"Best" Colleges and their Greek Systems

[ComradesTrue]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

Focus, people.

OK, I will take a stab.

My husband went to Rice, so that is where I have obtained my (admittedly general/basic) knowledge on their system. Rice is a private school in Houston with about 2000 undergrads known for its sciences and engineering programs, as well as more recently their baseball team.

They do not have fraternities or sororities there, instead every student is randomly assigned to one of ten co-ed residential colleges. On campus these colleges function in much the same way as our GLOs.

Each college has its own dorm and most of them differ widely in architecture. Some are super old, and others have been built/created in the past 10 years. For most colleges the members live-in freshman, junior and senior years. Those that live-out typically do so sophomore year due to space constraints. Priority of living-in is given to freshman to assimilate them to campus and then seniority. Therefore, it is the sophomores who get booted off campus for a year before returning. With the building of several new colleges in the past 10 years perhaps there is less need for sophomores to move out.

In addition, each college has its own cafeteria/eating area, so there is no campus wide cafeteria. You eat all your meals with your college, which may be served family style. Memory is failing me on that.

Campus wide activities/competitions always pit college against college, as your college is where your loyality lies first and foremost. These are huge events that draw pretty much the entire campus body. One of the most popular is Beer Bike, which is exactly what it sounds like. Its so popular that it has its own tab on the website home page! Student government represenation, intramurals, pretty much everything is based on the colleges.

Each college has its own colors, team cheer, personality, and crest. I can't remember if there are mascots/symbols or not. My husband graduated 15 years ago, but is still as loyal to "Weiss College" as I am to my GLO. All of his closest friends from Rice were also in Weiss.

I'll ask my husband tonight if there is anything that I have left out.

Hope that helps.

[sigmadiva]

Originally Posted by Blondie93

My husband went to Rice,...

My sister and our dad went there. My sister was in Lovett College and got her BS. Our dad was in architecture and got his MS.


Kinda back on topic. Sorry Sen!!!

In Texas (and the South maybe?) state schools are considered land grant institutions. Something about them being established after the Civil War.

As far as my alma mater, Texas A&M, the greek scene is not very popular. It has become a bit more popular over the last few years though. From 1876 - ~1965, A&M was all male, all white, all military. So, for a loooonngg time only the Corps of Cadets (the military unit of A&M) was considered the only 'fraternity' on campus. So, I think the greek system at A&M is getting stronger, but probably compared to other campuses, it is not that strong and/or has a strong influence on campus.

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by sigmadiva

As far as my alma mater, Texas A&M, the greek scene is not very popular. It has become a bit more popular over the last few years though. From 1876 - ~1965, A&M was all male, all white, all military. So, for a loooonngg time only the Corps of Cadets (the military unit of A&M) was considered the only 'fraternity' on campus. So, I think the greek system at A&M is getting stronger, but probably compared to other campuses, it is not that strong and/or has a strong influence on campus.

Really? My experience has been the exact opposite (granted, I didn't attend, but from observations and from interactions with Aggie Greeks, it seems like it's very strong).

[sigmadiva]

^^^^ That is what I said - it has gotten stronger over the years, but I still don't think it is that strong. NPC orgs did not get recognized by the University until ~1990 / 1991, even though NPC groups were 'there' since about the early 80's. Yes, there are some strong fraternities on campus. When I was there I remember some of the NIC/IFC groups - SAE, SX and SPE. But, there is still this mindset at A&M that the only "true" fraternity on campus is the Corps.

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by sigmadiva

^^^^ That is what I said - it has gotten stronger over the years, but I still don't think it is that strong. NPC orgs did not get recognized by the University until ~1990 / 1991, even though NPC groups were 'there' since about the early 80's. Yes, there are some strong fraternities on campus. When I was there I remember some of the NIC/IFC groups - SAE, SX and SPE. But, there is still this mindset at A&M that the only "true" fraternity on campus is the Corps.

Yea, the Corps is still huge, but I was under the impression that the Greek system was strong period. Learn something new every day