But how could they not? What are they going to do, have students sleeping on the floor?
I hope this thread doesnât devolve into a food fight because, like it or not, greek life is part of the landscape on many college campuses today.
While I have been accused elsewhere of âdominating the thread with support for these organizations,â I am actually pretty ambivalent about the role that GLOs play in the social life of university students. When my daughter decided to pledge, I made it my business to find out about how the system works. What I found online was a lot of hyperbole on both sides. Like everything, I think the reality is somewhere in between. Iâd like to see a discussion that provides information that could actually help kids and families make decisions about greek life based on that reality.
@Marian, at other schools some girls just donât get to live in the house. Most of the time it is based on grades. The members with the highest grades get to pick their rooms first. The ones that donât get a bed have to find off campus housing or live in the dorms.
edited to add - At least with the schools that I am familiar with, only sophomores live in the house. Itâs not like Animal House where every member lives in the fraternity house.
@Marian That was a misconception I had, too. I assumed that most houses were just thatâhouses where the people in the sororities or fraternities lived. At many schools thatâs not the case. At Dâs school, the âsorority houseâ is a floor in one of the dorms, and most girls donât live there.
This sounds good. I have a friend however, who told me that at her daughterâs school, the T shirts given out were all size small or x small, so it was more apparent who was thinner and who was heavier. 
It was a calculated thing by the sororities.
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@surfcity Wow. Just wow.
I donât think posters need resumes, but examples would be helpful. Maybe people who have been in the system, or know someone who has, could explain what the recruitment process is like at the houses they know about for those who havenât experienced it. Which houses have you had experience with and what do they do thatâs âphysically and mentally gruelingâ?
I only know of two houses. One of my sisters was in Sigma Chi in FL in the 70âs. She loved it. I didnât care for the set up because they had a fraternity matched up with each sorority and the frat members were referred to as âbig brothersâ while the sorority members were called âlittle sisters.â I thought that was pretty sexist. If they wanted to encourage a familial relationship, why not just use âbrotherâ and âsisterâ? Why put the women in a subordinate role? It seemed like the fraternity existed to be doers and the sorority existed to be helpers. My sisterâs descriptions of their activities sounded like the men were training to be executives and the women were training to be their supportive secretaries or wives.
The only fraternity I know of is the one in the Northeast that my husband pledged at, also in the 70âs. He and a couple friends were engineering majors and the frat (whose chapter name I donât know) purposely kept them up all night the evening before a major exam. The boys all failed so badly that they were dropped from the major.
I donât believe that the behavior of one chapter should reflect badly on other chapters or that sororities or fraternities are inherently bad. There has to be some measure of personal responsibility. My sister didnât have to settle for being what I consider a second class citizen. My husband could have walked out anytime he wanted. The boy in the thread ucbalumnus posted a link to could have accepted that knowing not all students would get a bid meant that he might be one of them. I think the way the frat handled it was horrible; they should have let the boys they werenât giving bids to out early so they could make the rounds at other parties. But no fair trying to join an exclusive club then crying foul that theyâre exclusive. We need to do a better job of teaching our young people to stick up for themselves. I was reserved and shy as a teen, so I get it, but mindlessly engaging in an activity thatâs not in your best interest because somebody else told you to is reminiscent of the grade school ploy, âIf you do x, Iâll be your friend.â If young people are still falling for it when they get to college, weâre doing something wrong.
This is what I consider to be physically and mentally grueling, especially for an incoming freshman. Here is the first day of a five day recruitment schedule for a large SEC school. All days start at 6am. An âeventâ is a visit to a house.
6 a.m. Breakfast
7 a.m. Meet buses
Event 1: 8 â 8:20
Event 2: 8:35 â 8:55
Event 3: 9:10 â 9:30
Event 4: 9:45 â 10:05
Break
Event 5: 10:30 â 10:50
Event 6: 11:05 â 11:25
Event 7: 11:40 â 12:00
Noon â 1 p.m. Lunch
1 p.m. Meet buses
Event 8: 1:45 â 2:05
Event 9: 2:20 â 2:40
Event 10: 2:55 â 3:15
Event 11: 3:30 â 3:50
In my opinion, many (not all) colleges have a Greek system because students involved in activities (like Greek life) tend to return the following year(s) rather than transfer/drop out. Itâs in the interests of colleges to have a Greek system.
I really like Pizzagirlâs posts and comments. I canât name specific colleges that I think have a âharshâ Greek system.
Since this thread is about naming names, however, I will give my secondhand perspective of the sorority rush process at Rollins. The goal is for every potential new member (PNM) join a sorority. There are more slots than PNMs. Rush doesnât begin until second semester. There doesnât seem to be any hazing or looking down on non-Greeks. If you want to join⊠fine; if not, thatâs fine too. These are all good things.
Hereâs my observation: donât assume that the Greek system at one college is similar to that at another college. Donât assume that the Greek system at a particular college today is similar to the Greek system at that same college in the past. Donât assume that all of the fraternities or sororities at a particular college are similar to each other. Donât assume that individual chapters of national fraternities or sororities are similar to each other.
Re: post 27
Students arenât required to visit every house, are they? Whatâs to stop them from just doing just events 1, 3, 5, 8, and 10, or whatever other combination they want?
If you do not know anyone who is already in a sorority, how do you find out when rush is and how long it lasts? How do you know which sororities require recommendations or whether special wardrobing is needed for certain events? Do you have to pay a fee to rush â where do you find that out?
Also, anyone have insight on the ethnic sororities? Do they rush the same time as the traditional sororities or do they have their own schedules?
CAMidwestMom, your son should investigate whether summer rush is common at his school. Many SEC fraternities will have events in various cities to get to know the freshmen. Houses that do this will already know who they want before the formal rush period.
Austinmshauri, women must go to every event they are invited to at every house or they will be removed from the process. They have to give everyone a chance and vice versa. It is beyond grueling â and remember that this involves walking all over campus all day in beautiful hair/clothes in 98 degree heat in places like Baton Rouge, Tallahassee, and Tuscaloosa in August.
Indiana is the only school left in the country with a bed quota, and even it is changing a little bit (there are a few unhoused sororities). Everyone else uses a quota system. Some of the SEC schools like Ole Miss and Alabama have excellent placement rates, over 90% of women who start the process join. They do a pretty good job letting students know how to prepare over the summer.
@PragmaticMom, you can easily Google the information. Most schools will have official recruitment webpages and guides.
Isnât the high level of racial (self-)segregation within some campusesâ systems itself an undesirable characteristic?
@ucbalumnus: If significant social capital is tied to greek membership on that particular campus, Iâd want my daughter to explore all the options, including ethnic sororities if they exist.
Iâm going out on a limb here, but my inter-racial child may âfindâ better fit with an Asian sorority perhaps. Or, maybe the ethnic sororities are more eager to add members and therefore easier to get into?
@deega123 â where do you start if you donât know what the names of the sororities are?
@Hanna The summer rush is in late July and by the fact that it fills to capacity every year, I would say itâs pretty popular. I know he has texted his friend in the one house and has texted with the President and been invited up for a visit. There is informal rush, but I donât know anything about it. I know Greek is big at his school, but I myself have no experience with it and my older Dâs experience was, during week of welcome she texted me that she decided to rush because you get a free t shirt. She really liked one group right off the bat and got into that sorority, no recs no hair dressing etc.
Anyway, I donât want to get over involved, but I also want to know what heâs in for.
@PragmaticMom Just Google the name of the school + fraternity recruitment or sorority recruitment. The recruitment process is run by Greek oversight organizations, not the individual sororities or fraternities. IFC is for frats, Panhellenic is for sororities. All the info for a particular school should be on the IFC or the Panhellenic web pages.
What I am suggesting is that, for someone interested in joining, a campus where it is common for fraternities and sororities to have members of different race/ethnicity from their historical race/ethnicity (e.g. non-white people in historically white chapters, non-black people in historically black chapters, non-Asian people in historically Asian chapters, non-Latino people in historically Latino chapters, etc.) may be more desirable than one where it is unusual for that to happen.