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Now Harvard has its finals clubs, Yale has its secret societies, Princeton its eating clubs...
But little else. What's more, you can't join them until you're an upperclassman and they're extremely selective.
Dartmouth seems to be on the same route now, announcing they would shut down all fraternities in the next year or so.

So what do you do in case you're not rich/smart/lucky enough to get into Skull and Bones/Porcellian/The Ivy/Hasty Puddings/Scroll and Key/inserthyperselectivesmallclubwithgoodconnectionshere?
Not much, do you?


Which is why I want you to give your opinion on the social scenes of the Top 25 colleges. Hey, someone needs to let the kids (including me) know what schools they can actually live at in addition to the 20 hours spent studying a day.

By Clickspring (Clickspring) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 05:07 pm: Edit

No matter what college you go to, the social scene will be huge. It'd be my guess that the social scene is more directed by the Greek scene than elitist clubs. Just walking down the street looking for house parties is always effective as well. Most kids don't spend 20 hours studying a day...honestly, it's just not necessecary. Lots of kids go to bars...in most places I believe you have to be 21 to get into bars but in other's the age is 19, and with an ID, who cares how old you really are? Other clubs that are larger and interest-based as well as sports teams also have an influence on the social scene. So in all, there's a lot more to the social scene than nationally know elitest clubs.

By Redgrail (Redgrail) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 06:05 pm: Edit

Actually, many of the top universities have banned fraternities/sororites on their campuses, and the same schools are often notoriously dull after 8PM. If you want an example, try this article in the Dartmouth Review from 1999. From what I've heard, things have only gotten worse:
http://69.57.157.207/issues/2.17.99/bsbar.html

And that is why I started this thread. To see if anyone who has done overnights or has family or friends at these universities have any opinions on the subject.

By Breeze (Breeze) on Sunday, October 26, 2003 - 02:46 am: Edit

Virginia is widely known as a fun campus with good-looking people. I suspect you'd find the same at Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan, and Notre Dame... those are the other schools that are in the top 25 of both US News and the Directors Cup of overall athletics departments. For some reason, "brain and jock" schools tend to have more well-rounded students.

For Virginia's sake, I can say it has a very healthy mix of Greeks and non-Greeks.

By Breeze (Breeze) on Sunday, October 26, 2003 - 11:15 pm: Edit

By the way, you'd probably find a good social scene at Rice... everyone I've met from there seems to have loved it. Never been there myself, so I can't speak from experience.

By College (College) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 01:34 pm: Edit

bump...