At my school, there is a greek village on campus (right next to the football stadium). There are 7 physical buildings, which are split into two townhouse-style spaces. Each house is home to one fraternity or sorority and has its own living room, dining room, space for chapter storage, and a basement (which is where most chapters have meeting.) The top 2 floors have bedrooms. There are singles and triples- no doubles. Each house has 3 singles and those usually go to the President, House Manager and another senior or "high pin" member. There is one single on the first floor, next to the kitchen and it is the only room with its own private bathroom. On the second and third floors, there is one community bathroom. (If you watch the ABC Family show GREEK, the bathrooms look a lot like that, epsecially when everyone is trying to get ready to go out all at the same time.)

There's room for about 26-28 people in each house, so obviously the whole chapter doesn't live there (my chapter has 75 members.) But, it is mandatory that each member live there one year. Members may also have to live there an additional year if the house isn't full. The houses must be full to fulfill the lease agreement with the University, or the University can (and will because we're low on housing) place independents in them.

Our village makes greek life on campus much more visible, and more close-knit, because most of the chapters are close together. There are only 3 chapters not included in the village. There are 2 national fraternities that chartered after the village was built, and one (our only) local sorority, which was also founded after the village was built. So for those chapters it kinda sucks, especially for Fraternity recruitment. But for Panhellenic recruitment, it makes it very easy to run the "organized chaos" for the week.

I haven't really heard of any other school that has housing quite like this for their Greek Chapters. It has its pros and cons, but it seems to work well for us!

As for whether or not you should be worried about this yet- I say go for it! Being involved on campus will teach you as much or more than your classes will, and figuring out whether or not you will fit into the campus life at a possible school can (and SHOULD) be a determining factor to the choice you will ultimately make. But, having said that, don't choose a school based on how nice the sorority houses are. Chances are, the nicer the house, the more expensive the sorority- and just because the house is nice, doesn't necessarily mean you'll fit with the girls that live there, and that's ok.

My school has a Greek Village too, and I must say it does make recruitment alot easier. At my school there are 5 NPC's and 4 IFC's in the village. Our houses are more like townhomes kind of, so everyone is connected. You walk through the doors and there's a pretty big parlor area which has the living room, dining area, and 4 nooks in the corners of the room. The dining area is set up next to the kitchen. Through the parlor there's the door that leads to the bedrooms. We have like 6 rooms on the first floor, then 10 on the second. There are 2 girls to a room and a private bathroom in each room.

The real fun is in the villiage typically takes place outside. We're always mingling on each others' patio areas We have huge community back yard. There's a sand volleyball court on one side and a basketball court on the other with grassy spaceall around. At almost any given time you'll find some girls and guys playing around out there. My school has a really close greek community so I love being able to be right next to the other houses.

Good luck senior year!

Univ of West Georgia Greek Village
 

http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php...8952731&ref=nf
Not sure if you can view the link without joining the group but here goes.

WOW Much nicer than ours! :)

Open House for the whole UWG Greek Village is Sat, Aug 22 from 10am - 12pm!

At my house we have both private rooms and a dormer. Girls who are higher on chapter role get to pick rooms first (chapter role gets determined by many things like GPA, philanthropy hours, etc). However, just because you're low on chapter role doesn't mean you have to sleep in the dormer. Many girls choose to sleep here because it's air conditioned... private rooms aren't.

We have 2 floors that girls live on with 1 bathroom per floor. However there's enough space where you're not feeling rushed or squished in the mornings. We have a kitchen, and a cook who makes our meals during the week. On the weekends we're on our own as far as food goes, but we have a giant freezer we're allowed to keep food in. We also have a study area with computers that stays quiet for those who want to study there.

We also have a formal living room, and an informal living room. In our informal we have a big screen tv and a DVD player, and lots of girls like to get together to watch Grey's or something else :)

Our house capacity is about 60. We also have a house mom who takes care of a lot of things for us (bill paying, getting things for the house like furniture) and is just generally there to keep us in order. We have set hours when boys can and cannot be on the sleeping floors, but there is no house curfew for us.

It's a really great experience! Just as everyone has said though, it varies from chapter to chapter, but this is how our house works :)

I hope this clears some stuff up for you!

Why do you use the past tense? The chapter and the house are still there!

Actually I used the past tense because the house has changed a LOT since I've spent any significant time in it (what with the brand new facade) and it's likely that some of the details I described may have changed as well. I was just telling how the house was when I was there.

Well, our house is...too small.

Beautiful, but too small. Think Mona Lisa Smile house. But...way smaller.

Bless it's little heart.

It varies by school and chapter. Personally, I lived in 3.5 years (second semester freshman year until I graduated). I would definitely do it again.

The most important thing, budget-wise, is that the house be full or very nearly full. At schools where the chapter house is smaller, it might not be an issue to keep a house at capacity every year. At other schools where the chapter facility is larger, members may have to live in longer than 1-2 years to fulfill their live-in requirement.

ETA: my chapter's house was (is) a "traditional" style home. Members could choose to live in 2-, 3- or 4-person rooms and every member slept in their room. There is a large kitchen and dining room area, two different areas to lounge/watch tv, a formal living room area, quiet study area and a computer room. It was like living in a regular house, only you had 60+ roommates.