How do students generally interact with each other?
I’m a parent and may not be the best to answer this question, but I have visited with my DC twice. Other than being fairly remote, student interaction seemed pretty typical of the other smaller schools we visited. The students seemed very engaged academically and socially. My DC did an overnight, met lots of students and had a good time. From my parent perspective, there were lots of small groups of students engaging with each other in various parts of campus. Most, if not all, of the professors live in the village of Sewanee and are very much present and engaged in sports and other campus activities.
It’s on my DC’s list of final three schools he’s choosing between and I would be totally fine if he chose it.
We are traveling to Tennessee this summer and plan to check out Sewanee for DD. It’s the size and type of school she’s interested in, but I was disappointed to find out that 80% of students joint a frat or a sorority. In my opinion, that’s way too much of an emphasis on Greek life.
they join because entertainment options are limited on top of the mountain. You should know that all greek parties are open to all students. It’s not an exclusive deal. It’s just that the greek houses are the ones that for the most part take it upon themselves to put on the weekly campus parties. Each frat or sorority takes a night and provides the party - many with outside music acts. Even if you join a specific frat or sorority you still go to the parties at the other houses. There are also plenty of people who never join and still attend.
We toured Sewanee this week and our guide inferred that Greek life at Sewanee was not like that at big state schools, that very few of the students lived in the Greek houses and that is was more inclusive, as @maroon79 mentioned. Anyway, the tour and information session were great and our DD was very impressesd.