I’ve come to the conclusion that I would like to avoid colleges with a large greek presence. An alternative system I’ve heard of that interests me is the residential college system or something similar to what is done at Notre Dame where dorms or houses compete. Does anyone know of any other American colleges with similar systems and any maybe a little easier to get into then Notre Dame.
Rice university comes to mind. Case Western also does a 1st year experience they splits the freshman dorms into 4 residential groups.
Michigan State offers three different residential colleges.
Murray State, UCSC, UCSD, Yale
Vanderbilt apparently has some residential colleges, though they also have a fairly robust Greek scene (~40% Greek participation).
Of those mentioned thus far, Vanderbilt and Rice are (IMO) academic peers of Notre Dame and roughly as selective, while Yale is harder to get into.
Michigan State, Murray State, and the two UCs (depending on major…) are not as selective as Notre Dame.
SMU offers them now as well now -the residential commons is what they are called.
Franklin & Marshall
UChicago
https://housing.uchicago.edu/residence-halls/
(but not easier to get into than ND)
Smith - a LAC but a large one.
I think most of us are missing the “easier to get into than ND” part.
Finding colleges less selective than Notre Dame with an Oxbridge-style residential college system will be pretty difficult and will greatly restrict your options. There’s a couple of different alternatives you can consider:
(1) Look for colleges without Greek life. Many liberal arts colleges in particular have little/no Greek life.
(2) Consider colleges with themed housing. For example, living communities at Reed include gaming, science, music appreciation, and sci-fi/fantasy. Reed also has French, German, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic language houses.
Note that Greek organizations do not have housing at all colleges. Fraternities and sororities at Rhodes are nonresidential, for example, which means Greek students live in the same housing as everyone else.
Note also that there are colleges with a relatively small (or no) fraternity and sorority presence that do not have a residential college system. This includes both predominantly residential and predominantly commuter colleges.
BC has no greek life. Freshmen class is split between main and a separate campus (1 mile away- entirely freshmen). I’ve heard many speak of that as a great thing as the class really bonds.
S attends Wake Forest. It certainly has a vibrant Greek Life, but there are NO Greek residential houses on campus and a 3 yr campus requirement so basically everyone lives together in the dorms. Freshmen year ALL freshmen live in 7 dorms in one area of campus. SO they are all together. They do have Professor and advisor events in their dorms.
It is not the pure Residential College feel of Yale where you compete for a Cup against other halls but it is a close knit group.
The University of Redlands (in California) has both Greek communities and a living-learning community or residential college. My older daughter was in the residential college, called the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, and also a sorority, but her boundary crossing was unusual for the school.
Yale has residential colleges
Michigan has one, which I believe is just called “Residential College.” Students are housed in a residence that contains classrooms, faculty offices, dining services, and other amenities. It is Michigan’s attempt to make the very large university experience smaller for a select group of students. I believe that it is only a first-year or first-two-years experience.
In general, though, if you are looking for a residential experience for all four years, this will be provided almost solely by LACs.
Many less selective public schools have one or more residential colleges alongside robust Greek life. Ole Miss has two residential colleges, for instance (South and Luckyday). Ole Miss wouldn’t come up on anybody’s list of minimally Greek schools, yet it may have what the OP is looking for.
The Michigan RC is at least 3 years, but the number of majors/minors offered is limited. There are many 300 level classes offered in the RC.
This page lists residential colleges around the world:
http://collegiateway.org/colleges/
Depending on the uni, some residential colleges have a stronger identity than others. For instance, at Rice and Caltech, your residential college defines your college experience to a large degree (like Oxbridge colleges) while at the U of C, some folks get in to it and some don’t (as the U of C has differently-sized dorms, often a dorm is split in to multiple residential colleges).
This is very interesting; I’d never even heard of residential colleges before. My S is quite introverted and studious and generally prefers solitude, but I’m wondering if there are “quiet” nooks or such where someone like he could escape to if need be. Or is it just a given that residential college residents are there because they want to be around others much of the time?