<p>But frat members have maturity issues? Your numerous references to crashing parties do not paint a very pleasant picture.</p>
<p>In any case, you need to understand that there is a difference between rush activities and random parties throughout the year. Speaking as someone who has seen rush week at a Boston-area fraternity from the inside, and over several years, the events are designed to provide opportunity to have fun AND get to know the rushees. They are not drunken brawls. (Actually, over those years I don’t think I ever saw a frat party that was a drunken brawl.)</p>
<p>My brother stopped to watch a fight going on outside a frat house between two members on a Saturday night (he was a senior at the college where I was a freshman, and he was walking over to my dorm to visit me – the frat house was on the way). The brawl spread into the crowd and one of the frat guys smashed his face into the sidewalk, busting all his front teeth. He sued the frat and won. Yes, frat parties do turn into drunken brawls.</p>
<p>I attended plenty of fraternity parties that included drunken brawls…I don’t remember any fraternity parties that were focused on earnestly getting to know each other. Let’s recall some of the themes: Decline of Western Civilization, Redneck Wedding, Tiny Toga…</p>
<p>Did I say that no frat parties anywhere were ever drunken brawls? No, I did not.</p>
<p>I also never saw this frat hold a theme party. Ever.</p>
<p>But this was the 70s and this was MIT. BTW, I am not saying that substances were not consumed and that no one was ever drunk or high. Far from it.</p>
<p>Different time and MIT frats IME aren’t very typical of frats at many other colleges.* </p>
<p>Most MIT friends and colleagues who pledged at MIT have stated openly that they would have never considered joining a frat/sorority and/or never have gotten accepted during rush if they had attended college elsewhere with strong Pan-Hellenic presences…especially in colleges like UA. </p>
<ul>
<li>Nearly every MIT student/alum I’ve met who brought up frats/sororities mentioned how many MIT students pledge to ensure they’ll have housing in their upperclass years considering the skyrocketing off-campus housing costs and perceived shortage of campus housing for upperclassmen.</li>
</ul>
There is a difference between an open party (to the public) vs small mixers or gatherings just for potential pledges. Mixers between a fraternity and a sorority are not open to the public. It provides an opportunity for small number of people to socialize and get to know each other better. My kid’s sorority has mixers with fraternities as well as with sports teams. Fraternities also invite few potential pledges to their house for “smoke” or dinners.</p>
<p>I agree. But you were the one who was describing all of the “drunken brawls” you crashed and the “vandalism” at “Boston area fraternities.” I’m just pointing out that the picture you paint is one-sided.</p>
<p>RUSH events were, to repeat, designed to give potential pledges and brothers a chance to get to know each other. I think I have probably attended a hell of a lot more than you have! (At that time, there was no such thing as a fraternity/sorority mixer at MIT. There was at least one coed house–Number Six, at which I knew some people–but I don’t think there were any sororities.)</p>
<p>Oh good grief. Just because I could be / was friends with women outside my sorority doesn’t mean that I would wind up being friendly with <em>any random person.</em> Tell me, is that how you form your friendships IRL? Just randomly? Whoever is around? No common interests or shared sense of humor / approach? Anyone will do? Somehow I doubt it. </p>
<p>Being assigned to a dorm IS the equivalent of pulling names out of a hat. So does that mean you’ll automatically wind up being BFF’s with everyone in your dorm? Of course not. Subgroups emerge naturally of people who like and gravitate towards one another. That’s all the Greek system is. It’s not as though you can eliminate that fact.</p>
<p>I think random selection is one of the dumbest ideas, because that’s not how people form friendships. I don’t know you can possibly jump from “yes, you can be friends with women in other sororities, it’s no big deal” to “and therefore, your friendships should be randomly assigned, numbers from a hat.”</p>
<p>From the student’s point of view, the people who populate your floor in the general frosh dorm may seem like random selection. Whether one becomes friendly with them is another story.</p>
<p>PG: in real life I participate in several different social groups which have absolutely nothing in common with each other. There are very few reasons I wouldn’t try to be friends with someone who was interested in being friends with me. I don’t want to be friends with evil people but I don’t run into too many so it’s not a real problem. You might not want to hang out with me in real life, but if you did that would be fine with me. A neighbor who comes by frequently for coffee or cocktails has been telling me for the last month how dumb my current renovation project is. I will introduce you. Maybe you will like her. :)</p>
<p>Someone or a group who tried pulling that in our dorms would rightly be regarded and condemned harshly as jerks and acting a bit “too middle school”</p>
<p>In most dorms at my LAC, they’ll not only invite everyone whose door was open, they’d usually leave a few taped notes and send emails with the location so people whose doors were closed/away knew where to join us.</p>
Pizzagirl, you really don’t see the difference between people naturally gravitating toward one another and forming friendships over time vs. formally applying to be part of a defined social group and then being officially told that you either were or were not deemed acceptable? C’mon now…</p>
<p>" wonder if you have the time and interest to describe how rush works in the NPHC? And the purpose/mission of the sororities? To compare and contrast NPHC and NPC? I am particularly interested in the difference in approaches to philanthropy and service"</p>
<p>Things have changed a lot since I was undergrade. We no longer use the word “pledging”; it is called “intake”</p>
<p>This is the “official” word at UA. I have no other details about intake at the undergrad level to share </p>
<p>With regard to the “mission”, again, I will share the “official” word, but I can add this; these organizations are really important in our communities.</p>
<p>Even I wouldn’t have thought to compare how sororities work to typical mean girl behavior, which you would think most girls had grown out of by the time they got to college.</p>
<p>Garland, it is the same behavior. Sanctioned with a bow on top… but nonetheless, it is behavior that is actually not allowed in even the elementary school my kids went to.</p>
<p>IRL, that’s exactly how I approach friendships. IMO, each person is a potential new hangout buddy, fountain of information*, and interesting experiences. </p>
<p>To me, using artificial socially exclusive criteria to place barriers to making friends with those who may not fit without actually verifying it through a few encounters is like judging a book solely by the color/design of its cover. Makes no sense.</p>
<ul>
<li>That’s the NTJ side asserting itself. :)</li>
</ul>
Maybe you will like her. :)</p>