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I have never heard of Birmingham-Southern College.

I didn't know about BSC until their bid lists were posted on GC one year.

I do not appreciate their listing UF as the number one party school. I knew I was going there for sure- yet people tried to dissuade me from it due to this. If you do not want to party at UF, you certainly do not have to.

I'll give them UF, Wofford, Ole Miss, DePauw, and Penn State...

But where in the world is Auburn, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, etc?

Or Hampden-Sydney?

Get over it.

just a guess, but i imagine that a lot of this is based on the percentage of students that go greek.

I appreciate how they lack a definition of "intense" and offer no real supporting info. I like facts, dagnabit.

At least it's a fun read.

It's not though.

Wake Forest is somewhere between 40% Greek and Penn State (according to Wikipedia which we all know is a wealth of boundless information) is at 12%.

Not really. Princeton review is mostly based on student surveys. When I was at W&L, there was this campaign by the administration to get "model students" to respond to the Princeton review surveys in order to get W&L's ranking as a party school decreased. I think we were also high on the Beer, Hard Liquor, Conservatism, and Party Schools lists at that time. So they wanted us to respond to the surveys that we weren't those things, I guess. Looks like it may be working because we aren't on the Hard Liquor, Beer, Party Schools, or Greek Life list this year. HA.

I can understand why Texas isn't on it. Depending on who responded to the surveys. Alabama is ridiculous. It's ridiculous that Hampden-Sydney isn't on there. Same goes for W&L for that matter. I'm actually sort of upset W&L isn't on the Greek Life one. Stupid.

I was surprised W&L wasn't on there too. Didn't you guys make the Greek Life list every year for years now?

Oh, for God's sake, Scandia. Seriously? Seriously? You don't appreciate their listing UF as number one? I doubt they give two shits.

And, what does it matter if your school is ranked one in partying or number of lepers? Anyone who has any brains knows that not everyone parties at party schools.

BUT, heck yeah, Ole Miss. Way to go both in % of Greeks and partying!

Congrats Gators on your commendable success in topping the party school, students study the least, and packing the stadium lists. A campus after my own heart this year.

These posts made me laugh.

Carry on.

Although I'm sure the W&L administration is happy to see their school not make the top party/drinking/whathaveyou category, I am wondering if they are curious as to why W&L is not on the lists at all for the top academic LACs. According to several other academic listings, Washington and Lee is usually in the top teens for nationally ranked Liberal Arts Colleges.

Lehigh University? I'm from PA. and I've heard of Lehigh but when it comes to greek life in PA., Lehigh doesn't come to mind...not at all. Or at least NPHC greek life doesn't come to mind.

Lehigh has a pretty active greek life from what I heard. you also have to remember school like that the NPHC is near nonexistent.

Such lists aren't about NPHC Greek Life or anything of the sort. Unless the list includes "diversity" or some other catch phrase.

I can't remember a time when we weren't on the Greek Life list - from the time I applied until the present. I'm wondering if something's going on. I don't even see us on the Most Conservative list either, which we're usually on. In fact I don't see us on any of this year's lists. I don't know what's up with that.

US News and World Report is the one that some schools are not giving data to. The Princeton Review is mostly student surveys and things that are findable on the school's websites, so there's really nothing the school can do to stop participation.

Scandia - the party school thread is somewhere else, baci started it. This thread is to discuss the Greek Life rankings.

Seriously?

I was pretty surprised by the rankings! I wonder if they tend to rotate the colleges from year to year even if the college is still high up in the ranking.

Here is my question...how many of the Top Greek Life schools does your GLO have a chapter at? Do any organizations have chapters at all of the schools?

It was a big feeder for my high school, and usually 3-4 kids a class (out of an average of 40 seniors) went there. I think everyone from my town joined one sorority there. I think back in the late 90s, 65-80% of the campus went Greek?

I don't see any IFC fraternities with houses everywhere. SAE and EX are probably the closest, looks like they are both at all but about 3 school.

Okay, here's my headcount.
For this particular list (NPC orgs):

Theta - 8 chapters
Pi Phi - 7
AOPi, Chi O, DG - 6 each
AXO, Tri Delta, KD, KKG, Phi Mu, ZTA - 5 each
A Phi, DZ - 3 each
AGD, ADPi, GPhiB, SK - 2 each
AEPhi, ASA, AXiD, DPhiE, SDT, Tri Sigma - 1 each

Yeah we are at only one of those schools, and that would be the Eta chapter of Psi Upsilon at Lehigh University.

The Princeton Review rankings on these fun little lists are all products of student surveys AT EACH SCHOOL participating. Students only rank their own school according to the Princeton Review categories. If high numbers of students at, say, Bucknell believe that greek life is very "intense" or a must at that school, it is likely to rank high. On the other hand, at a school like Univ. of Southern Calif. or Univ. of Washington, though the greek systems are big, the school and setting is way bigger, and therefore there are many students who probably don't feel greek life is a must in order to enjoy the school.

Looking at the Princeton Review web site, Washington and Lee is not listed at all. It is like it vaporized. I suspect that the W&L administration asked/demanded to not be included. In past years the W&L administration's point was that one does not even have to prove that they are a student at a school to participate in the surveys that form the basis of that particular school's rankings. It is interesting that W&L has taken that approach with Princeton Review, and I am wondering if other schools are also left out.

In any event, around 80% of W&L undergrads are in fraternities and sororities, which I think is the second highest percentage in the country (behind DePauw). Since W&L is in a small town in the Virginia mountains, the fraternities and sororities serve as the primary housing/ eating/ social outlet for the student body. Since just about everyone is in a fraternity or sorority, there is a house that "fits" everyone. Also, just about all fraternity and sorority functions are open to the entire campus, which serves to make them the primary social outlet and reduces any "exclusivity" of being in a fraternity or sorority.

Uh, did you go to W&L? Wrong.

That said, I agree with you that the administration probably asked to be left out somehow. They were on a crazy campaign against the PR when I was there. They even emailed "model students" to have them write nice, non-party things. Uh, yeah, right. I was a model student but I'm not about to say that W&L isn't a crazy party school.

I believe at one time W&L was #1 in percentage of Greek students, but it's possible that DePauw is now. I haven't been following it.

BreathesGelatin

I did go to W&L and that was my experience, at least that the parties were open. Also, it was not deemed to be "exclusive" or pretentious to be in a fraternity, at least the way it is in some other schools, although certainly within the fraternities and sororities there were "tiers" of relative social standing.

LOL. Are you sure you went to W&L?

It's true that the administration tells you that the parties are all open. And that's mostly true. BUT

A) Most important exception: sorority parties are by no means open and often have a guest list, due to NPC risk management requirements. Also impossible for first-semester freshmen women to go to sorority parties, or for any sorority member to go to any other sorority's party, oftentimes even if it's a off-campus informal party (exception: extremely close friend of individual who is throwing the party).
B) Fraternity-sorority mixers are NOT open and others do not come, unless they want to make awkward butts of themselves.
C) Fraternity formals are NOT open and you would be very awkward showing up at one without at date.
D) Many smaller fraternity house parties, while technically open, would be awkward for someone who is not a close friend of the members to attend.
E) Fraternities often "ball" particular people and call them and ask them never to come to their house again

There are some other less flattering incidents I could recount of people being denied admission to fraternity parties at W&L. I have half a mind to recount them, but I'll hold back for now.

I agree with you that most parties are open, but I think things have changed over time (founding of sororities, fraternities moving most parties off campus and into the country to avoid administration/Lex police eyes) that have caused the "open party" thing to be less true. It just annoys me when people say this because it's not really totally accurate.

I agree with you that *Greek life in general* is not viewed as pretentious at W&L. That doesn't mean it isn't and that doesn't mean that there aren't men and women both who desperately want to be in GLOs that can't get in. Or that want to be in particular GLOs and can't get it. W&L is a very competitive recruitment school and I think it does have many pretentious/elitist aspects.

Basically you're spouting the stuff that the administration wants to believe and that I myself told potential students as a tourguide. But after four years of W&L and a lot of reflection afterward, I'm not so sure it's true or that W&L's Greek system is any more egalitarian than any other school's.

Glad to see you here - please PM me and introduce yourself further. I'm a Pi Beta Phi who graduated in 2005.

I have some good ones.

Denying people at the door is perhaps one of the best things ever.

Arkansas fraternity parties are 100% closed if they're registered.

You know, you pretty much just described what it was like to be Greek at Brown as well (at least not one of those crazy co-ed houses), and Brown's Greek scene was not intense at all, at least as of 2003.

At schools where 65-80% of the students are Greek, what do the other 20-35% do?

Denying people at the door IS the best thing ever.

Wow, sounds like a lot of work to throw a fraternity party these days. Back in the stone age, we could walk off campus and there would literally be 52 open options of parties to walk into, out of and in between. Socials (our term for "mixers") between a fraternity and sorority were closed, but after a few hours, the house would open and soon be packed. The fraternities, of course, always had brothers at the door and turned some people away, but compared to the lists and "registrations" of today, it was all pretty free-flowing and open.

A few years ago UT, Knoxville was rated the numer one party school! Back in the day I contributed to that image, I do remember some of the parties being open and others closed to the members of the specific fraternity and sorority. I still graduated with honors, actually managed to learn something, and have had a productive and lucrative career. I'd take those rankings with a grain of salt.
ZTA72

Yeah, and while I understand the need for increased security and RM as society has gotten more & more litigious, an unintentional side effect is that Greeks are thought of as snobs who won't let people into their parties.

I remember those days. kinda went the other way toward the end of the 90s. I remember toward the end of the 90s, people sensed that everything was going to change. Especially after the MIT incidents in the mid 90s.

94 and 95 were the best years of my life.

Ah, well, folks, I'm sorry to say that because the W&L administration required "all" fraternity parties to be open (read: registered parties at the actual fraternity house), if you were denied admission to a frat party at the door it was usually because A) you'd been balled from that house or B) racism par excellence. So I sincerely hope it's not B that everyone's celebrating here.

I can think of a couple of times African American women were denied admission to parties because "they must not be W&L students."

UH, gross

I read somewhere that each school has something like 360 students take the survey. In big schools like Georgia or Texas, that seems a bit silly to me as you'll most likely not get the whole picture because you're only surveying like .01% of the student body--but where as if you are at somewhere like wofford where there are only about 1,300 kids, thats more like surveying 30% of the school...personally, i think if they really want people to view their surveys and take them to heart, they should probably make the number of students they survey proportional to the amount of students at the school.