A totally honest thread...from long long ago

[ForeverRoses]

Originally Posted by ellebud

The question of how does a sorority know if you are Jewish or not is much harder to answer nowadays. When I was in school, if you came from Beverly Hills (as I did) it was ASSUMED that you were Jewish. My name wasn't Jewish, but the high school, at that time was 95% Jewish. Names used to be a guide but I know girls with the first name of Crissy (Christ as the base) who are Jewish and very observent. (Her mother loved the name Crissy.) I know a girl with the last name of Cohen who isn't Jewish. (Her grandfather was Jewish). Barry Goldwater (boy am I dating myself) wasn't Jewish...his grandfather was. I also know women with very non-committed names who are Jewish. (Many Jews changed their names to be more "American". My original last name was changed to sound more American by my grandfather.) Miller is a perfect example. It is not a Jewish name. It is English. But some families who had a name like...Militcovich changed it to Miller. And at Ellis Island (as happened with my family) the family name was changed by officials because the officials simply couldn't spell the family name.)

If you want to let people "know" that you aren't Jewish (or are) the most obvious way is to wear a small cross or a Star of David. There really isn't a thing about "looking Jewish." My oldest daughter has blond hair, blue eyes. My youngest has brown hair and green eyes. You might have seen my youngest on some tv commercials: She has been the homecoming queen, a young all American teen...and a latina. (The last because she has brown hair and they covered the reddish streaks in her hair.) And they are both Jewish. Oh and yes, on your application for rush there a subtle "hints" as to whether one is Jewish based on activities. (not the obvious like "Christian Fellowship", although that could work.)

Interesting- although even the activities that you list can be misleading. For example, I worked as a summer camp counselor for the JCC. The JCC is a jewish organization, but you don't have to be jewish to be a member or work for them. In fact my oldest son played soccer through a JCC league last spring- but we are Catholic.

Granted these are activities like Federated Temple Youth, but still if you saw it listed on a rush form, you might wonder.

[Football Fan]

To add to JWSteele's comments.....
Recently, I did a report on SC admissions and a survey of their graduate/undergraduate rankings. According to an official at SC who wrote to me it is just as difficult to be admitted to Cal, UCLA or SC. For those of you out of California SC is a smaller private university. UCLA and Cal are much larger and part of the public Univ. of California system.
For information purposes SC had 33,754 applicants for a freshman class of 2964 (2763 last year)entering in 2007. National Merit Scholars were 220 and 5 were National Achievement Scholars. Unweighted GPA of entering freshmen was 3.7.
For this academic year there were 9 Fulbright Scholars, 1 Marshall Scholar and 1 Rhodes Scholar. It has one of the most diverse student bodies in the nation.
If any of you Trojans wish to PM me I have the rankings of most of the graduate and undergraduate programs.

[PeppyGPhiB]

Originally Posted by Football Fan

To add to JWSteele's comments.....
Recently, I did a report on SC admissions and a survey of their graduate/undergraduate rankings. According to an official at SC who wrote to me it is just as difficult to be admitted to Cal, UCLA or SC. For those of you out of California SC is a smaller private university. UCLA and Cal are much larger and part of the public Univ. of California system.
For information purposes SC had 33,754 applicants for a freshman class of 2964 (2763 last year)entering in 2007. National Merit Scholars were 220 and 5 were National Achievement Scholars. Unweighted GPA of entering freshmen was 3.7.
For this academic year there were 9 Fulbright Scholars, 1 Marshall Scholar and 1 Rhodes Scholar. It has one of the most diverse student bodies in the nation.
If any of you Trojans wish to PM me I have the rankings of most of the graduate and undergraduate programs.

When I was in college, it was kindof a joke that USC was for kids that couldn't get into UCLA. But it's not really that way anymore. It has gotten so hard to get into 75% of the UC schools (public) that USC (private) has benefitted from the competition as well. I almost went to USC, but admittedly if I had to apply today with the grades I had in high school, I would probably not get in. And FORGET about UCLA or Cal...you have to split the atom to get in there now. All of the "big name" schools in California - and there are a lot of them - get an insane amount of applications for the small number of spots, meaning they can truly take the cream of the crop. At least with private schools they typically consider a number of other factors beyond gpa and tests, and they generally can be much more subjective in their admissions.

In terms of size, I wouldn't call USC small, though. It's huge compared to my alma mater (3,000 undergrads). It's pretty big for a private university.

[bejazd]

USC really is in a class by itself here as far as being an old, large, private residential university in the heart of the city. With a sticker price of somewhere around $200K for four years living on campus as an undergrad, I pretty much expect that the students there are generally quite serious and studious. I think I read somewhere that less than 2% of USC students receive a "full ride" in scholarships. Even though it's totally unique I think to some extent for Greeks in California, its sort of seen as the "flagship" of the Greek system.

As far as admssions to Cal and UCLA, I think its been pretty difficult to get into either for some time, and it's not much easier to get into any of the other UC schools. According to my son's HS counseler, even if you qualify for admission to UC with the min GPA, ACT/SAT scores, and have taken all the pre-reqs in HS, meaning 4 years of math, 4 years of English, 4 years of science and social science, 3 years of foreign language, the only schools that guarantee admssion are UC Merced and UC Riverside. So that means if you've taken that many academic courses as a HS student you didn't spend a lot of time in HS taking elective courses like drama or art or music. I think that's pretty impressive!

[Football Fan]

According to the website for admissions 60% of SC students receive need based financial aid.
SC requires about the same course requirements as the U.C. system. To apply for the School of Cinematic Arts (1) a film portfolio must be included. The School of Music (5) requires an audition.

SC is smaller compared to some of the bigger public universities such as Ohio State with about 55,000 students or private universities such as NYU and Brigham Young with much larger enrollments.

[TSteven]

Originally Posted by bejazd

Even though it's totally unique I think to some extent for Greeks in California, its [Southern California] sort of seen as the "flagship" of the Greek system.

How so? As in how do you define "flagship"? The reason I ask is that I was under the impression that Greek Life was older and more established at Cal Berkeley.

[ellebud]

SC 's financial aid are really loans. There are Presidential, Trustee and another level scholarship. But there really don't have a lot of scholarships. And for admission the theatre school also has auditions: be it portfolio or audition.

[PeppyGPhiB]

I wasn't aware that any of the UC schools guaranteed admission. Some of them are much easier to get into than others. The hardest ones are UCLA, UC Berkeley, UCSD, UC Irvine and UCSB. But really a big reason why those are the hardest to get into is just that so many kids apply to each one of those schools...they're all in very desirable locations.

Anyway, USC's entrance requirements are no different than what most schools recommend - really require - for kids to get in today. It's just that the kids that actually get in far exceed the minimums. And yet even with all those requirements, I know my high school still required stuff like drama, speech, art or special elective vocational classes just to graduate...and that was in 1996. And I think that's a good thing...we need creative people in this world, too.

Auditions for theatre, music, voice, etc. majors is also pretty typical, but it's especially hard to get into USC's film school, which is arguably the best in the country.

Believe it or not, my school (Pepperdine) cost even more than USC, so I know how financial aid works these days! USC does offer plenty of need-based grant aid, too...it's just not called a "scholarship." But it's still free money. And just because it costs a fortune doesn't mean it's all rich kids that go there. USC has a huge endowment.

I think most greeks in Calif. would agree that USC has the strongest greek system in California. Berkeley is an old system, but it is not as popular at the school as at USC.

Football Fan, obviously USC is smaller than almost any flagship public university. But it is still much larger than many private schools.

[Nanners52674]

So i stumbled upon this thread and it was very interesting, especially the question and answer to "how do they know you are Jewish?" if it came down to looking at recruitment applications I could of seriously confused a sorority. I'm Jewish went to and worked at a Jewish summer camp all my life but attended a Catholic High School. I can only imagine what people would of thought i was.

[ellebud]

I have some distant cousins who are Jewish but live in an area where the public schools aren't safe so the parents opted for private schools. Like you, they went to Catholic schools, in their case because that was the only private school option. And, considering their last name...well, there was no doubt that there had to a Jewish relative. Did you ever ask/find out what your sisters thought you were?

[AnchorAlumna]

Originally Posted by catiebug

How would you know a PNM was Jewish? Was it part of the rush application?

I'm sorry, I have not looked back at this thread in almost 6 months and just noticed this question....actually yes, in 1970 it was indeed on the application - a line next to "Religion?"
Yes, this was back when dinosaurs were stomping around and we reporters used typewriters...manual...not computers!
I went to a job interview in 1974 where they actually asked (ONLY) young women applicants when they intended to have children. Although that was pretty extreme, even back then!

[FSUZeta]

there was also a space on my 1975 rush application for religion. perhaps it mattered to some chapters on campus (i don't know for sure), but it did not matter in my chapter.

[honeychile]

I think I posted this in another thread, but while the religious "walls" were removed from NPC sororities on my campus, many sororities weren't going for it. When I was assistant to our Rush Chair, she sat down with the PNM list, and started scratching out the names of everyone whose name sounded even the littest bit Jewish. I called her on doing so, it became a huge issue, and I made my first call to Executive Headquarters. She received a call AND a letter, stating that every girl (we were girls then ) was to be considered on her own merits.

[ellebud]

Honeychile: Good for you! It takes people with integrity and morality to change the world. (and yes..we were girls back when I was in college.) I don't remember if the application that I filled out had a religion line, but, as I mentioned it was pretty obvious that I was Jewish because of the area where I lived.

My youngest will be rushing in fall 2009. And I know that she will be able and will pick a place where she feels most at home.

[TinyDancer98]

Honestly, the thought of religion coming into play during recruitment never crossed my mind until I spoke with a friend of mine who joined a historically Jewish chapter. Of course, I knew very little about Greek life before I got to college, but I also grew up in an area with a very heavily Jewish population and where, as a Catholic, I was a minority. I am also of Polish descent but, when pronounced in English (as most people do) my last name sounds Jewish. In fact, most of my friends growing up and through high school were shocked to find out that I was not Jewish, based upon my name. It is interesting to think that had I rushed years ago, based upon my name and where I was from, decisions may have been made based on religious assumptions- be they correct or incorrect.