end of freshman year; if you give him spending money for food and groceries, don't assume all of it must be going to lettuce and none is going to liquor.......</p>
<p>I'm not saying this is your mentality, but to think of a fraternity solely as a party locale and drinking club is a closed minded sort of view, especially at an elite academic institution such as cornell where the greek GPA is comparable to the overall GPA.</p>
<p>However, if you still feel that you are uncomfortable financing "fun" perhaps it *is[i/] reasonable that your son pay for his dues. I think that if you really object, despite the many non-partying, redeeming aspects of fraternity life, the fairest thing to do is have your son pay part of his dues (maybe a 50/50 split or something), as you probably don't object to wholesome fun, but just the more debasing and irresponsible forms of it.</p>
<p>There is an article in today's Cornell Daily Sun <a href="http://www.cornellsun.com%5B/url%5D">www.cornellsun.com</a> telling about how Cornell's Greek system swept all the awards in the regional leadership meeting last weekend. The university is working hard and devoting some serious financial resources to making fraternities and sororities more constructive members of the Cornell community. Maybe some of their efforts are paying off. </p>
<p>There is also a ton of information in the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs (under Student Life, I believe) about each chapter, chapter GPA, hours of community service and a million other statistics. I can't find it on the website, but I received a hard copy not long ago. Anyway, maybe Sparticus can unearth it. It does give you a good idea about which fraternities might be more desirable, at least from a parent's point of view! I believe my sorority affiliation provided a wonderful community within such a large university (a million years ago), but, with a son matriculating next year, I am much more worried about the fraternity scene.</p>
<p>my fraternity is doing a 24 hour skiing challenge at the local mountain to raise money to fight cancer next weekend. just an anecdotal example.</p>
<p>that sounds sick! you guys take shifts just skiing?!</p>
<p>yeah... that's right :-)</p>
<p>Ah, very cool! I haven't gone skiing in a while...</p>