Frats = paying to get friends agree or disagree?

[NeoV]

on average, greek members do in fact come from wealthier families than non-greek students...

groups of friends can and do frequently visit other schools where they have friends, you don't need to be in a frat to make road trips to other schools...



I attended two different schools, a small Division III school and the largest school in the nation, OSU. The greek scene is very different from school to school...at CWRU in Cleveland, the frat influence was much more obvious, and it didn't seem like a bad thing at all...the frat that 'recruited' me did so because I played two sports for CWRU, and many of my teammates were in this frat. I didn't join that year, but had I stayed there I could have seen myself doing so.

Ohio St's frat scene is completely different...Many of the stereotypes that you read about come from places like this...terrible, terrible attitude towards non-members, reckless behavoir, etc....didn't want to be a part of this at all, and in fact many of my baseball teammates had nothing to do with it either.

Luv2chill...while your post was well put together, it was clearly slanted towards the idea that frats are a good thing, yet it seems pretty clear that you have not really seen both sides either, but that is cool..my only complaint with your post is the part about Sorority girls....99% of the ones, etc, etc......the percentage of women who experience date rape is disgustingly high on college campuses in the US, so please, don't act like the girls are all to blame here.

Bottom line? Frats are different at different schools, for some people it is a family tradition, or they have friends that joined so they did, or they just check it out, or they don't want anything to do with it. To each his own.

 

[luv2chill]

<< on average, greek members do in fact come from wealthier families than non-greek students...

groups of friends can and do frequently visit other schools where they have friends, you don't need to be in a frat to make road trips to other schools...



I attended two different schools, a small Division III school and the largest school in the nation, OSU. The greek scene is very different from school to school...at CWRU in Cleveland, the frat influence was much more obvious, and it didn't seem like a bad thing at all...the frat that 'recruited' me did so because I played two sports for CWRU, and many of my teammates were in this frat. I didn't join that year, but had I stayed there I could have seen myself doing so.

Ohio St's frat scene is completely different...Many of the stereotypes that you read about come from places like this...terrible, terrible attitude towards non-members, reckless behavoir, etc....didn't want to be a part of this at all, and in fact many of my baseball teammates had nothing to do with it either.

Luv2chill...while your post was well put together, it was clearly slanted towards the idea that frats are a good thing, yet it seems pretty clear that you have not really seen both sides either, but that is cool..my only complaint with your post is the part about Sorority girls....99% of the ones, etc, etc......the percentage of women who experience date rape is disgustingly high on college campuses in the US, so please, don't act like the girls are all to blame here.

Bottom line? Frats are different at different schools, for some people it is a family tradition, or they have friends that joined so they did, or they just check it out, or they don't want anything to do with it. To each his own. >>

Good post NeoV. You are absolutely right that the greek "scene" varies widely depending on the school. And kudos to you for calling me out on my post . Re-reading what I wrote, I do see how it appears slanted/biased in favor of greek living. I try to look at everything objectively, but I am not always (and was not in this case) 100% successful.

I also see your point about how by my post it looks like I blame girls for date rape. I'm sorry for coming off that way--it's certainly not what I believe. I would go back and edit my post, but I'd rather just clarify what I meant. From my personal experience, the vast majority of sex that goes on in the greek community is consensual. This is not to say that rape doesn't go on, because that's an outright lie and we all know it. What I was trying to combat is the blanket statement that that is what fraternity life is all about, or that it happens on a frequent basis in fraternities. I have no national statistics to back myself up, so I will go ahead and state flat out that this is my own opinion based on my observations.

I realize that my comment about how incidence of date rape could possibly be rumors started by the girls themselves was poorly worded and could easily be taken as if I feel this happens with regularity. I don't feel that way, just to set the record straight. What I was trying to get across was that rumors (of any content) whispered from person to person across college campuses usually morph into various extremes as they get passed on, and some may not even be true to begin with. I speak from experience on that one. One of my best-honed skills is my B.S. detector, thanks to all the use it got in college. I was just trying to tell people that second, third, fourth... hand information is not always fully true (and is quite often mostly false). I did not intend to call attention away from the victims of rape and the atrocity of that crime. Nor did I intend to cast doubt on their credibility. IMHO anyone who rapes another human being should be castrated. That goes for greek members and non-greeks alike.

Finally, about girls in sororities... I just want to make clear my position is that we've all got to accept responsibilities for our actions. I think girls in sororities tend to get generalized as much so or even more than guys in fraternities. They tend to get classified as dumb, ditzy, and innocent. I can tell you that from my experience most are quite the opposite. In fact, lots of sorority girls can be downright calculating. Again, from my experience, nearly all of the girls who end up having sex are the ones who are looking for it. Again, this is not discounting the date rape that does occur. But to my knowledge, I've never known a guy (greek or not) who has committed date rape. Now that may be unique to my experience, and I'm sure it varies somewhat from school to school.

Bottom line is that there are scummy people in this world. You may argue that there's a higher percentage of them in fraternities, but all else being equal I don't agree with that.

But anyway, thanks for keeping me on my toes and making me realize that as much as I try, I cannot be completely unbiased.

l2c

 

[Mani]

All of my opinions come from seeing friends first-hand who have joined/are in frats.