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
Somewhere between orientation week and your first bid night, someone hands you an invisible spreadsheet. Nobody actually gives it to you - you just absorb it through the air like secondhand smoke. Suddenly you know which houses are "top tier," which ones are "mid," and which ones are apparently one bad semester away from losing their charter. I didn't make the rules. I just lived inside them for four years.
...
Read more
There's a version of sorority recruitment that happens behind closed doors, in chapter rooms, with handshakes and rituals and real conversations. And then there's the version that went viral - the one with choreography, matching outfits, and production value that rivals a mid-budget music video. Jezebel ran a piece recently on the fast rise and murky future of viral sorority recruitment videos, and it got me thinking about something I don't think anyone in Greek life is being totally honest about.
...
Read more
Three fraternities at the University of Arizona are now facing serious hazing allegations, according to reporting from KOLD News. I don't have every detail of what allegedly happened - the story is still developing and the specifics matter. But here's what I do know: the moment I read that headline, my first reaction wasn't shock. It was something closer to tired recognition. And I think that says more about the state of Greek life than any single incident does.
...
Read more
Every fall, thousands of students sprint through recruitment trying to impress as many chapters as possible. They wear the outfits, memorize the talking points, smile through six-hour rotation days. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, they forget the only question that actually matters: does this place feel right for you?
...
Read more
So Alma College just put out a story about how their fraternities and sororities are outperforming the general student population academically. And I know exactly what most people's first reaction is. Eye roll. Skepticism. Some version of "yeah right, those guys study." I get it. I lived it. But here's the thing - the data is real, and it's worth actually talking about instead of dismissing it like we always do.
...
Read more
Nobody sat me down junior year and said, "Here's how Greek life will actually help your career." It just kind of happened, quietly, over time, in ways I didn't recognize until I was already out the other side. I joined Alpha Chi Omega for the sisterhood - full stop. But the professional network I stumbled into? That came from the fraternity guys across the hall at every study hall, every philanthropy event, every awkward co-ed service project. And I genuinely didn't see it coming.
...
Read more
I've watched guys I considered some of the sharpest people in my pledge class fall behind academically by junior year. Not because they weren't capable. Because they let the chapter swallow their schedule whole. And I've also watched guys in the same house - same parties, same philanthropy weekends, same 6 a.m. brotherhood retreats - graduate in four years with solid GPAs and actual job offers lined up. The difference wasn't intelligence. It wasn't even discipline in the way people usually mean it. It was something more specific than that, and I didn't fully understand it until I was about six months out from graduation myself.
...
Read more
Emory University has been working through what to do with its Greek life presence on campus, and a piece in The Emory Wheel makes an argument I think more people need to hear: physically relocating Greek organizations away from campus doesn't make them safer. It just makes them harder to watch. If you've spent any time in a chapter house, you probably already know why that's a problem.
...
Read more
Before I joined a fraternity, I went to exactly two Greek events as a GDI. One mixer where I knew nobody and stood near the snack table the whole time, and one philanthropy event where I felt like I was watching a performance I hadn't been given a script for. I remember thinking everyone seemed to know something I didn't. Turns out, they did.
...
Read more