Colleges where it sucks if you’re not Greek or sporty - help us avoid them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Area colleges where it would be fine to be not Greek or not sporty: VCU, Mary Washington, St. Mary's in Maryland.

I work at JMU and yeah, there are kids who party and also TONS who don't. It's a huge school. Most students are not interested in football or greek life. Like the earlier poster who talked about UVA, there are a zillion clubs and activities for every possible interest.

If your daughter wants a "big" school experience, JMU is a good suggestion. They have both Greek life and sports but neither seem to dominate the school. And there is enough to do in the town that you don't need to go to a frat party to have something to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread has got me worried that my reserved introvert is making a mistake just applying to small schools.

I 💯 agree (in same position).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread has got me worried that my reserved introvert is making a mistake just applying to small schools.

I 💯 agree (in same position).

If the fit seems good, I wouldn’t worry too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread has got me worried that my reserved introvert is making a mistake just applying to small schools.

I 💯 agree (in same position).

If the fit seems good, I wouldn’t worry too much.

I'm not as worried. In a small school people are more likely to notice teach other and maybe realize that a kid in the dorm is alone too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread has got me worried that my reserved introvert is making a mistake just applying to small schools.

I 💯 agree (in same position).

If the fit seems good, I wouldn’t worry too much.

I'm not as worried. In a small school people are more likely to notice teach other and maybe realize that a kid in the dorm is alone too much.

No. You can't depend on that. Even in a small school your kid needs to make the effort. My kid did that at her LAC -- just kept reaching out until she found her group, and she is so happy. That would not have happened if she waited for people to notice her -- even at a small school. But, I do think that the small school with small classes helped foster a sense of community that contributed to developing her close knit group.

[Anonymous]

Im not sure if it's been mentioned, because I didn't read the whole thread, but Penn State.

If you're not Greek or 21, there's nothing to do because they are SUPER strict in the bars there.
No fake id will work.

I had two friends transfer in their freshman year (this was before the child molestation scandal though, not sure how it is now).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread has got me worried that my reserved introvert is making a mistake just applying to small schools.

I 💯 agree (in same position).

If the fit seems good, I wouldn’t worry too much.

But you don’t really know about “fit” until you are there - for example, my son really liked Williams. We know people who went there/have kids there who say it would be a great “fit” for my intense, shy son - we also know people who graduated who have said the dominant culture is type A sporty/preppy types, which fors not describe him at all. Some of this is dictated by who becomes your “crowd” at a small school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty much every school has a greek system and every school has sports of one type or another. Join or don't join. It's not a big deal.

If you are thinking small schools -- they will be D3 athletics which means that they will not be doing their sport 2/3 of the year. If you were thinking possibly a big school like a Big 10 or SEC they will have lots of sports and a greek system and those kids will collectively make up about 10% of all the kids on campus.

Understand that kids can be in a frat/sorority and also participate in other things. Pretty much all do. So - what then really is the concern? I want to party, but I do not want to party with people in a frat/sorority? That seems odd. Frankly, if the prospective student is looking not to party (at least according to their parent) then don't go to a party. The reality is pretty much everyone will go to some and try it on for size. They may like it. They may not like it. They may like parties put on by XYZ grojup and not ABC group. Fine. Even a small school can be a big place and effort needs to be given to find your groups. In a big school there are more groups to try though you have to find them too.

None seek you out. That bears repeating. Absent being on a sports team -- campus groups do not come knocking on your door saying "here is a personal invite". They put up signs where allowed and have internet presence, and your kid shows up or not. That's it. Kids have to stick their noses out there. It is the only way.

At several small schools we’ve toured the tour guide says the teams tend to live together in off campus houses. These teams -even DIiI — tend to hang out, work out, live together all year. (Yes, they are in other activities too.) So no, they don’t seek you out but a non-athlete is not often included in their socializing. In the schools in small towns there’s not much to do on weekends if you’re not on a team or Greek. Many clubs do not fill weekend nights.

True and not true. No surprise. The thing at any school, small or big, is that team members spend a huge amount of time doing team stuff. Practices, game, travel, workouts. Even at a D3 it can be very time consuming when "in season". Basically, kids on a team work a near full time job and go to school during their season. When it is not their season the commitment requirement changes a ton based on whether you are D3 or not. D3 schools can really have rather limited contact with athletes out of their proscribed season. Kids still will do "voluntary" activities like fitness and weightroom stuff. At a D1 school kids on a team, in the off-season, are limited to 8 hours of practice. BUT (big but) that is a mandatory time allotment. If a kid is doing "volunteer" work -- will that does not count against the 8 hours. So, basically, practices will be 8 hours a week (say 4 days for 2 hours a day), and if everyone on the team also volunteers to do weight training 4 hours a week, and skill work another 4 hours a week -- great. And, of course, the time limits do not include time spent getting to and from practices, getting prepped for practices (taping ankles say, stretching, etc) and getting ready again after practice (shower, etc , , ).

If everyone in an apartment is keeping the same type of schedule then it can be a little easier on everyone because they will eat at the same hours, need to leave for practice/games/road trips on the same schedule etc. . . The big downside though is when something does not work out. A kid gets cut. A kid gets injured. A kid loses a starting position (maybe to a roommate). It can work out. My kid played soccer for 4 years and she and one of her roommates for 3 of the 4 years played the same position at times and fought it out for playing time, but were able to get along fine off the field and thus were roommates. That would be fairly unusual though.

Anyway -- having an athlete as a roommate when you are not an athlete also could be a bit of a pain in the rear, because of the weird time requirements. Athletes get special training table meals. Sounds good, until you realize that really means that the cafe near the practice facility will stay open longer because practice ends at say 8 p.m. and otherwise they would not be able to eat. So - they get whatever is left over from dinner that day heated up nicely. That does not make for a great roommate unless you are also on the same type of schedule.

[Anonymous]

Uconn

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mid tier LACs like Lehigh, Bucknell, Colgate, etc are all very Greek. Top tier LACs have no or very little greek life……Williams, bowdoin, Amherst, Midd, Wes, etc.

But those top tier LACs have a huge culture around the athletes/teams being insular and the cornerstone of those schools 'social scenes'

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. I know this is over-simplifying but my daughter is looking a tier lower than from what maybe she could have a shot at because we can’t afford $70-80 thousand. This sounds whiney but it feels like this makes it hard to avoid party-schools, which she would like to do. The big state schools seem so Greek and overwhelming to her — we visited some.)

Though I went to an Ivy and frats ruled the weekends because the school was so isolated.)

The southern big state schools are "greekier" than their northern counterparts. In other words, if you are not greek at a place like Alabama or SMU, it is very different than not being greek at Wisconsin or Michigan.

[Anonymous]

NYU, BU, NEU

[Anonymous]

JMU.

Radford.

GMU.

Penn State.

Personal experience and DC.

[Anonymous]

My introverted Asian girl is doing fine at Northeastern.
Involved with a number of clubs and occasional events.
Also enjoying Boston city stuff.
Went to a couple of hockey games for an experience though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mid tier LACs like Lehigh, Bucknell, Colgate, etc are all very Greek. Top tier LACs have no or very little greek life……Williams, bowdoin, Amherst, Midd, Wes, etc.

But most of this schools place high value on scholar athletes and are thus sporty with the exception of Wesleyan.

I think Emory and NYU are two schools which are neither particularly sporty or Greek.

+1 and don't be scared off by reported admission stats: for example, 25% of the freshman at NYU are not in those stats at all, as NYU does not include the School of Liberal Studies in its stats (even more since they also do not include the first year abroad students).