"Clubs are competitive"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Getting into most clubs at Georgetown is a full-time job and uber competitive -- think essays and multiple interviews. Same holds true at Yale, Berkeley and UCLA. It's such a shame because it really limits students to clubs that align with their previous experiences.

Georgetown doesn’t have Greek life and the clubs fill that role in the student’s social life. That is another reason why it is so competitive to get into the top clubs. Boston College is the same way.

[Anonymous]

I did NAQT/College Bowl at my school and have vaguely kept up with it, and while the A-Team that goes to major tournaments or Nationals can be quite competitive and might require members to sit down and memorize lists of Famous Playwrights and Their Works in order to get a slot, B-team and lower are mostly there to have fun, go to tournaments as cannon fodder, or sub in for A-Team members who wind up on academic probation because of the amount of time they've spent learning those famous playwrights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll selfishly ask for any experiences at UVA?

There are 850+ clubs. Other than club sports which are very competitive (and often national champs) there are maybe 50 that are competitive (probably less).

But out of those 850 clubs, how many of them are really active?

Plenty

There's now over 900 clubs. Each puts up a table during three days of welcome each fall. Most are just "join up" clubs. There is something for everyone from politics to MANY glee clubs. DD signedup for crew, the Cavalier Daily (writing for student newspaper), Larry Sabato's Institute for Politics and try out Jefferson Society, the oldest continuous debating society in America. She didn't like the early am call for crew; didnt like topics assigned from The Daily Cavalier but thoroughly enjoyed the latter two and got internships tht

[Anonymous]

^^through them. only Jef Soc was competitive and that's judged by debate skills

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard these types of stories at several schools that my DD and her friends attend (including but not limited to Northwestern, Michigan, Northeastern, Harvard, U Chicago, University of Illinois-CI). Her friends that do not seem to have these experiences (i.e., the clubs are more inclusive) are the ones at SLACs, including top tier ones (Swarthmore, Haverford, Bates). Note, I'm not talking about club sports or "business" fraternities, but regular old student-run clubs (think newspapers/magazines, affinity groups).

SIGH. People hate to look at themselves in the mirror. LC and MC people especially, as well as first-generation UMCs do not understand that having your kid get into a college means ZERO if your kid can't figure out how to flourish. So you need to know your kid's place.

Yale has to admit some high-achieving kids who are minorities or lower/middle income. Those kids are the "exception that proves the rule" of how difficult it is to get into Yale. Those kids are there to sink or swim in their classes, all while providing the dining hall labor.

But there is ZERO reason for the generally UC kids running a club to accept these lower or middle-class kids unless they REALLY benefit PERSONALLY from including them. These are the kids that have no connections, nothing interesting in their experiences and background, and nothing but their brains to push them forward. They can't function in an executive room where people give lip service to diversity, but laugh about the diversity hire's latest fumble during cocktails after a round. Oh, was your kid not invited to play that round of golf? Exactly.

So look at your kid. Is she gorgeous? Then maybe she can get hint to the club President that she'll date him, or maybe she can look good on stage with the members of the a cappella group.

Does your kid have a hookup for really good drugs? Then maybe he can trade on that to get into an investment club.

But if your kid is the average "successful" entrant to Yale, their already WAY ahead of the game. They got admitted, and surely are getting all sorts of "need"-based financial aid. So they really don't need to be given any more perks that would let them rise ahead of the kids who actually FUND the university. it's just the way it is.

This may have been true at one point, but it is true no longer.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/yale-skull-and-bones-secret-societies-diversity/677030/

Picture a member of Skull and Bones, or any of the other Ancient Eight secret societies, and you’ll probably conjure a preppy white guy who summers on the Cape. In fact, in recent years, the demographics of Yale’s most elite organizations have been utterly transformed. In 2020, Skull and Bones had its first entirely nonwhite class. (Every year, the society admits around 15 rising seniors; selections must be unanimous, and members have final say.) Many of the societies now have only one or two students each year who aren’t from historically marginalized groups.

Today, the idea of Skull and Bones selecting someone whose dad was a Republican president seems inconceivable. The so-called tap lines—the tradition guaranteeing that the football captain and the student-body president would end up in Bones—are long gone, and few descendants of alumni members get in. Instead, the secret societies affirmatively select for students who are the first in their family to attend college, who come from a low-income background, or who are part of a minority group. This has created something of a diversity arms race. “People are, intentionally or not, thinking, ‘Does this cohort have too many white people?’” said Ale Canales, a member of the Berzelius class of 2020. “It’s definitely an undercurrent.”

So ... culture evolves? Culture on college campuses evolves? Water is wet. The sky is blue. Skull and Bones is still an elite club -- but it is a different one. Just because the W's of the world aren't members in S&B today doesn't mean they don't have another club and it doesn't mean that social class won't control things.

[Anonymous]

So many parents up in here expressing dismay over exclusivity in club membership as if it were the most evil thing in the world, even as they desperately try to get their kid into an Ivy. Clubs like Skull & Bones or even The Machine at Alabama suddenly aren't so awful if your kid manages to become a member lol.

Desperate strivers just can't stand it when they don't fit in. They only call something out as bad when they are afraid they won't be included. Otherwise, they are knock, knock, knocking on the door.

[Anonymous]

As a follow-up to the college curriculum questions, when looking at colleges, should you also go deep into the clubs? See how competitive they are how many of them offer up with recruiting for certain internships and jobs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a follow-up to the college curriculum questions, when looking at colleges, should you also go deep into the clubs? See how competitive they are how many of them offer up with recruiting for certain internships and jobs?

Clubs are overemphasized. Students who do not get into clubs say they are terrible. Those who do get in, or wisely target the less competitive clubs are happy. Do not waste your time worrying as you cannot really know from the outside, and it will be your student's task to decide if they want to apply to clubs, not yours. If you are still in the list-making application stage, just have a broad list and be clear if you will not pay for one with a lesser curriculum if the student gets into a school with a better one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard these types of stories at several schools that my DD and her friends attend (including but not limited to Northwestern, Michigan, Northeastern, Harvard, U Chicago, University of Illinois-CI). Her friends that do not seem to have these experiences (i.e., the clubs are more inclusive) are the ones at SLACs, including top tier ones (Swarthmore, Haverford, Bates). Note, I'm not talking about club sports or "business" fraternities, but regular old student-run clubs (think newspapers/magazines, affinity groups).

SIGH. People hate to look at themselves in the mirror. LC and MC people especially, as well as first-generation UMCs do not understand that having your kid get into a college means ZERO if your kid can't figure out how to flourish. So you need to know your kid's place.

Yale has to admit some high-achieving kids who are minorities or lower/middle income. Those kids are the "exception that proves the rule" of how difficult it is to get into Yale. Those kids are there to sink or swim in their classes, all while providing the dining hall labor.

But there is ZERO reason for the generally UC kids running a club to accept these lower or middle-class kids unless they REALLY benefit PERSONALLY from including them. These are the kids that have no connections, nothing interesting in their experiences and background, and nothing but their brains to push them forward. They can't function in an executive room where people give lip service to diversity, but laugh about the diversity hire's latest fumble during cocktails after a round. Oh, was your kid not invited to play that round of golf? Exactly.

So look at your kid. Is she gorgeous? Then maybe she can get hint to the club President that she'll date him, or maybe she can look good on stage with the members of the a cappella group.

Does your kid have a hookup for really good drugs? Then maybe he can trade on that to get into an investment club.

But if your kid is the average "successful" entrant to Yale, their already WAY ahead of the game. They got admitted, and surely are getting all sorts of "need"-based financial aid. So they really don't need to be given any more perks that would let them rise ahead of the kids who actually FUND the university. it's just the way it is.

This may have been true at one point, but it is true no longer.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/yale-skull-and-bones-secret-societies-diversity/677030/

Picture a member of Skull and Bones, or any of the other Ancient Eight secret societies, and you’ll probably conjure a preppy white guy who summers on the Cape. In fact, in recent years, the demographics of Yale’s most elite organizations have been utterly transformed. In 2020, Skull and Bones had its first entirely nonwhite class. (Every year, the society admits around 15 rising seniors; selections must be unanimous, and members have final say.) Many of the societies now have only one or two students each year who aren’t from historically marginalized groups.

Today, the idea of Skull and Bones selecting someone whose dad was a Republican president seems inconceivable. The so-called tap lines—the tradition guaranteeing that the football captain and the student-body president would end up in Bones—are long gone, and few descendants of alumni members get in. Instead, the secret societies affirmatively select for students who are the first in their family to attend college, who come from a low-income background, or who are part of a minority group. This has created something of a diversity arms race. “People are, intentionally or not, thinking, ‘Does this cohort have too many white people?’” said Ale Canales, a member of the Berzelius class of 2020. “It’s definitely an undercurrent.”

So ... culture evolves? Culture on college campuses evolves? Water is wet. The sky is blue. Skull and Bones is still an elite club -- but it is a different one. Just because the W's of the world aren't members in S&B today doesn't mean they don't have another club and it doesn't mean that social class won't control things.

Classic. Admitting that things have truly changed would mean assuming responsibility for your own success or failure. Much more fun when you can blame some shadowy cabal for keeping you down.