"Best" Colleges and their Greek Systems

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by Football Fan

The new rankings come out in September. It will be interesting to see what will happen with some of the flagship universities that are suffering from huge budget deficits.

Things won't change that much in a year. At this level, the schools primarily trade positions. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are always in some iteration in the top 3. For the rest of the Top 25, their reputations are set in stone. Reed's ranking fell only because their administration decided not to play the game anymore and stopped sending information.

Much of the criteria, like alumni giving to law or medical schools, has nothing to do with academic performance at the undergraduate level.

There are only 3 state schools in the top 25, and I don't see them going anywhere. States won't cut much funding to their flagships--especially those with international reputations (and students paying full-freight) like UCLA and Berkeley. NY State's not cutting Cornell's piece of the pie for its publicly funded schools.

[28StGreek]

If you accept that the US News ranking is an indicator of academic prestige...

then it would seem that strong academics and the large, competitive, (and southern-style??) recruitment culture (at least on the Panhellenic side) seem to be incompatible. (Forgive me if I just mean Panhellenic/IFC when I say Greek in this post, but those are the two aspects of Greek life I am familiar with to comment on.)

Only SC comes to mind, and I guess UVA, WF, possibly UCLA, maybe even Northwestern and Cornell

With all the benefits that greek life has to offer I would have hoped this was less the case. Is this more the Administration culture of being Anti-Greek (like at Stanford and most of the Ivies?); or just generally that the students who go to these schools not interested in going Greek ? Does that speak for the diversity of university demographics these days, that many students may be first generation students, or that they are from backgrounds which were not the traditions/stereotypically Greek upbringing? So they really just don't know enough about Greek life beyond (negative) media representations to be interested in it when they get to college?

I do know from personal experience that in its bid to raise their academic profile and shed its party school image, SC administration has increasingly tightened its grip on the Row. But Greeks do still hold many leadership positions across campus. And Order of Omega and Gamma Sigma Alpha (a Greek Academic Honours Society, that was founded at USC) are going strong year on year.
So it is possible to balance the social with the academics. Isn't the skill to balance ones life and time management one of the things going Greek teaches you to excel at?

Granted in the current economic climate, and possibly an increasing number of students who are going to university on some sort of part scholarships who may not have the spare cash for dues, may also have an effect, as a lot of the schools on the list are private institutions.

Sorry there are a lot of assumptions in this post, this is really just my lazy sunday evening reaction.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by 28StGreek

If you accept that the US News ranking is an indicator of academic prestige...

Which for many is a big if.

[28StGreek]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Which for many is a big if.

Oh I do know, which is why I began the post with that caveat.

However the questions I ask are genuine. That has been a talking point during recruitment the past few years, how the incoming class at SC is very different in year past and the Row will have to adjust their perceptions and adapt to the changing profile that is the USC student. Of course the feeder populations of the Beach Cities, PV and Orange County still exist, but its becoming a much smaller proportion. On a side note, I believe there has also been an growing trend of students coming from Texas, and they have the largest out-of-state population of the student body.