Tiers in The SEC

[Lucky SC]

I was reading through the thread on the Florida fraternities and it brought up the "tier system" which it seemed questionable if it was a legitimate thing or if it something made up by people. Then i started to think how does this whole tier thing branch out across schools that are pretty much the same... in this case, the SEC having brought up UF.

So if there is a tier system, then how do the fraternities match up at say Alabama, UGA, LSU, South Carolina, Tennessee, etc? is there some kind of trend we see here for particular fraternities in the area?

Have the same fraternities been strong since conception of the chapters or the regional area, leaving no room for competition (basically the rich get richer deal)... or does whos the "best" cycle from time period to time period.

I found this an interesting topic, and wanted to know yall's opinion on it because there seemed to be a lot of controversy in the other thread.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by Lucky SC

I was reading through the thread on the Florida fraternities and it brought up the "tier system" which it seemed questionable if it was a legitimate thing or if it something made up by people. Then i started to think how does this whole tier thing branch out across schools that are pretty much the same... in this case, the SEC having brought up UF.

So if there is a tier system, then how do the fraternities match up at say Alabama, UGA, LSU, South Carolina, Tennessee, etc? is there some kind of trend we see here for particular fraternities in the area?

Have the same fraternities been strong since conception of the chapters or the regional area, leaving no room for competition (basically the rich get richer deal)... or does whos the "best" cycle from time period to time period.

I found this an interesting topic, and wanted to know yall's opinion on it because there seemed to be a lot of controversy in the other thread.

Good Question. You have to keep in mind to not only include the SEC, but also the Big 12 South. This disregards alot of great non-SEC/Big12South systems but still in the South, such as UNC, Hampden-Sydney, Sewannee and possibly FSU. All that being said...here's what I would go with:

Top Tier:
Ole Miss
Alabama
Texas
South Carolina (questionable, perhaps lower)

-in between-
Georgia
Auburn
LSU

2nd Tier:
Auburn
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Oklahoma
Texas Tech

-in between-
Arkansas
Florida
Oklahoma St.

3rd Tier:
Mississippi St.
Texas A&M
Kentucky
Baylor

That being said...except for perhaps the 3rd tier, the top tier houses at any of these Universities could compete with one another.

[banditone]

I believe he is ranking the greek life. Probably more on the fraternity side.

That said, I'd put Okie State and Arkansas a bit higher. Definitely above T.Tech.

[sasquatch]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

Good Question. You have to keep in mind to not only include the SEC, but also the Big 12 South. This disregards alot of great non-SEC/Big12South systems but still in the South, such as UNC, Hampden-Sydney, Sewannee and possibly FSU. All that being said...here's what I would go with:

Top Tier:
Ole Miss
Alabama
Texas
South Carolina (questionable, perhaps lower)

-in between-
Georgia
Auburn
LSU

2nd Tier:
Auburn
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Oklahoma
Texas Tech

-in between-
Arkansas
Florida
Oklahoma St.

3rd Tier:
Mississippi St.
Texas A&M
Kentucky
Baylor

That being said...except for perhaps the 3rd tier, the top tier houses at any of these Universities could compete with one another.

Sorry, but IMO opinion this is way off. LSU and Texas should not be top, UGA should. Texas Tech? Oklahoma? What? Honestly, these shouldn't even be included at all.

I think all the Big 12 schools, except Texas are undoubtedly 3rd tier, along with UF and Mississippi State. Alabama, Ole Miss, and UGA are tops with all the remaining SEC schools falling somewhere in the 2nd tier.

ETA: What about UVA and Clemson? Those beat out any Big 12 school, even probably Texas.

[Lucky SC]

Originally Posted by sasquatch

Sorry, but IMO opinion this is way off. LSU and Texas should not be top, UGA should. Texas Tech? Oklahoma? What? Honestly, these shouldn't even be included at all.

I think all the Big 12 schools, except Texas are undoubtedly 3rd tier, along with UF and Mississippi State. Alabama, Ole Miss, and UGA are tops with all the remaining SEC schools falling somewhere in the 2nd tier.

ETA: What about UVA and Clemson? Those beat out any Big 12 school, even probably Texas.

maybe UVA based on the tradition of founding there, but its probably gone a bit off the deep end with it pretty much almost being of ivy leauge status these days, not knocking it at all. I want to go there for grad school.

And Clemson? Clemson? first off i go to USC so don't get me started on the purple and orange lol, but their fraternity houses are straight horrible, most don't have houses. And there is what like 2 bars in that town?

props to the UGA statement though, very true

I agree with all your other statements though about UGA, Bama, and Ole Miss being top tier. I like my school but i must admit, USC and the likes at USC, Auburn, or Tennessee are all still good but def of not the same stature. and UF is prob def on the lower end.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by sasquatch

ETA: What about UVA and Clemson? Those beat out any Big 12 school, even probably Texas.

My pick on Texas being up there lays mainly on how strong the top two are and not the totality of the system honestly.

UVA and Clemson deserve to be on there somewhere.

I didn't put Georgia on top because of how small the chapters are compared to the rest of the school. Aren't normal fraternities at Georgia around 70-80 people?

And I did mostly place the Big 12 in the third tier, except for Oklahoma and Texas.

[sasquatch]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

My pick on Texas being up there lays mainly on how strong the top two are and not the totality of the system honestly.

UVA and Clemson deserve to be on there somewhere.

I didn't put Georgia on top because of how small the chapters are compared to the rest of the school. Aren't normal fraternities at Georgia around 70-80 people?

And I did mostly place the Big 12 in the third tier, except for Oklahoma and Texas.

I'm not sure how big most chapters at UGA are. I was just saying I don't think the Big 12 should have been included. Texas is the only school that compares to the SEC. Greek life may be huge at Oklahoma, but it just doesn't hold a candle to the SEC or Texas.

[macallan25]

Originally Posted by sasquatch

Sorry, but IMO opinion this is way off. LSU and Texas should not be top, UGA should. Texas Tech? Oklahoma? What? Honestly, these shouldn't even be included at all.

I think all the Big 12 schools, except Texas are undoubtedly 3rd tier, along with UF and Mississippi State. Alabama, Ole Miss, and UGA are tops with all the remaining SEC schools falling somewhere in the 2nd tier.

ETA: What about UVA and Clemson? Those beat out any Big 12 school, even probably Texas.

No they don't, and I'm not saying that because I go to Texas. LSU shouldn't be in the top. Texas should....without question. The houses, the money, the guys that make up the top houses, the sorority scene, Austin, etc. etc. Texas Tech and Oklahoma? No, probably not.

[sasquatch]

Originally Posted by macallan25

No they don't, and I'm not saying that because I go to Texas. LSU shouldn't be in the top. Texas should....without question. The houses, the money, the guys that make up the top houses, the sorority scene, Austin, etc. etc. Texas Tech and Oklahoma? No, probably not.

Now that I think about it, you're probably right. I just think people sometimes give the Big 12 way too much credit, simply because of Texas. Greek life at Texas is great, but the rest of the Big 12 South is more comparable to the Big 10.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by SECdomination

EW, I thought it strange that you had such a large seperation between Florida- and Texas and Georgia-since these states have been suffering from similar problems.
Ex. Fort Lauderdale, Houston/Dallas, Atlanta
I've never been to UT, but I assumed UF was very similar.

I know where your coming from, but at least my experience from Texas (I was born there), is that there Texas is not AS diluted as Georgia is, and Georgia isn't AS diluted as Florida is.

Texas still has excellent breeding grounds for fraternity men such as Highland Park, Tyler, and parts of Houston. It suffers from an exceedingly high absurdly GDI population...but at 50,000 people there's plenty to choose from. Part of the reason I chose them so high is because there are two Texas fraternities (SAE and Fiji) which would certainly be top tier anywhere. I suspect (and not knowing about the lower levels) that after them, Sig Ep and a few others it drops off quite a bit.

Georgia, while suffering from Atlanta and the surrounding areas, still pulls people from Mobile, Jackson, and apparently Highland Park as well (they call it the Stafford effect...after he went there, alot of people from HP went there)

UF doesn't pull enough people from Alabama, Mississippi or Georgia to make this. It seems that alot of people from the panhandle choose to go to those schools instead of going south. Just my experience, could be wrong again.

I rank my own University low because it's being increasingly flooded with the Plano area of north Dallas and Northwest Arkansas. The Delta part of Arkansas is slowly dying out as people move away. We may sink further it seems.

SthrnZeta, thanks for posting some rules, but it's hardly turned into a pissing match and we haven't ranked fraternities.

[ajuhdg]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

I rank my own University low because it's being increasingly flooded with the Plano area of north Dallas and Northwest Arkansas. The Delta part of Arkansas is slowly dying out as people move away. We may sink further it seems.

What's wrong with people from Plano!?

Flame away here, but why is it so wrong for us to talk about 'Tiers'? They do exist, and it's a part of greek life whether or not we agree with the rankings or basis fro criteria. There was a post many moons ago about the tiers actually coming out in Texas Monthly magazine. I read the article recently describing the layout of the system at Cornell. I know we don't always get the most intelligent PNM's around here, but if we preface it with all the NPC spirit 'go in with an open-mind'. I guess on the one side I see how it can be hurtful to shallow people who take everything they read on line as the gospel. But, at the other side, we are here to discuss everything related to greek life. I just don't understand why 'Tiering' is like the uncle in prison, the one we all know about, but nobody ever brings up at the family reunion.

It just doesn't make sense to me that people are verbally attacked and chased off the forums for having an opinon about anything from Reality shows to alumnae initiation, but we can't talk about something like this. Why do we encourage 'users' of this site to have thick skin? I've been to the 'other' sites to read what people's opinions of DG are at other schools, and while it sucks to read that they are the 'crack whores' at one school and 'the fatties' at another, it doesn't hurt my own experience and opinion of what an awesome organization I belong to. (And, I KNOW that others aren't able to figure it out for themselves.)

Just something I was thinking about...

[banditone]

DG are hotties at my school

[33girl]

Originally Posted by ajuhdg

Flame away here, but why is it so wrong for us to talk about 'Tiers'?

Once you post on GC "XYZ is the sorority no one wants to join" it's on the internet forever. People can keep pullling that up when they google. There's a post on here about sororities at a competitive school that talks about the most unpopular house on campus from several years ago. Even though the chapter has turned around and is doing much better - people can still pull that up and still read that "XYZ is the weakest house at Google U."

Not only that - you have no idea who is writing what. The absurdity of this has been pointed out (i.e. me talking about how awesome the AXOs at my school were when we have no AXOs).

[banditone]

What's funny is that no one ever says "blah blah fraternity, the one no one wants to join". Or the like.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by SECdomination

Does Arkansas get much draw from the Missouri/Oklahoma/Kansas area?

Yes, unfortunately.

However, since they're from those areas they tend not to join fraternities. Oklahoma area does sometimes because there are good private schools around Tulsa.

The Delta is losing population every day and even worse it's a 4 hour drive from campus...in that same area you could ALMOST get to Dallas, definitely Tulsa and definitely Kansas, Southwestern Missouri. We're seeing more and more Joplin/Springfield/Branson kids now a days.

Despite the distance we seem to be pulling in some good Houston and Highland Park kids which is making up for the losses in the Delta.