<p>I heard they were creating a new rule saying that Freshmen weren't allowed to be at open parties, is this rule followed? and is it causing changes in the social scene?</p>
<p>As someone who just graduated, I’m actually curious as well. The Sun reported that there was a huge increase in C-town violations during O-week, although since frats were never (at least while I was there) allowed to have open parties during O-week, that might not be related. </p>
<p>My prediction has always been this rule is going to absolutely decimate the Greek system. I’m sure it will still exist, but I wouldn’t be surprised if instead of having 30% of the student population, that’s cut down to 10-15%. Most people are introduced to Greek life through open parties with crappy beer. Without that freshman year, I think a lot more people will think they can avoid the system. Quite honestly for most people, first semester freshman year if you’re a partier, you’re mostly going to frats. Second semester you decide to join. If you don’t, then you usually end up doing more C-town parties or stuff with your non-frat friends. And by junior year (or sophomore), you are never/rarely going to a frat.</p>
<p>I can speak from personal experience as a sophomore. This year, I live in Collegetown, and every weekend night freshmen always appear and create a large presence in the area. A lot of them search in vain for open annex parties, and quite honestly a real good party is a rarity in C’Town, but they have nowhere else to go. Unsurprisingly, Ithaca Police have been very active weekend nights.</p>
<p>As for the upperclassmen that aren’t in the Greek system (although even some Greek folks–namely some sorority girls–have issues finding events…), they tend to find and go to open events at frats. These events do have security personnel equipped with ID scanners that can check the year of students; and the few frats that have had open events so far have been very serious about not letting freshmen into events. As for the folks old enough to be at bars, that’s where they are, and their presence is somewhat negligible.</p>
<p>Really, that sucks, it sounds like Cornell’s party scene is going down the drain, because from what I’ve heard about recent years is that there were huge parties, now it sounds like being a freshmen, it’s a lot harder to party.</p>
<p>Somehow I have faith that 18-20 year old college students will use figure something out…</p>
<p>I’ve found that using a state ID instead of your college ID can get you into frat parties as a freshman</p>
<p>BUMP… so what I’m hearing is the party scene is pretty much going down the drains now?</p>
<p>LOL Quite the contrary, the party scene is amazing here! I am a senior and have seen the changes over the years. Somehow the frats are doing getting freshman in, dont know how. I’ve been to 8 different frats this year, so I swear by it! </p>
<p>Enjoying the partying,</p>
<p>Steph :)</p>