<p>This reminds me of my days at Penn State - some sorority sisters and I were at a fraternity party when some guy came up to me and started talking. When he found out what sorority I was from, his response was, “But you’re not fat.” My sorority was in the process of rebuilding but we couldn’t get away from the reputation from the past. I loved my sorority there.</p>
<p>^^cyclone, the OP IS at Penn State…</p>
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<p>I believe you. Although I was in one of the so-called “popular” houses, I honestly was a little envious of the girls in the lower-profile houses because their sisterhood seemed so pure and devoid of external pressures to compete or impress.</p>
<p>Or you can bypass it all by simply not joining a sorority. There <em>is</em> life outside the Greek system. Funny, when I was in college I never paid any attention to it at all. I did things like work, study, hang out with friends, join clubs, go to farmers’ market, take long bike rides, etc. As I look at the little US News pie charts, it strikes me that at many schools the percentage of students in fraternities and sororities is quite low.</p>
<p>Oh, perish the thought. ;-)</p>
<p>The Greek system is very similar to finding a church. There are good ones and bad ones. Lots of good people are in them, and lots of terrible people. And some people get what they want out of college without joining. I loved my chapter of my fraternity, but I wouldn’t have joined the chapters of the same fraternity at nearby schools because we didn’t get on as well.</p>
<p>This whole thread is why my D told Naviance she did not want it to include schools with frats/sororities on the list of possible schools it was making up for her.</p>
<p>^Your D ruled out most of the top schools in the country, then.</p>
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<p>“Son of Opie”, Religion is a scam, it’s one man’s foolish idea adopted by others. I don’t think it has any relevance to this discussion. </p>
<p>I think world would have been a better place without it.</p>
<p>I can’t say the same about Sororrities/Fraternities.</p>
<p>^ I did say “church”, not religion. There’s a very subtle but important difference. Replace church with “Elks Lodge”, “Rugby Team”, “Book Club” etc. and you get a better idea of what I mean.</p>
<p>^^^: You need to enlighten me with the true meaning of Church.</p>
<p>I googled/yahoo/bing/… and all I could find point to some relevance to religion.</p>
<p>^^Religion is a person’s set of beliefs in the supernatural or a higher power that has some influence or importance in his/her life. Church is an organization of people with the same or similar religious beliefs.</p>
<p>Instead of simply “religion”, a better synonym for Church would be an “organized religion.”</p>
<p>I really respect Bay for posting what she did, saying how she sort of envied those girls in the less ranked sororities because there was less airs and trying to impress. It is admirable that someone would admit that. </p>
<p>This statement alone should help the OP feel delighted to be in her down to earth sorority where there are no airs and girls can be themselves. </p>
<p>And nobody has to pretend to be perfect in order to “fit in” like they do to the higher ranked sorority. Because isn’t being perfect (beautiful, skinny, perfect hair, peppy, involved, smart, well dressed) what higher ranked sororities strive for?</p>
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This is not such a bad analogy, because it seems to me that a college is like a town. If you’re a Baptist or a Methodist, you will probably find a church you like in a small town in the South. If you are a Swedenborgian, you might not find a church you like. If you are an atheist, you might find that that the town doesn’t have much for you at all.
I have trouble taking comments like that very seriously–it’s too much like rich people saying they envy the poor because they don’t have to worry about their investments.</p>
<p>OP, you are never going to be happy if you worry about what other people think of you. There are very few things you can control in life, and what other people think is definitely not one of the things you can control. If you are happy, be happy. Stop wasting your time and your energy on real or imagined slights.</p>