Spring is right around the corner. Most schools that conduct formal recruitment during the spring semester have recently welcomed their new babies. Just as we have for the last several years, we’ve assembled the data to determine what sororities/fraternities are on top of the Greek rankings. We’ve had some shakeups in our rankings from last semester. Here are GreekRank’s Spring 2017’s top sororities and fraternities in the categories of Sisterhood/Brotherhood, Involvement, Classiness, Popularity, Looks, Fun, And Overall Highest Ranked... Read more

Think your university has strong Greek roots that go way back? The first collegiate social Greek organizations in North America were established in the first half of the 19th century. A few schools proudly proclaim they are the “Mother of Greek Life” or the “Mother of Fraternities”.  We have assembled a list of universities that can boast the greatest number of fraternities and sororities established on their campuses.... Read more

You have made one of the biggest decisions of your life to go to college. Congratulations! However, that’s not the only decision that you’ll have to make when it comes to college life. Another important decision that you’ll probably make is the decision to go Greek in college. Greek life has lots of benefits to offer to its members – opportunities to build a network, social/community activities to participate in, a strong brotherhood bond to maintain, and many more!  However, one of the biggest challenges college guys face at the beginning of their Greek life is choosing the right fraternity for themselves.... Read more

Xavier University is getting Greek life next fall, and the internet has opinions. The Xavier Newswire broke the news that multiple chapters are being considered for the school's inaugural Greek expansion - and honestly, as someone who went through recruitment, joined a chapter, and spent four years inside that world, I have a lot of thoughts about what Xavier students are walking into. ... Read more

Every Panhellenic council has one. Maybe they call it something different - standings, rankings, chapter health scores - but it's the same machine. A way of sorting chapters into winners and losers based on criteria that, if you actually look closely, reward the chapters that were already winning. I spent two years on Panhellenic council watching this play out in real time, and I'm done pretending it's a neutral process. ... Read more

Sewanee just quietly did something that a lot of schools have been slow to do - they made the GPA requirement for fraternity and sorority recruitment equal. Both sides of Greek life now need a 2.1 to rush. Same bar, same standard. It sounds simple, but it's the kind of move that actually means something if you care about what these organizations are supposed to stand for. ... Read more

When a student ends up in the hospital at a fraternity event, the coverage that follows tends to follow a pretty familiar script. University suspends chapter. Statement gets released. People who already hated Greek life feel validated. People inside Greek life go quiet and wait for it to blow over. Rinse, repeat. But the Ohio State situation - where a fraternity was suspended after a student was hospitalized at one of their events - deserves more than that script, especially right now. ... Read more

Something shifted on campuses around 2020 and it never fully shifted back. The fraternities that figured that out early are in a completely different position right now than the ones still running the same playbook from 2015. I've watched this from close enough range - four years in a sorority, a lot of time around chapters of Sigma Chi, Kappa Sigma, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and others - and I have thoughts. Not all of them are flattering. ... Read more

So students at the University of Wyoming showed up to a Board of Trustees public comment session to talk about Greek life. Not just to talk about it - to advocate for it, push back on it, and air out grievances in front of the people who actually hold the budget strings. And honestly? Good. That's exactly how this is supposed to work. ... Read more

There's a moment on bid day - and I've watched it happen from the outside as an IFC guy - where something shifts. A girl opens that envelope, or rips that bid card, and for a split second the whole world is just her and that piece of paper. Then she screams. And then she runs. And then about forty other women are running toward her. I've seen that happen on campus and I genuinely don't know how anyone watches it and stays cynical about Greek life. ... Read more

When I was still a GDI - before I rushed Sigma Chi my sophomore year - I watched a few guys from my floor come back from semester abroad looking like they'd fully disconnected from their fraternities. One of them had missed so many chapter events that his brothers barely acknowledged him at parties. Another came back and basically had to re-introduce himself to the pledge class that had crossed while he was gone. I filed it away as: Greek life and study abroad don't mix well. Then I went abroad myself, junior spring, and realized it's more complicated than that. ... Read more

Virginia Tech just published a feel-good piece about their Greeks Giving Back event, and honestly, it's the kind of story that makes Panhellenic councils look great on paper. Chapters showing up, logging hours, doing visible community work. The university gets a win. The chapters get coverage. Everyone posts photos. And I'm sitting here thinking about how many of those same chapters are the ones I've watched skate through standards hearings on the strength of their philanthropy numbers alone. ... Read more

Somewhere between 2018 and now, Greek life stopped being something that mostly existed on campus and started existing everywhere. Your parents could see it. Your high school friends in different states could see it. Random people with no connection to your school could see it. And if you were in a chapter during that shift, you felt it in ways that were genuinely weird to process in real time. ... Read more

When Oglethorpe University students launched Lambda Theta Alpha - making it the school's first Latin Greek organization - most people outside Atlanta probably didn't notice. No viral moment, no national coverage. Just a group of students deciding their campus needed something it didn't have yet. And honestly, that quiet kind of founding story is worth paying attention to. ... Read more

Everyone acts like formal recruitment is this sacred, untouchable process and informal recruitment is the sketchy back-channel thing chapters do when they didn't get enough bids. That framing is wrong, and if you've spent any time on a Panhellenic council actually enforcing these rules, you know how much more complicated it really is. ... Read more