# How big a deal are fraternities/sororities in American college life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 20, 2008, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186 "2008-07-20T22:33:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![butler1850](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@butler1850](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butler1850)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/41 "2008-07-21T20:33:59Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] They are not officially sanctioned by the University but chapters do exist there. The eating clubs are the official “houses” for upperclasspeople who wish to join that kind of organization, and they center around alcohol too, so it’s not clear what the distinction is. [/QUOTE] U.Mass Lowell is pretty much the same as described in **liberty3701** ’s post of Princeton’s policy. They exist (I even helped found one), but the school likes to pretend that they don’t exist. U.Mass Amherst on the other hand has a large number of fraternities/sororities, fully recognized by the administration. At UML, they weren’t very popular as a percentage of the total student population, but for me, it was a great experience. 20 is members. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/42 "2008-07-21T21:17:25Z")
[QUOTE=vix] I don’t think anyone has mentioned it yet, but for those of you who went to schools with a big Greek presence, were most of the frats/sororities tied to sports? My school had a relatively small Greek system, but it seemed to me that we had the football frat and the lacrosse frat and so forth. We did have one or two public service or related houses, too, but mostly the athletes lived in the frats, or so it seemed. [/QUOTE] I attended a fairly large university (“_Directional State_ University”.) It was a 2A school (as opposed to “_State_ University”, which would typically be 1A, or a BCS school) . Practically nobody that played sports for the school team was in a fraternity/sorority, because there just wouldn’t be time. I imagine that this would be the case for any school of decent size. I think the coaches forbid it, but I’m not sure. We did have intermural sports: flag football, softball, basketball, soccer. It’s been about 15 years, but I believe that non-greeks could put together a team, if they got enough guys together; but we mostly played other fraternities. Some of my fraternity brothers were cheerleaders, and one was the mascot for a few years. ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/43 "2008-07-21T21:53:23Z")
I graduated from the University of Hawaii in 2001. There was a Greek presence, but no one really seemed to really care. They were tied to majors-- all the science and humanities departments seemed to have them. As far as I know, none had any affiliation with sports. I could probably have joined the psychology department one, but no one else I knew was a member and there seemed to be no tangible benefit to doing so. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/44 "2008-07-21T22:15:38Z")
[QUOTE=Snickers] Especially when you hear about the sorority pictures where all the sisters are nude for the picture, outside in front of their house. [/QUOTE] Nude \<=???=\> Slut Did anyone ever see such a picture or did they just hear about them? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/45 "2008-07-22T01:56:27Z")
[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner] An important thing to realize is that the picture you get of American college life from movies and TV is wildly inaccurate in many ways. (Well, this is actually just part of a more general rule: Hollywood movies and American TV shows are utter lies.) First, you hardly ever see older students in American movies and TV. Second, you nearly always see students living in dorms on campus in American movies and TV. Third, you nearly always see students going to college fulltime without having to work at the same time in movies and TV. [/QUOTE] A lot of it depends on where you go to school. These three that you mentioned were pretty much as shown on TV where I went to undergrad. Something like 40-50% of the incoming freshmen lived on campus back when I was there (1991), although it’s somewhat less now. The vast majority of students were under 24, with 17-19 being the usual age for freshmen, 18-20 for sophomores, and so on. I can think of 3 people who were “students of non-traditional age”. One was a kind of dingy chick who’d gone to community college for a while and was a 24 year old sophomore, one was an older guy (45-50ish) who lived in town and went back to school, and the third was a Gulf War vet, who got out at 24 and was using his GI Bill benefits to go to school full-time. (we particularly liked Jeff- he’d buy us liquor and beer no problem.. and he was an extremely cool guy besides that) The majority of people at my school were there full-time, i.e. not putting themselves through school. Most had a side job, but it wasn’t paying tuition or anything. FWIW… this was a major state university with upwards of 42000 students when I was there, and something like 46000 now. However, the frat/sorority system wasn’t huge- I think there was something like 3000 students total in the greek system, including the black frats and sororities. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/46 "2008-07-22T13:05:15Z")
[QUOTE=Mongo Ponton] Not buying it. The first chapter of PKT was at Belmont Abbey in the Fall of 1960 I believe. This was after the merger of 2 much older organisations, going back to Brown in the 1880’s. [Belmont Abbey College Greek Life](http://www.bac.edu/student-life/activities/greek-life-fraternities.aspx) [/QUOTE] Also not buying it. My sorority was founded as a Catholic organization because the existing sororities at our founders’ university would not admit Catholics. With the help of the local bishop, they founded their own. It remained exclusively Catholic until the 1950s, and is now open to member of any religion (or no religion). Before I joined, I was introverted and painfully withdrawn. Now I’m confident and accomplished. I’ve served in many national and local offices and had many opportunities I wouldn’t have had except for my sorority. My husband went to college in Texas and knew a lot of those slutty nasty sorority bitches. Then he moved to Ohio and met some real sorority women. And married one. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/47 "2008-07-22T13:52:06Z")
At my undergrad school in the south (UNC-Greensboro), the greeks had a visibility out of proportion to their size. My impression was that the guys joined thinking it was going to be like _Animal House_. There were also “Service Fraternities” that were community service oriented like the Rotarians. These were Co-ed. But although they were highly visible, they were definately not the majority. There seemed to be quite a counter-greek feeling on campus since it is a very liberal school and frats were seen as a right-wing bastion at that time. Frat and sorority houses were not permitted on campus but some frats had houses abutting the campus and some sororities had virtual houses by occupying entire floors of some all-female residential towers. There are also Honor societies like[Gamma Theta Upsilon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Theta_Upsilon). These aren’t really greek in that they’re professional rather than social. I don’t remember there being as much of a greek presence at Appalachian State, but I was working 40 hours a week as well as doing grad school, so I just might not have noticed. I remember hearing that there were no sorority houses because a Boone town ordinance did not permit more than X number of unmarried women to live in one residence. This was an anti-brothel law, but it was used to preclude sorority houses. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/48 "2008-07-22T14:06:27Z")
[QUOTE=Hypno-Toad] I remember hearing that there were no sorority houses because a Boone town ordinance did not permit more than X number of unmarried women to live in one residence. This was an anti-brothel law, but it was used to preclude sorority houses. [/QUOTE] You remember hearing an urban legend, then: > **[Do Brothel Laws Outlaw College Sororities?](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brothel-laws-sororities/)** > > Are sororities are outlawed on certain campuses because local brothel laws prohibit more than a set number of females from living together? ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/49 "2008-07-22T14:36:03Z")
It really depends on the school - at the smaller, elite school that I went to, when I was there, 50% of the boys belonged to either a fraternity or a greek-like organization (far fewer girls - there were way, way more options for boys than girls). At the time, the school needed them - it simply didn’t have the room to house the students without the greeks. And just due to sheer numbers, they were a presence, no matter what else you were doing on campus. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/50 "2008-07-22T14:37:49Z")
[QUOTE=Huerta88] You remember hearing an urban legend, then: > **[Do Brothel Laws Outlaw College Sororities?](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brothel-laws-sororities/)** > > Are sororities are outlawed on certain campuses because local brothel laws prohibit more than a set number of females from living together? [/QUOTE] Yep. Any number of national sororities prohibit their chapters from building or renting off-campus housing, but it’s for safety/security and insurance concerns, not because the city might call them hos. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/51 "2008-07-22T14:41:57Z")
I went to a large but experimental state university, and we did not have any officially recognized Greek organizations. We did have a handful of (mostly east-Asian related) independent frats and sororities, but those were mostly groups of people renting a house and putting Greek letters on it and not something with much of a presence in most people’s lives. We definitely had a “frats are uncool” feeling. We kind of viewed them as a throwback, that only people who were so uncool that they didn’t have their identity and thought that parties with plastic cups of beer were the best thing in town would join them. A good part of this attitude is that my school was ultra-liberal and aggressively non-traditional. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/52 "2008-07-23T14:58:36Z")
A citation for one of the claims I made: [http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i46/46b01001.htm](http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i46/46b01001.htm) More than half of the college students in the U.S. work more than 20 hours a week while they are going to college. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/53 "2008-07-23T20:13:55Z")
I was in a frat, but I went to a huge state school–Penn State, specifically. My experience mirrors that of other people–with a big state school, most student life is dominated by the Greek system. Granted, my fraternity was a smaller music fraternity, we had instituted a lot of preventative stuff (no keg parties, no house, no first-semester pledges) on our own hook, and we didn’t belong to any overarching Greek organizations like Interfraternity Council so we tended to keep to ourselves. Our dues were a measely $75/semester, too, and I paid double that for Sailplane Club and got less out of it. Had one hell of an acapella group, we did. Went to the national championship finals once. These days the networking consists of rants on the fraternity listservs and occasionally running into a fellow brother (or sister, since we were co-ed for a few years after Title IX)–Phi Mu Alpha represent! ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2008, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/54 "2008-07-25T12:43:54Z")
[QUOTE=Huerta88] You remember hearing an urban legend, then: > **[Do Brothel Laws Outlaw College Sororities?](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brothel-laws-sororities/)** > > Are sororities are outlawed on certain campuses because local brothel laws prohibit more than a set number of females from living together? [/QUOTE] Interesting. I wish I’d known that when a certain blowhard at school was telling me the tale. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2008, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/55 "2008-07-25T13:21:15Z")
Another citation for one of the claims I made: [http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2016/tables/table\_13.asp?referrer=list](http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2016/tables/table_13.asp?referrer=list) More than a third of students in college, grad school, and professional school are over 25. More than a sixth of them are over 35. ---
**Author:** ![mudkicker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@mudkicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mudkicker)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2008, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/56 "2008-07-25T18:39:27Z")
Puzzled non-American chiming in: Why ‘Greek’? I’ve never heard that before. I know of the Greek names for some fraternities/sororities, but never heard they were ‘Greek’ per se… ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2008, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/57 "2008-07-25T18:54:41Z")
[QUOTE=mudkicker] Why ‘Greek’? I’ve never heard that before. I know of the Greek names for some fraternities/sororities, but never heard they were ‘Greek’ per se… [/QUOTE] [Phi Beta Kappa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phi_Beta_Kappa_Society) started the tradition of naming college fraternities after Greek letters (it is an abbreviation of their motto.) Ever since, frats have been known as Greeks. ---
**Author:** ![mudkicker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@mudkicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mudkicker)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2008, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/58 "2008-07-25T19:39:55Z")
Thank you. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/59 "2008-07-26T01:47:52Z")
[QUOTE=friedo] Ever since, frats have been known as Greeks. [/QUOTE] Yep, even FarmHouse (one of the few fraternities that don’t use greek letters.) ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186/60 "2008-07-26T03:13:07Z")
None at Wellesley and Harvard, either. However, MIT has many, mostly because they can’t fit everybody in the dorms. I hung out with the guys of [Chi Phi](http://chiphi.mit.edu/home.html), having a lovely time at their mansion on Hereford St. They were formed in 1873 and were the first frat to join the young MIT. 🆒 That said, there is a big difference between them and the big Southern or Floridian and especially the movie frats. It was a lot like a dorm when the guys weren’t having one of their monthly parties. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-a-deal-are-fraternities-sororities-in-american-college-life/457186.md?page=4)