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

[Anonymous]

My kids sounds like yours and he’s applying to Vassar, Oberlin, Wes, Reed, Macalester, Carleton, UVM, CU Boulder, and St Mary’s.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a similar DS and I’m trying to help him formulate a list - he’s in 10th grade. This is our working list:

William and Mary
St Mary’s of MD
Mary Washington
UMBC
Carnegie Mellon
Pitt
Oberlin
Wooster
Case Western
Tufts
Brandeis
Vassar
Wesleyan
Swarthmore
JHU
Franklin and Marshall
Villanova

He wants to stay on the east coast or relatively close, so no west coast schools on this list

Good list!

[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).

The key to finding the social life you want is to join clubs to meet kids with similar interests. Once you have friends, going to whatever parties they go to (Greek or D&D game night or dinner parties or camping trips) becomes less intimidating. My non-drinking, geeky-game-loving kid met friends in the film club and goes to all kinds of weekend events that are not frat parties.

[Anonymous]

I mean this with no snark - if your child doesn't want to participate in either, why does it matter if other kids do? And how are they so sure that they don't want to participate? Greek like can be incredibly fun and isn't always how it is portrayed in the big SEC schools. It can actually be a great way for a quiet kid to find a solid group of friends and have a social calendar built for them.

I attended a small LAC where about 35% of the campus was Greek (as was I) and it was a ton of fun, but there were also plenty of things for nonGreek kids to do. In my mind Greek culture dominated (because I participated) but I had plenty of friends that weren't Greek and didn't feel like they missed out because they had their own things going on.

College is what you make of it, who you find to build your community, and what you're interested in. It shouldn't matter what others do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP your kid needs to loosen up and have fun

Fun doesn't have to include frat parties, and that is what OP's kid is looking for -- hence the question.

[Anonymous]

Schools in the middle of nowhere are usually Greeky, Drinking, Sporty.

Look for schools in City/Urban area.

[Anonymous]

So, this thread was from the High school class of '22 -- if you are around OP, where is your daughter now in her Sophomore year and how does she like it, reflecting back on this issue?

[Anonymous]

My first child found that his top SLAC was not the academic-forward, nurturing environment he went in expecting. We were naive thinking that schools like Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin etc were something out of a movie - because they look like something out of a movie. He was completely comfortable with college stuff for sure: sex, drugs, etc. But there's a sports divide at these schools. And a certain level of locker room talk that I thought sunsetted in 1990s. The first time he heard gay slurs regularly was in college. Nazi jokes. It was bizarre.

My younger kids we looked at schools with at least 3-4k undergrad. Where athletes were not 35% of the undergrad population .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My first child found that his top SLAC was not the academic-forward, nurturing environment he went in expecting. We were naive thinking that schools like Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin etc were something out of a movie - because they look like something out of a movie. He was completely comfortable with college stuff for sure: sex, drugs, etc. But there's a sports divide at these schools. And a certain level of locker room talk that I thought sunsetted in 1990s. The first time he heard gay slurs regularly was in college. Nazi jokes. It was bizarre.

My younger kids we looked at schools with at least 3-4k undergrad. Where athletes were not 35% of the undergrad population .

My Lord. You need to lighten up and get off your high horse. And your son? Wow. Talk about being milk toast

[Anonymous]

Any of the SLACs are going to have a strong athlete presence, because they have as many sports teams as a larger school. Amherst has about the same number of athletes as Princeton but is 1/3 of the size. That doesn't mean that a nonathlete would necessarily feel excluded, but it is what it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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 big state schools that have 15,000+ students might have large greek systems, but if 15% is greek, that means 85% isn't...that translates to thousands of non-greek kids for your kid to find her tribe.

Yes I'd agree with that too.

I went to VT, and there was certainly a social life surrounding Greek life, but I wasn't part of it. I did play casual sports which lead to friends, but there are hundreds of clubs to join. If you don't do the sort of very visual big social clubs, you just have to seek out a few others. Not all will click. Some will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My first child found that his top SLAC was not the academic-forward, nurturing environment he went in expecting. We were naive thinking that schools like Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin etc were something out of a movie - because they look like something out of a movie. He was completely comfortable with college stuff for sure: sex, drugs, etc. But there's a sports divide at these schools. And a certain level of locker room talk that I thought sunsetted in 1990s. The first time he heard gay slurs regularly was in college. Nazi jokes. It was bizarre.

My younger kids we looked at schools with at least 3-4k undergrad. Where athletes were not 35% of the undergrad population .

Did you black out during the Trump administration?

[Anonymous]

I went to a large public that from the outside seems all about sports and very Greek, and I had nothing to do with any of that. The reality is that a large school will have all types of people and all types of activities, and there are so many other options that you don’t have to have anything to do with Greek life, or even think about it at all.

[Anonymous]

This thread was started from someone whose kid has long since gone to school, so I'm not sure why someone revived it. It may be a common request, but there's a misperception issue with asking about schools without Greek or Jock-heavy cultures for an introverted kid:

The complaint with schools whose social scene is dominated by fraternities and sports teams (which double as greek orgs in lots of LACs in the sense that they get places together and host parties there) is that that they sometimes host parties that exclude people who are not members of those organizations or at least are mostly attended by other athletes or members of Greek orgs. In other words, the people who will be unhappy in those environments WANT to party with lots of people in loud, alcohol-fueled settings, but either are worried about being excluded from those parties because they aren't Greeks or jocks or they don't like hanging with those types of people when they do go to big parties.

Most introverted kids want to get together with friends, if at all, in small groups in quieter settings. A school that is dominated by Greeks and Jocks will still have introverts who spend time in their rooms alone or with small groups. My kid did a visit at Colgate, a well-known Greek and Jock-heavy school, and he said that on a Saturday night of a big hockey game between Colgate and Cornell half the people in the freshman dorm were still hanging out in the dorm. My guess is most of those were likely the introverts, hanging out in small groups. Some may have felt left out, but most had found their people and were happier in that setting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My first child found that his top SLAC was not the academic-forward, nurturing environment he went in expecting. We were naive thinking that schools like Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin etc were something out of a movie - because they look like something out of a movie. He was completely comfortable with college stuff for sure: sex, drugs, etc. But there's a sports divide at these schools. And a certain level of locker room talk that I thought sunsetted in 1990s. The first time he heard gay slurs regularly was in college. Nazi jokes. It was bizarre.

My younger kids we looked at schools with at least 3-4k undergrad. Where athletes were not 35% of the undergrad population .

My Lord. You need to lighten up and get off your high horse. And your son? Wow. Talk about being milk toast

Milquetoast. Talk about a self-own. But then again someone who thinks a kid should "lighten up" when kids are using gay slurs said it all

[Anonymous]

Read survey results in UNIGO, to compare schools.