<p>Psych, it is good that there are some sororities that don’t care about looks, wealth, clothes, ethnicity, etc. But from UCLA & USC to Auburn and Vanderbilt, to Northwestern and schools in the Northeast, it does occur. Frequently.</p>
<p>Pizza, frats & sororities can get away with using criteria that would get an employer sued…for the pattern, not just the policy. No, it’s not just like an employer or college admissions.</p>
<p>It’s all Greek to me.</p>
<p>Why must a good experience by an exception to the rule, TheDad? Biased, much? (And yes, I do admit there are some negative sorority experiences—heck, I went to college utterly sure that I would NEVER would–or maybe even could–go Greek.) If people don’t want to join a sorority, cool. But please don’t stereotype all sororities and their members as petty, vain, wealthy, mean, etc.</p>
<p>I’ve hesitated to post on this thread because I have such mixed feelings about the Greek thing. I just don’t understand its appeal - but the people I love most and am proudest of do. My ds are not petty, vain, mean, or wealthy (I can prove it). The two youngest did join sororities. We always say that the oldest joined a fraternity instead - she adopted a house early during her freshman year, eventually became a Little Sister, and her closest guy friends are still people she met there 8 years ago.</p>
<p>My kids have tried to educate me about Greek life, and I have come to see the advantages. I should say that in no universe could I ever, ever have been admitted to a sorority - not cute enough, don’t care about clothes, and hate parties. But I went to a college without a Greek scene, which has compounded my bafflement - now I’m too old to really understand.</p>
<p>The professional advantages to my ds have already been apparent. The d who had a Greek leadership position traveled extensively to conferences, met many prominent people, and gained a lot of public speaking experience and professional polish. Of course there are other ways to obtain these things, but Greek life is where she obtained them. The personal advantages are many, as well. The most profound for my youngest d has been the Big Sister-Family thing, which pairs new members with older ones who introduce them to their network of friends, make sure they’re included socially early on in freshman year, and even rush them to the airport when the taxi doesn’t show up. Yes, there are other ways to obtain these things, but Greek life is a very sure place to obtain them. </p>
<p>Ironically enough, considering the prevailing Greek = excessive alcohol mindset, my youngest d’s Greek family supported her through a negative experience with her freshman hallmates who pressured her to party frequently first semester, then excluded her when she didn’t. (This group, including d’s roommate, later wound up being disciplined for alcohol infractions.) D was very unhappy and later told us she’d have thought about transferring if she didn’t know there was a place to go (her chapter house) where people didn’t badmouth her for staying sober and “excessive” studying. :rolleyes: </p>
<p>What most people, and certainly I, dislike/don’t understand about Greek life is the selection system. Even if I could get past the idea of judging people on the basis of a 10-minute conversation and what kind of shoes they’re wearing, I don’t see how this can possibly result in finding sisters for life. I think it would result in finding people with similar taste in shoes with good small talk skills. And when proponents of Greek life point out that rushing reflects life, or is good practice for life, because it’s a competition and competition is good, I always wonder - isn’t there enough competition in life already?</p>
<p>But to those who “know” that the Greek system is a haven for the mean and petty and superficial - it seems to me just as superficial to judge folks negatively because they’re wearing Greek letter T-shirts. And at those colleges with secret societies and eating clubs - aren’t the same kinds of social judgments being made? </p>
<p>Not expecting that I’ll ever figure this out, by the way.</p>
<p>But that’s how ALL people form friendships - based off perceived compatibility after small talk. The small talk during rush isn’t appreciably different from the small talk in hanging around the dorm, eating lunch in the cafeteria, walking across campus. Hi, nice to meet you, where are you from, what are you majoring in, gosh this weather is so nice, have you seen this movie. It just occurs in a structured space and gives people the opportunity to meet more people than they would if they just relied on who was in the same dorm. </p>
<p>As for the comments about shoes, etc. I think people do self select based on how others present themselves, but it works both ways whether it’s jeans and concert tees or sweater sets and pearls.</p>
<p>If sororities were abolished tomorrow, people would still form friendships based on similar interests and mutual self selection.</p>
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<p>Why on earth do you think that the selection process is the same thing as forming a friendship? I have never met a fraternity or sorority member who didn’t have plenty of friends outside their own house.</p>
<p>If the chapter has a physical house, the selection process is also about selecting a roommate. I certainly have friends that I would not want to live with. Even if there is no physical house, it’s not about the capacity of individual members to be friends with individual rushees, it’s about whether the rushee will fit into a complex existing structure.</p>
<p>And again, it goes both ways. Rushees, and recruitees during informal recruitment, reject fraternities and sororities that give them bids or show interest in them all the time. I rejected a sorority that tried to recruit me (and that certainly didn’t mean that I was rejecting the friendship of people in that sorority!).</p>
<p>I don’t consider myself either pro-Greek or anti-Greek (and I wasn’t Greek, so I have no self-defensive axe to grind here). I am, however, pro-finding-a-group-that-feels-like-family. Unfortunately, in many colleges, with randomized housing systems and similar nonsense, it can be hard to get that without going Greek, since physical proximity does matter for finding that sort of group. I say “unfortunately” because I believe in options, and I would like all college students who want that sort of family to be able to find it whether they wish to go Greek or not, to have that option as I did.</p>
<p>I could never get past the whole ‘paying for friends’ description of the Greek purpose - though I had a few friends who pledged. Also, I was in engineering where I could count the Greek participants on one-hand. </p>
<p>"If sororities were abolished tomorrow, people would still form friendships based on similar interests and mutual self selection. "</p>
<p>Of course, this is true, but when a group of people are introduced to a new person in ‘normal’ society they don’t hold a meeting to decide if that person is high enough quality or pretty enough to be their ‘friend’. That is the bizarre part to me.</p>
<p>I guess it probably varies, but I have a couple of questions about sororities:
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<p>I guess that was my concern when I started this thread. Since my D is an RA, she lives in a single. If she continues to be an RA, she will always be in a single with a new group of students each year. I thought maybe a sorority would provide that “family.” But, as I said , it is her decision only.</p>
<p>This thread was never meant to be anti or pro greek. The decision was left to each of my kids w/ my promise not to try to influence them either way. S was in a fraternity and loved it. Both D’s are said no to a sorority.</p>
<p>“I want to be your friend, and the current sorority sisters would think about that and say yes or no.”</p>
<p>I just want to point out that Greek life is not about friendship, it is about sister/brother/siblinghood. There is a difference. There are plenty of people I am friends with who I wouldn’t want as a member of my greek society, because despite their good qualities, they have bad qualities that mean I wouldn’t want to extend to them the same kind of unconditional (within reason) trust and respect that I am supposed to try to extend to my siblings. And, there are plenty of people who don’t get bids for my Greek that remain friends with many members.</p>
<p>That said, we don’t do a formal rush, and are on a campus where only a small number of people have ANY interest in greek life, so we actually have a chance to get to know people fairly well before we decide (and also will accept anyone of any year, which means people have many chances to get a bid). But the point is, we decide not on whether someone is “high quality” (and certainly not based on looks AT ALL), but on whether they have the specific qualities that make them a fit for our group and its goals. </p>
<p>I guess my point is that all Greek life is not the same, and it’s not quite about friendship – I have siblings who are not friends, and friends that I wouldn’t want as a sibling.</p>
<p>But, back to the OP; going Greek can be great, but only if if feels like the right thing. If your daughter’s gut is telling her no, than I’m sure things will work out. As much as I love my Greek experience, I’m sure that on most campus’s I would have no interest.</p>
<p>I know a girl who left Vanderbilt after freshman year, in part because she was disgusted with her sorority. In my opinion, she seemed like the stereotype sorority girl, but she was put off by going through facebook and having to agree on which girls were cute enough to get bids. She told me some real horror stories. I know this is just one small story, but it turned her off on the whole university.
My daughter works on the Vanderbilt campus (she is a grad student there) and she said a lot of the undergrads with whom she works/interacts aren’t that happy with their sororities. They come up with all sorts of excuses to miss meetings and “required” events and say that the time commitment is overwhelming.</p>
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<p>You may not “hold a meeting” but you’re going through the screening process in your own head in the same way. Is this someone that I think I would get along with, have something in common with, want to get to know better, have shared interests, have a general approach / outlook on life that is compatible with mine? Everyone in a dorm, for example, doesn’t immediately become best buddies with everyone else – people realize who they click with, and who they don’t, and go from there.</p>
<p>Anyway, no one is possibly “friends” with all the girls in a sorority, and that’s fine. Just like any large group of people, you’ll love some, like some, and be “eh” towards some. Nothing prevents you from having friends outside a house, though, so what’s the problem? It’s only a problem if you think that the ChiO’s don’t talk to the TriDelts or whatever, but that seems linked to an overall school culture.</p>
<p>I know someone in a sorority at Vandy who reports the same thing. Which I think is reflective of Vandy and southern culture, but cannot be translated to other campuses necessarily. The questions posed upfront in post #48 are ONLY relevant in a given campus experience.
For example, I would have answered them as such:</p>
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<p>I was a rush counselor. It was very, very rare for a girl to be dropped by all houses - there was generally always a place for everyone. The ultimate end quota for the houses was determined by adding up the # of girls who had gotten to the final stage and dividing by the # of houses, so there was a place for everyone even if it might not have been her top choice. So if there were 300 girls at the final stage and 10 houses, quota was set at 30. If a girl “suicided” and only preffed one house and didn’t get it, that was her choice, but if she put 3 houses she’d get in one of them.</p>
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Mild, innocuous stuff (games and the like). Nothing dangerous, nothing that interfered with academics at all. We wouldn’t have stood for that.<br>
Sure, why wouldn’t they? We were active in other things on campus (clubs, sports, student organizations - why wouldn’t we socialize with people we met through those venues?<br>
Not mutually exclusive. There were weekly mixers with frats that you attended or didn’t as you saw fit, and (in our case) 3 dances a year - some formal, others informal. The girls at my house are currently building a Habitat for Humanity house. Each sorority has a philanthropy. Plenty of opportunity to gain leadership, esp for those who weren’t able to gain leadership by being president-of-student-council in high school. </p>
<p>It’s all so campus-specific. You just can’t make too many global statements about the Greek system.</p>
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<p>Totally agree. I would encourage someone to give it a try, but if their gut says no, then that’s that.</p>
<p>“I guess that was my concern when I started this thread. Since my D is an RA, she lives in a single. If she continues to be an RA, she will always be in a single with a new group of students each year. I thought maybe a sorority would provide that “family.” But, as I said , it is her decision only”</p>
<p>I think that anyone who is selected to be an RA has excellent social skills, and would not have a problem finding friends. </p>
<p>S had considered being an RA, and was concerned about having a single because he wanted roommates.He learned that on his campus, RAs could have doubles if they preferred to have a double, but most RAs wanted the perk of getting a free single.</p>