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Old 03-01-2002, 05:36 PM
dzrose93 dzrose93 is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: America by birth ~ Georgia by the grace of God
Posts: 2,997
I will agree with SAEactive in that Greeks sometimes bring bad press on themselves. However, I would also like to point out that drinking statistics are often used incorrectly to make an anti-Greek point stronger.

For example, take this portion of the article:

"But among Greek students, the numbers are higher: 86% of fraternity members and 80% of sorority members living in chapter houses are likely to engage in binge drinking."

There is a HUGE difference between the number of fraternity and sorority members TOTAL, and the number of fraternity and sorority members living in chapter houses.

Take my campus for example: My chapter had 55 active members, but only 10 lived in the chapter house -- usually the older sisters who were upperclassmen and, therefore, of legal drinking age.

If 8 sisters in the house drank, then, under the statistics used in the above statement, many people would assume that 80% of our sorority members drank frequently. In reality, we might have only had 20 sisters who drank regularly, which would be 36% of our chapter -- not 80% like the article implies. There's a big difference between 80% and 36%, but you have to read that article very closely to realize that the statistics aren't exactly what they seem to be at first glance.

(Sorry for the tangent, guys. I work in marketing research and deal with statistics daily, so I pick up on these things alot.)

Last edited by dzrose93; 03-01-2002 at 05:39 PM.
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