<p>Of course it’s not a closed social group. We can say this fifteen ways til Sunday and provide a million real-life anecdotes (the woman I met the other day! who was a Chi O but had just gone to a football game with a bunch of XXX’s!) but the people who don’t want to believe it won’t.</p>
<p>Anecdata: My friend N has a daughter L who is a current junior. L started college at Big State U where she joined YYY sorority. For a number of reasons unrelated to this anecdote, L decided to transfer to Second Big State U. YYY did not have a chapter there. Because L had already initiated, she was not able to go through rush and re-pledge another house (she could have if she had only de-pledged but she’d already initiated). L could have maybe lied and tried to have gotten away from it, but it wasn’t worth it. So … L is now at Second Big State U. She befriends a bunch of Thetas. She’s now living with them in an off campus apartment and doing pretty much everything with them other than going through rush and attending weekly meetings. It’s just not this pathetic little “we don’t talk to anyone who isn’t one of us” that some of you are making up out of whole cloth.</p>
<p>If I could have overlooked the heavy drinking and worries about having my cumulative GPA crash below 3.3 while attending Faber College, I’d definitely attempt to rush with the Deltas. :D</p>
<p>I’d also try rushing the Tri-Lambs from a classic series of 80’s movies…but my bid would probably be rejected for not being “nerdy enough”. :(</p>
<p>I have found it eye-opening to look at Bid Day pictures from sororities at many different colleges this month, because it never occurred to me before this story that a campus social organization would be markedly less diverse than the student population at that college.
I started wondering today (and cannot find equivalent photos to answer this question): how diverse are the secret societies at Yale, or the finals clubs at Harvard or the bicker clubs at Princeton?</p>
<p>Senior societies at Yale have been racially diverse for a long time, and are also coed now. Just how diverse they are, I don’t really know. I am not aware of it being much of an issue on campus–partly because since they are secret, and include only seniors, they don’t have much impact on campus social life.</p>
<p>siliconvalleymom - I think what is being missed with the diversity in bid day pictures is the fact that the historicall black sororities rush at a different time (100% their choice - they want it that way - at least at my dd’s school and the school I went to). So there just isn’t the AA population that chooses to rush the NPC houses. Personally, I think if all sororities were forced to rush together - therefore every girl that wanted to go through had to go to all houses - it would help. </p>
<p>Also - some are talking about sororities being “high school like”. I would say that the posters that are judging sororities that were never a member or even on a campus that had greek life are the ones behaving like high schoolers and coming to a conclusion from heresay. I say “TO EACH HIS OWN”.</p>
<p>To quote Daffy Duck, there is a lot of “pronoun trouble” in this discussion, including various uses of “it,” “we”, “they” and more. Greek systems vary from school to school, they vary over time, and individual houses vary as well. If there is one Greek system somewhere that is wonderful, and one somewhere that is horrible, then what really matters is what’s happening at the specific college one is discussing.</p>
<p>I wonder what the roots of this “separate but equal” rush period is, though. I wonder if it goes back to the time of Jim Crow laws and just has never been challenged, or not loudly or effectively enough that you have heard it.</p>
<p>Of course, but isn’t it reasonable to make some generalities? There are plenty of articles on the pros/cons of Greek life for those who are interested in the topic.</p>
My problem is that I can’t tell from what people post what is the norm, and what constitutes an outlier. So are sororities value-based organizations that look for recruits with good character, or are they hierarchical cabals dedicated to excluding fat and ugly girls? Most of the conversations appear to be between people who seem to think one or the other is the norm…but even if one is the norm, how does that help somebody trying to decide where to go to college?</p>
<p>Absolutely. There are places I’d be fine to have my kids explore Greek life, and there are places where I wouldn’t advise them to touch it with a ten-foot pole. I always wondered where the negative stereotypes came from, and now I know. I wish that the “bad seed” over-the-top systems didn’t poison the well of the normal, chill systems. And I totally applaud the young ladies at Bama for standing up to their alumnae. If I were a hiring manager, I’d be putting someone like Melanie Gotz on my to-hire list. Maybe one day they’ll have a normal, chill system instead of the amped-up one they appear to have.</p>
<p>I think one could create a continuum of low-key / a place for most everyone / join or not, you can still have a social life -----> intense / very competitive / high social hierarchy / not everyone gets in / dominates campus social life, and place various colleges along that continuum. I have watched friends’ daughters go through USC and Vanderbilt rush in the last few years, and it’s waaaaay more intense and competitive than what I see at Northwestern.</p>
<p>I think you’re right, Pizzagirl, except that there may be more than one continuum. For example, I think it’s possible that a school might have an intense and competitive rush process–but not have much of an issue with ethnic diversity. Or there might be a continuum of how integral binge drinking is to the Greek experience, and that might be different from the chill/intense continuum.</p>
<p>And all of this varies by the house on the individual campus. Which IMHO is an excellent reason to postpone rush until sophomore year. Or at lesat the end of freshman year.</p>
<p>For me, the Greek system at UA was a negative, but there were enough positives to overcome my concern. But for students who are interested in Greek life, how do you sort the good from the bad?</p>
<p>I recall being seated on a plane next to a girl from TCU. I think she was an out of state student. She said that there was a lot of pressure to have a certain body type and a lot of the girls on her dorm floor were bulemic. So I guess there are acceptance issues out of the Greek system.</p>
<p>It’s pretty sad when girls feel the need to look like stick figures and are willing to go to unhealthy extremes.</p>