"Best" Colleges and their Greek Systems

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

Things are different in the North vs the South for schools because people respond in say Baltimore to hearing that you graduated from Hopkins for medicine the same way that people in Louisiana respond to hearing that you graduated form LSU. The familiarity of the system and pride in the local university is very strong across the south. I can't tell you how many residents that I worked with who were very proud to say they graduated from UAB or UT-Southwestern. All the state schools in the south have a very good name in the south. In the north, state schools don't have a good name, and the thought of a state school doesn't reassure the public. Harvard, Hopkins, Yale, etc carry more weight. They're impressive names in the south, as well, but you just don't have that many people running off to those schools to try and impress the locals.

This is true.

I'm fairly confident that the folks back home would be far more impressed with an Arkansas/LSU/Ole Miss degree than one from an infinitely better university besies Harvard/Yale or Stanfrd.

[Miriverite]

Coming from Texas, I can also partially vouch for this southern mindset. Most of my friends chose to stay at home in UT, Texas A&M, or SMU instead of accepting or applying to higher-ranked colleges out-of-state. In fact, I've had friends turn down schools like Carnegie Mellon and Stanford just so they could stay in-state, eep!

[33girl]

@ littleowl33: Was JHU all male previously? Why did it take them so long to get sororities?

Also, I'm having trouble with the nomenclature in this thread. To me, "state schools" are former teachers' colleges in PA, KS, NY State and a few others that have been Universities for the past 30 years. They are outright owned by the state. UWM, U of I, IU - those are "flagship" schools and a whole different category. Penn State and Pitt (and Temple and Lincoln) are state related, but they are not state owned. I don't know how it works elsewhere.

[agzg]

Originally Posted by 33girl

@ littleowl33: Was JHU all male previously? Why did it take them so long to get sororities?

Also, I'm having trouble with the nomenclature in this thread. To me, "state schools" are former teachers' colleges in PA, KS, NY State and a few others that have been Universities for the past 30 years. They are outright owned by the state. UWM, U of I, IU - those are "flagship" schools and a whole different category. Penn State and Pitt (and Temple and Lincoln) are state related, but they are not state owned. I don't know how it works elsewhere.

Pitt, Penn State, Lincoln, and Temple are all classified as Public Universities instead of Private, not-for-profit, like University of Chicago, or Private, for-profit, like University of Phoenix.

I know they're "state affiliated" according to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but the Department of Education classifies them as Public.

That's what I'm referring to when I say "State" in reference to NY, PA, etc., - also, NY State has the SUNY system and most "state" colleges and universities fit into that SUNY picture.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by 33girl

@ littleowl33: Was JHU all male previously? Why did it take them so long to get sororities?

Also, I'm having trouble with the nomenclature in this thread. To me, "state schools" are former teachers' colleges in PA, KS, NY State and a few others that have been Universities for the past 30 years. They are outright owned by the state. UWM, U of I, IU - those are "flagship" schools and a whole different category. Penn State and Pitt (and Temple and Lincoln) are state related, but they are not state owned. I don't know how it works elsewhere.

Here, "state school" means "public school" -- created by the State Constitution (the University of North Carolina system as a whole) and the General Assembly (specific institutions within the UNC system or the North Carolina Community College System) and funded by taxpayer money. We have no distinction between "state related" and "state owned," and while UNC-Chapel Hill is often referred to as the UNC System's "flagship" institution, that's mainly a recognition of UNC-CH's historical place and its academic and research ranking. It doesn't mean anything any different with regard to how the school is governed or relates to the state.

[littleowl33]

Originally Posted by 33girl

@ littleowl33: Was JHU all male previously? Why did it take them so long to get sororities?

That's correct - JHU was all-male until 1970. Beta Theta Pi was the first GLO on campus (in 1877, just a year after the university was founded) but the first NPC groups didn't come on until the early 1980's. I would guess they had to wait those 10 years for there to be enough of a female student body to support the colonization of our two first sororities (Alpha Phi and Phi Mu in 1981). I've heard that some NPHC sororities had sisters on campus in the 70's but I don't know this for sure.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Here, "state school" means "public school" -- created by the State Constitution (the University of North Carolina system as a whole) and the General Assembly (specific institutions within the UNC system or the North Carolina Community College System) and funded by taxpayer money. We have no distinction between "state related" and "state owned," and while UNC-Chapel Hill is often referred to as the UNC System's "flagship" institution, that's mainly a recognition of UNC-CH's historical place and its academic and research ranking. It doesn't mean anything any different with regard to how the school is governed or relates to the state.

Here too, state school = public. If there's any other ranking among them it's a slight negative perception towards "directional schools" i.e. ones that mention North, South, etc. in their names. And that's mostly gone away as those smaller cheaper state schools have come to be seen as a good education for a cheaper price than UIUC, UIC, etc.

The general public doesn't distinguish between "flagship" schools and state schools though the U of I has an excellent reputation statewide. I suspect there's probably a Chicago/rest of the state difference too, but I can't speak to that.

[AGDee]

Here also, state school=public school. They receive state funding (and therefore have different resident vs non-resident tuition rates and their board of directors are elected.

We definitely have "tiers" within our state schools. The University of Michigan is clearly one of the best, if not the best, school in the state. Some private schools would compete, but are not as well known. Michigan State wants to be on that level but doesn't quite make it. Then we have the rest.. Wayne State, Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, etc. It really has more to do with selectivity of admission than anything else. It is hardest to get into Michigan, it is pretty easy to get into EMU.

[Senusret I]

Focus, people.

[Nanners52674]

As far as I know Notre Dame has no greek life currently. They do however have a system where each dorm has a name and a kind of identity and dorms do things as groups like at pep rallies before football games.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

Focus, people.

You should know better than to expect that

[alum]

Originally Posted by littleowl33

ETA: I meant to add something about how Johns Hopkins as a school relates to the greeks there. I think the biggest thing is that there's definitely an atmosphere of "work ALWAYS comes first." In the past we've had some well-meaning LCs who had trouble with this - for example, one wanted us to go sit in the cafeteria for hours, wearing our letters, to promote the group. Sisters were pretty incredulous because they had too many other things to do, like research, lab work, studying, jobs, etc. In all the NPC groups here it's very much an attitude of school first, everything else (including my sorority) second. I've seen girls disaffiliate (in all 3 groups on campus) because they felt the sorority was demanding too much of them and it was interfering with their workload. And we don't even have that many required events, for that reason specifically! I don't know how much of all this is typical of greeks at other universities (regardless of US News ranking), but it's definitely something I've noticed here that differs from the attitudes of greeks I've met at some other schools.

Carnegie Mellon was very much the same way. Our campus was silent on Sunday through Thursdays. Mandatory functions were only held on the weekends.

I was at my GLO's regional meeting a couple of years ago when it happened to be in Baltimore. I spoke to a couple of alums who advised the chapter at JHU. They truly didn't understand the workloads of JHU students. Many decades ago, I remember the same problem with the CMU advisors. They just didn't understand the typical Tartan and the amount of work we had. My brother went to MIT, was very involved with his fraternity (lived in the house all 4 years), and even was an intercollegiate athlete for them. Somehow he managed to strike the balance.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

Focus, people.

What, you think that just 'cause you started this thread, you get to control any highjacks and sidetrips?

Silly rabbit.

[Miriverite]

MIT frats/sororities are pretty understanding of the workload, so it's not really hard to "strike the balance" in terms of balancing schoolwork and Greek life. For example, last semester I probably put in (max) an hour per week for AXO. Certain frats might even demand less (the only -mandatory- activities, really, are chapter meetings and house jobs). Of course, if you're on the exec board or active in a committee it might take longer, but still isn't that time consuming (I was also webmaster, and that took maybe 10 minutes a week, if even).

I am impressed, however, that your brother was able to be an intercollegiate athlete as well. I've heard from some friends (mainly in tennis/swimming) that the athletic schedule can be killer.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

Focus, people.

Part of the problem with staying on topic is that most of us are not from most of the schools on that list. That does make me think that the greek systems are not very strong on most of those campuses. (most, not all, because we know UCLA has a pretty strong greek life and Northwestern too, if it was on that list)