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They function pretty much the same as any sorority anywhere else; all recruitment, parties, etc. are done in the dorms or on other common areas on campus.
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This is not correct with regard to Harvard -- the sororities are not allowed to use any college facilities to hold rush, meetings, etc. In fact they are not even allowed to put posters up on university bulletin boards to advertise their events. They have all their events either in rented public spaces like restaurants or space in the all-male final clubs (also unrecognized), which have private houses around the campus.
Sometimes a sorority event will happen on campus because a member reserved the space in her own name or the name of a philanthropy project. So it can happen, but it's against the rules.
At Yale, the sororities have their own off-campus meeting spaces (a house or an apartment). Several fraternities do as well. People party there, but it is not seen as a big deal on campus, and no one is impressed because you're an XYZ. The singing group recruitment process, called "Rush," is way more visible and prestigious around campus than the Greek rush.
We've discussed Princeton's Greek life heavily in past threads. Suffice it to say that the administration is hostile, and the eating clubs are way more important to college life than GLOs. 75%+ of Princeton students join an eating club, and many of the non-members still socialize there.
At all these schools, there are more interested women than the chapters can accommodate, but there's also a very strong anti-Greek sentiment among the student body. Sorority membership is sometimes confessed to with embarrassment. Yale and Harvard have residential colleges/houses with strong identity and loyalty that serve the students' social and residential needs. Yale's secret societies and Harvard's final clubs, which involve less than 10% of the eligible students, still retain some old-money cachet.
At all of HYP, it is almost unthinkable to be involved in a GLO and classes and nothing else. Students are near-universally involved in some deep, serious extracurricular commitment, and the GLO is their second, third, or fourth-ranked activity. You would invite ridicule if you said you had to miss a newspaper editorial meeting/play rehearsal/political activity/sports practice for a GLO commitment. You would not advance to the leadership of your organization if you did that...and at HYP, that's an extremely big deal on campus and for your future. Being the president of an ethnic organization, dramatic group, or political/debate group is way more prestigious than being president of Theta. The Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper will generally go directly to the New York Times, etc.
NPHC groups are not very visible on any of these campuses; city-wide chapters are the rule.
It may be surprising at colleges so elite and so selective, but there's a strong egalitarian vibe to the social scene at Harvard and Yale. The dominant ethos holds that everybody's a nerd of some flavor or another, so we should put the competition down when it comes to our social lives. Social exclusion/ranking is seen as very high school. It's also true that at HYP, as with pretty much every campus I've ever seen, you can tell the NPC groups apart by their members' hotness, even if you've been away from campus for four years. That alone is enough reason for the majority of female students to refuse to even consider joining. They think, I made it all the way to Harvard/Yale, just to be judged on my looks? No, thanks.
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