Tiers in The SEC
 

I was reading through the thread on the Florida fraternities and it brought up the "tier system" which it seemed questionable if it was a legitimate thing or if it something made up by people. Then i started to think how does this whole tier thing branch out across schools that are pretty much the same... in this case, the SEC having brought up UF.

So if there is a tier system, then how do the fraternities match up at say Alabama, UGA, LSU, South Carolina, Tennessee, etc? is there some kind of trend we see here for particular fraternities in the area?

Have the same fraternities been strong since conception of the chapters or the regional area, leaving no room for competition (basically the rich get richer deal)... or does whos the "best" cycle from time period to time period.

I found this an interesting topic, and wanted to know yall's opinion on it because there seemed to be a lot of controversy in the other thread.

Good Question. You have to keep in mind to not only include the SEC, but also the Big 12 South. This disregards alot of great non-SEC/Big12South systems but still in the South, such as UNC, Hampden-Sydney, Sewannee and possibly FSU. All that being said...here's what I would go with:

Top Tier:
Ole Miss
Alabama
Texas
South Carolina (questionable, perhaps lower)

-in between-
Georgia
Auburn
LSU

2nd Tier:
Auburn
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Oklahoma
Texas Tech

-in between-
Arkansas
Florida
Oklahoma St.

3rd Tier:
Mississippi St.
Texas A&M
Kentucky
Baylor

That being said...except for perhaps the 3rd tier, the top tier houses at any of these Universities could compete with one another.

EW - are you ranking the entire Greek system at these schools?! What is your criteria? Or are you ranking a specific fraternity at these schools?

I believe he is ranking the greek life. Probably more on the fraternity side.

That said, I'd put Okie State and Arkansas a bit higher. Definitely above T.Tech.

What I assumed Lucky SC asked for was a tier of Greek life...more from a fraternity perspective because I know a great deal more compared to sorority life (though I would have to say that it's pretty close to the same...)

The qualifications are importance of Greek Life (though that's not a great determinant because in almost all of these schools it's very important), the importance of history/tradition, size, influence and affluence, alumni, etc.

Just for the helluvit I'll throw in the non-SEC/Big12South in there as well...

Top Tier:
Ole Miss
Hampden-Sydney
Alabama
Texas
South Carolina (questionable, perhaps lower)

-in between-
University of the South
Washington and Lee
Georgia
Auburn
LSU

2nd Tier:
Auburn
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
UNC (the existence of the big 4 sealed this deal)
Oklahoma
Texas Tech

-in between-
Arkansas
Florida
Oklahoma St.
Florida St.

3rd Tier:
NC State
Mississippi St.
Texas A&M
Kentucky
Baylor

Just re-clarifying question...

I did a tally of SEC schools for who was listed in 1st tier the most often. It came out something like this:

(info taken from posts on oldrow)
KA
SAE
EX
EN

It was only the SEC schools tho.

Couldn't we just leave this kind of stuff to Old Row or Fratting Hard?

It's not really that I object to it being here, but if we know there are other sites that meet someone's tier-based needs, couldn't we just refer people to them rather than reproducing the same type stuff here?

Or is there a need for tier based discussion in a less openly racist and generally vile climate? Old Row kind of scares me, but it's not written with middle aged women in mind.

Funny, neither is this thread. ;)

Point taken. I've got no problem staying out of the fraternity threads as long as you guys have thought really hard about your "no women's comments invited policy." The threads with only guys in them don't ever seem to get very interesting even if you just use other guys posting as the standard.

Greek Chat = 75% women, I'd say, at least in terms of frequent users. Old Row not so much*.

ETA: *or at least it appears to be guys, but maybe it's really 84 year old women posing as college guys. With the internet, you never know for sure.

I'm just kidding. Post all you like!

As per the rules of the owner of GreekChat, we're not suppose to "direct anyone to any other greek website"...so, no, technically we can't.

Old Row is fun if you don't take it seriously. The stuff that gets said is often off the wall but great...the "how to frat hard" section is honestly the funniest fraternity related thing I've read in a long time. Fratting Hard is the less hardcore crowd with alot of Yankees and random small schools.

Agreed. There is alot of difference but it seems that these fraternities come up the most. Along with that Phi Delt chapters come up often, I think.

In my opinion and in no specific order...the top chapters in the South would go something like....

DKE - Alabama
SAE - Alabama
KA - Alabama
Sigma Nu - Ole Miss
Phi Delt - Ole Miss
Fiji - Texas
SAE - Texas

Those chapters are some of the more notable ones

well its interesting to see the schools ranking, but i really meant more individual chapters, like are the SAE's and KA's going to be stronger in this area due to their "old south" kind of affiliation.

honestly though, I go to South Carolina and i'm surprised yall thought it was top tier ahead of UGA. I mean i'm honored you think so and i don't question it lol, but i always had the impression UGA was pretty intense atleast to be top tier too (grew up in GA).

Good Lord. It's different at every school.
Get over your obsession!:mad:

From what I hear for South Carolina:
SAE
ATO
EN
KA

seemingly not, if you had read and payed attention to similar threads then you would notice this as well. If you don't want to contribute then don't

When you all are doing the overall system rankings, can I ask what you are considering?

The huge split between Ole Miss and Mississippi State seems strange to me on some level.

With SAE we always partnered up With KA, all the parties were almost thrown together.

Sigma Nu is also "top tier" i suppose but kind of do their own thing.

ATO had an 8 man pledge class in the fall so they are kind of falling out of it, still good guys though don't get me wrong. Other ones that people would argue are good are probably Sigma Chi and Kappa Sig. Sig Ep is on their way up but just got a house and are still relatively new i think.

One more time:

Membership Size (membership at a given time).
Alumni Size.
Physical Plant (house and structures).
Alumni Support (to the house).
Alumni Support (to the University).
War Chest (house money for events).
Campus Involvement / Leadership roles.
What Sororities they interact with on average.

Was this posted before? Where?

But by those standards, is there that huge a difference between Ole Miss and State, particularly when you look at strong groups on both campuses?

I know Ole Miss has a strong reputation for being old south and exclusive, but I'm not sure the reality of who is really going there matches up with outside expectation.

State is a little redneck to be sure, but if you look at kind of a who's who for Mississippi, State grads are pretty well represented.

Reputation definitely counts for something, and on that alone I understand why Ole Miss is higher, but one of the top two or three while State is at the bottom seems odd if you're looking at anything objective, particularly when Auburn is solidly in the middle.

ETA: I've had relatives go to State and I can say that being Greek seemed far more important to being influential on campus at State than it did at Georgia.

My observations come alot through FH and OR, because I'm not able to visit every campus (though I've visited a good 75% of the ones I listed). That influences alot of it because there are few to none (that I'm aware of) Mississippi St. people on those two boards. I have visited Mississippi St and was not terribly impressed.

My theory/reasons for the low standing of MS is that it doesn't have any significant chapters that would override Sigma Nu or Phi Delt at Ole Miss. No stellar chapter (lots of good chapters, though). Miss St.'s football tradition isn't excellent like Alabama's or Texas' or Georgia. Starkville is a miserable place and doesn't have the "Old South" feel that Oxford has (nor the bar scene, in my opinion). Perhaps this is my own biases, but I think alot of people would agree.

edit: And yeah, he's posted them two or three times. They're excellent in my opinion and a good line for determing fraternities.

One thing State does have going for it is some pretty darn incredible houses structure wise. Wow.

i've never been to state, but in regards to what elephant walk said... I've always heard Ole Miss has pretty much every GLO you could ever think of and the whole school is greek.

Pretty much if being Greek was a religion, then it was the Mecca (spelling?)

I really do think it may be underrated generally on the lists here. Starkville isn't the town that Athens is and Oxford sure looks better, and the county State is in was (maybe still is for all I know) a dry county which probably complicated the development of a good bar scene.

But State is one of the places where being greek is probably going to have a real impact on your collegiate and alumni life more than some of the other schools on the list, and it seems to me, certainly a lot more than NC State and whoever else it was grouped with.

I'm not really arguing it's top tier, just that it might be better than you think.

It depends on who you want to worship with. The groups are there, but the guys in them might not actually be especially impressive relative to other schools. They may all fancy themselves Delta planters, but the real deals might be scarcer than you think.

Anyone have a handy site of percentage of students involved in greek life?

The number of groups at Ole Miss doesn't seem that high.

I agree. I think it could definitely be higher...possibly grouped in with Arkansas in the in-between 2nd and 3rd.

It's hard to rank with an incredible accuracy unless you did your undergrad at every college and even then you'd have problems. But I think it's a fair assessment of the standings.

Coming from Texas I would have to say Georgia and LSU are just as good.

There are a lot of schools like Tech were the greek system is a huge part of the social scene, but at the same time the top chapters there can't really compare with some of the other schools mentioned.

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Greek Rankings Threads
Since the idea of ranking one GLO relative to another is inherently subjective and lacks consistency from campus to campus, please refrain from posting any general threads or posts regarding which GLO is "better" than another, either locally or (inter)nationally.

If you want to compare GLOs by objective and verifiable statistics, that's fine. Just make sure you cite your source.

Thanks.




Just thought I'd prevent the pissing contest these threads so often turn into...

I know where your coming from, but at least my experience from Texas (I was born there), is that there Texas is not AS diluted as Georgia is, and Georgia isn't AS diluted as Florida is.

Texas still has excellent breeding grounds for fraternity men such as Highland Park, Tyler, and parts of Houston. It suffers from an exceedingly high absurdly GDI population...but at 50,000 people there's plenty to choose from. Part of the reason I chose them so high is because there are two Texas fraternities (SAE and Fiji) which would certainly be top tier anywhere. I suspect (and not knowing about the lower levels) that after them, Sig Ep and a few others it drops off quite a bit.

Georgia, while suffering from Atlanta and the surrounding areas, still pulls people from Mobile, Jackson, and apparently Highland Park as well (they call it the Stafford effect...after he went there, alot of people from HP went there)

UF doesn't pull enough people from Alabama, Mississippi or Georgia to make this. It seems that alot of people from the panhandle choose to go to those schools instead of going south. Just my experience, could be wrong again.

I rank my own University low because it's being increasingly flooded with the Plano area of north Dallas and Northwest Arkansas. The Delta part of Arkansas is slowly dying out as people move away. We may sink further it seems.

SthrnZeta, thanks for posting some rules, but it's hardly turned into a pissing match and we haven't ranked fraternities.

EW, you obviously haven't been around long enough to see how these threads turn out then. Do a little search, you'll see.

The other criteria you mentioned can be objectively measured. If your house has a $100,000 social budget, there's no arguing that it's more (and thereby better) than the one next door or across the state that has a $50K budget.

These, however, come down to opinion. Is it better to have a huge new house, like several of the FSU houses, or a classic, but smaller house, like Fiji at Texas? How much better or worse? What campus leadership roles actually "mean something"? Student government president is usually the consensus most prestigious position on a campus, but the level of respect definitely varies from campus to campus. This kind of stuff is why it's hard to directly compare/rank fraternities across the South, much less across the nation, and we haven't even gotten into the intangibles, like how many brothers are douchebags.

What I'm saying is, you can rank houses, but I'd say that only maybe half of the ranking can be made objectively. The other half is up to the individual.

Excellent points!

Yes, unfortunately.

However, since they're from those areas they tend not to join fraternities. Oklahoma area does sometimes because there are good private schools around Tulsa.

The Delta is losing population every day and even worse it's a 4 hour drive from campus...in that same area you could ALMOST get to Dallas, definitely Tulsa and definitely Kansas, Southwestern Missouri. We're seeing more and more Joplin/Springfield/Branson kids now a days.

Despite the distance we seem to be pulling in some good Houston and Highland Park kids which is making up for the losses in the Delta.

schools like UGA and UF are going to face this with their increasingly high academic standards which is one way a good thing but in another will decrease the amount of "fraternity men" so to say as you were arguing.

I can see this more in Texas and Florida, but i think UGA has a way to go considering it has always had a pretty secure southern feel, the rest of Georgia is far from being like Atlanta... trust me lol. North Georgia is straight boonies.

And Atlanta has a lot of old money in it as well like the Buckhead areas and such, all of the kids from all of those private schools and the nicer public schools in cities like Marietta, Peachtree, and Alpharetta are still all mostly flooding into UGA.

UGA is trying to be progressive but its still very far behind. I don't mean this to come off racist, but 5% african american population, and i think 5-10% asian... the rest all being white kids. Still pretty much like it always has been, strange considering the fact that GA has a relatively high population of african americans.

Arkansas gets a lot of private school/Highland Park kids from Dallas who can't get in everywhere else.

About 10 percent of my 250 member all-guys class will be Hogs next year, and I expect a lot of them to pledge.

I expect that besides the private school crowds from Tulsa and Dallas and Memphis, most of U of A's fraternity community is coming from the Little Rock old money.

We get great pledges from the Pensacola area. Tampa and Orlando can produce really solid guys too.

In terms of quality, it comes from the private schools in Dallas, Memphis and Little Rock aaaand the Delta. Which has no private schools, but has some old money (and some no money at all) schools like DeWitt, Stuttgart, Gillette, some Pine Bluff and mostly towns that are barely on the map.


But you're correct about the private schools in Little Rock. Little Rock Catholic, Episcopal, and Central tend to bring out the most of 'em.

EW and others, what makes you think that fraternity men in Arkansas are all from "old money"? "Old Money" in Arkansas is a topic I do not think you can speak about considering your age and experience.

Your comments regarding geographical distribution of members MIGHT be more accurate, but to make sweeping generalizations regarding financial status is wrong. Private school does not equal old money.

sorry for the hijack, but this conversation was getting to me.

Yes, we all get it. Everything is subjective. But you have to start somewhere, and we are by no means the authorities on this stuff. It's just conversation fodder.

Speaking of "old money" in the South I'm always curious to know if you consider them the ones who originally were large landholders BEFORE the Civil War or the Yankee carpetbaggers who came down and bought up all the land for back-taxes? Because, many of the true Southern families lost all/most their land/money after the war. What you call "old money" now may not be original Land Grant owners or appear in the 1850 Census. What is your timeframe of "old money"?