My D18 stopped paying attention to U of Chicago mailings because they were trying so hard to be clever that they seemed “desperate!”
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D refused to look at Smith because she applied to their summer science program in tenth grade and they didn’t accept her.
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This is how Oberlin got dropped for my daughter.
Child refuses to look at UPenn because Donald Trump went there.
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Denison has no Greek residences - never did for sororities (there are houses but students do not live in them) and the fraternity houses are all theme/honors/whatever housing now, they stopped allowing frats to live in them more than 20 years ago. At one time Denison was 90% Greek but that was a really long time ago. Around the same time, DU stopped allowing students to live off campus, so there aren’t unofficial houses either, other than those that small groups might make in the senior apartments.
DePauw, I believe counts on Greeks to house their students, and weren’t several Greek orgs founded there?
“Beg to differ about Denison being heavily greek”
Most schools I consider heavily Greek are at 25-35% participation (or less). It’s about the role Greek life plays in student activity, not just about whether the majority of students join. There are only a handful of schools where Greeks are actually in the majority, but that’s not always how the campus scene feels. As I said, I think these schools harmonize with the social feel of the South.
@Hanna Still going to beg to differ with that characterization – to my mind, there is a big difference between schools like Depauw, Wabash, W&L where greek life is residential and has a higher percentage participation, and schools like Denison and Kenyon and even Wooster and Lawrence, all of which have greek life but it plays less of a defining role in student experience. With the latter, greek life participation is just one “flavor” of experience on campus, does not dominate social life on campus, and most students exist happily apart from it. I’ve spent a lot of time at Denison, and we know a know a bunch of kids there – greek and non-greek, including athletes – and they have described greek life as really not a factor in social life. I value your experience with schools, but this is one characterization I disagree reflects current student experience.
@ninakatarina Your child might be going with their gut instinct. I appreciate the direct humor of your post. My kid said the same and I had to convince him to apply even though he didn’t want to visit while we were in the area, by saying, that there were many intelligent people that have gone to U of Penn that aren’t Trump. He wasn’t accepted but is now at a better University, for him , in a beautifully safe environment, a short train ride away from Philly.
This was not my child’s reasoning, but when she was getting all kinds of love from a coach at a school in Ohio, my mom pointed out that Ohio has an opioid abuse crisis. Apparently we should strike all schools in Ohio from our lists. And so should you, CC Parents, unless you want your kid to end up a heroin addict. You’re welcome.
@planit - good one. I think Ohio is #5 in OD death rate. Not good, but not the worst. The top 10 includes several Ivy League states.
Opioid abuse is not a current college problem, it involves people who have nothing to do with them. That link reports one liners about each state. Gee- 80% of worker’s compensation claims included opiates. Duh- hurt on the job, need pain meds acutely. This does not mean 80% become abusers…
Opioids in a state is definitely a stupid reason for not looking at colleges.
Re posts 1543-1545 about Greek life
You have to be careful with the percentages because some schools calculate them using enrollment numbers from the fall, so the freshmen who will eventually pledge are not included. This artificially deflates the % they cite. Another important number (which is probably impossible to get a true read on), is how many kids went though rush and wanted to pledge, but were denied a bid? If this number is high, it could mean a lot of kids shut out of a social scene they wanted to be a part of. Not great for morale or for those kids. Of course, no one is ever going to tell you that number. Suspect it would be higher at schools like SMU, Duke, than it would be at say a school like Lafayette, but the point is you can’t take those Greek life %'s at face value.
Unfortunately I don’t think that’s true, although I think it is fair to say that opioid abuse is not particularly a college problem.
https://www.eab.com/daily-briefing/2017/05/11/us-opioid-epidemic-spreads-to-college-campuses
“no one is ever going to tell you that number”
For National Panhellenic Conference sororities, you often CAN get that number, especially at schools with large Greek systems. It’s generally much lower than the number of women who drop out of recruitment when the most popular/desired houses don’t invite them back. Not many women are cut from the sorority system altogether. (We’ve talked about Indiana U as an exception – matter for a different thread.)
Reaching back a while, but one of my kids practically refused to get out of car on overnight to Grinnell because a surfer-jock looking guy walked by in an orange puffer jacket. In that instant, my kid decided the entire campus must be preppy and snotty, and did not want to stay (even though he had previously visited and been interested in school). That would be the same kid who declared, after an overnight at Oberlin, that the students were not the least bit quirky and were in fact very down to earth. Predictably, his younger sib had precisely the opposite impression of those two schools. The only shared reaction was that neither wanted to consider Gambier, too darn small. I still admire lots about each of those schools.
@Hanna Thanks for the clarification
I would include those that don’t get a bid and those who drop out when the houses they are not interested in drop them in the number I am referring to.
You can get these numbers from any school that has a formal IFC/Panhel rush. For sororities, the ‘quota’ number, which is how many each house can invite to join, is the number of women attending the second set of parties divided by the number of houses. There is also a system designed to make sure everyone who wants to join has a place at the end, and it steers kids to the houses that will extend the bids. Is it XO house? No, because it is not possible for one house to invite everyone. As with everything in life, there are some houses that are more popular, but the formula used to set up the parties and invites is designed to maximize the number who will join. Very very few girls are denied a bid at every house if they accepted invitations to parties under the formula. Boys are different as they invite individually.
At some schools, the majority who participate join. Alabama had about 2500 sign up for rush last year and about 2300 joined houses.
Interesting theory. Back in the day, I rushed and was invited back and attend 3 second parties, bid day came…no bid. Left a bad taste in my mouth about the whole greek thing. Ultimately my roommate who did receive a bid found out at her house where I went wrong “oh her, yeah she was nice, but too chubby.”
When I was in undergrad, a group of us formed an unofficial group we called SAG: Students Against Greeks. We also sometimes called it SAGS: Students Against Greek S___heads.
Our son said he wasn’t interested in going anywhere farther south than VA, too hot. Also a big noto colleges where sports are a big deal. He’s now a freshman at St Olaf in MN so he got both his wishes…