Same college, same sorority, many of my prettiest sorority sisters did not marry well. Who did?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are surprised that people with money marry people with money?

+1. Is this really the first time you've noticed this, OP?

None of my public school sorority sisters grew up deprived. Public or prep high school, all of us were more or less from the same cluster of affluent towns. Of course if you force me to think, I guess I understand the richest tend to marry rich, but I've never seen such a close controlled data set where it's literally 100% of the private/prep school women married well and it's so hit and miss with their prettier public school peers. I was shocked last night as I was clicking through Facebook friends, so I thought I'd share. I did not know this was so obvious and common.

I can't think of a single person I went to my private high school with who is divorced. In our graduating class I knew of only two kids who had divorced parents.

We had a decent number, actually, in my good boarding school. I don't know, maybe the divorce was sometimes a contributing factor to the boarding school decision?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This seems a little creepy that you have examined all 160 of your sorority sisters marriages through social media or gossip. Does it make you feel superior to them so that’s why you did it?

I admit it is a little creepy. It was a cyber-stalking rabbit hole I couldn't stop going down last night! But not 160, only a percentage of the 160 are prep school alums and I knew the overall gist of everyone's relationships, I was just using Facebook to double-check. We are all friends and I chat with a large chunk of the 160 literally daily, so it's not like I was chasing down details on total strangers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thai is literally the reason people send their kids to private schools op to mingle with other rich kids.

Only a handful are married to men they went to high school with.

You don’t get it. I went to a private school in DC. We hung out with kids from other DC private schools. I cannot think of one public school kid we hung out with with the exception of summer swim team. So you meet other private school friends, visit them in college, meet their private school college friends, go to the same county clubs and beaches, and ski resorts, etc.

I see. So it's not just the immediate alumni network of the prep school, it's also friends of friends from that alumni network paying dating, social and even career dividends?

I started a thread recently about people in this area and how much they seem to care about getting their kid into the right private schools. They seem to care less about not going to a top college. I’m glad I am not imagining this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This seems a little creepy that you have examined all 160 of your sorority sisters marriages through social media or gossip. Does it make you feel superior to them so that’s why you did it?

+1

It's also creepy that all of them had enough social media presence, ncluding spouses and kids and information about wealthy lifestyles, that OP could glean so much. Braggy social media, I guess. But now they're OP's data set.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There were about 160 sisters in my sorority over 20 years ago. Looking back, while some of the prettiest classic beauty sisters married well, frankly, many of them did not. They frequently complain about finances, many are on second marriages, and some are single divorcees dating much older men. A handful never married and have no children – they seem to have successful careers. With the benefit of hindsight, who seems to have married the best? As crazy as this probably sounds, I double-checked this on Facebook last night and literally all of my sisters who went to ritzy private day schools and boarding schools married well. Literally 100%. All of them are married to either successful MDs, law partners, business executives, or entrepreneurs. No divorces. All of them have children. They live in elegant homes, especially for our age range, in premier neighborhoods. And for the sake of total honestly, these sisters were and are largely average appearance-wise. I am not saying that to be cruel or out of jealously, I was also average if not below average for our chapter, and I went to public school.

Is there something to this?

You do not know what is going on is someone else’s marriage or their finances.

Actually I do. I am in iMessage group chats with dozens of sisters. We get together all the time. We talk on the phone and FaceTime. If anything, we all know too much about each other's marriages, careers, and personal lives!

No you do not. It would be totally inappropriate and stupid to give any details of your marriage to some random friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thai is literally the reason people send their kids to private schools op to mingle with other rich kids.

If you visit the private school forum on here, you're brow-beaten that it's all for faith, warm atmosphere, and rigor (college prep). Anyone who brings up current and future network and dating pool is chastised. It is a taboo on here. Are you saying this goes without saying or that private parents actually discuss this out loud?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There were about 160 sisters in my sorority over 20 years ago. Looking back, while some of the prettiest classic beauty sisters married well, frankly, many of them did not. They frequently complain about finances, many are on second marriages, and some are single divorcees dating much older men. A handful never married and have no children – they seem to have successful careers. With the benefit of hindsight, who seems to have married the best? As crazy as this probably sounds, I double-checked this on Facebook last night and literally all of my sisters who went to ritzy private day schools and boarding schools married well. Literally 100%. All of them are married to either successful MDs, law partners, business executives, or entrepreneurs. No divorces. All of them have children. They live in elegant homes, especially for our age range, in premier neighborhoods. And for the sake of total honestly, these sisters were and are largely average appearance-wise. I am not saying that to be cruel or out of jealously, I was also average if not below average for our chapter, and I went to public school.

Is there something to this?

It sounds normal. Some married well, some didn't, some built careers, some built families, some are wealthy, some aren't. Ones who were from well off families had more accomplished peers hence married well. It sounds like a game of statistics.

[Anonymous]

Sorority girls aren't necessarily the smartest bunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are in your 40s and just now realizing this is how the world works? Also, law partners and MDs are not the truly wealthy and likely did not come from a great deal of wealth.

DP. Every MD I know is STILL paying off at least some med school debt, even into their 40s, but I guess OP assumes they all had rich parents to pay for undergrad plus med school, and they make a fortune. Not necessarily true on either count. But that's the real world, not a curated online life on FB or wherever OP gets her so-called research.

This^. Better the school, higher is the debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thai is literally the reason people send their kids to private schools op to mingle with other rich kids.

Only a handful are married to men they went to high school with.

You don’t get it. I went to a private school in DC. We hung out with kids from other DC private schools. I cannot think of one public school kid we hung out with with the exception of summer swim team. So you meet other private school friends, visit them in college, meet their private school college friends, go to the same county clubs and beaches, and ski resorts, etc.

I see. So it's not just the immediate alumni network of the prep school, it's also friends of friends from that alumni network paying dating, social and even career dividends?

I started a thread recently about people in this area and how much they seem to care about getting their kid into the right private schools. They seem to care less about not going to a top college. I’m glad I am not imagining this.

Well, it's a lot easier to get into private K-12 schools in the area than it is to get into "a top college," too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There were about 160 sisters in my sorority over 20 years ago. Looking back, while some of the prettiest classic beauty sisters married well, frankly, many of them did not. They frequently complain about finances, many are on second marriages, and some are single divorcees dating much older men. A handful never married and have no children – they seem to have successful careers. With the benefit of hindsight, who seems to have married the best? As crazy as this probably sounds, I double-checked this on Facebook last night and literally all of my sisters who went to ritzy private day schools and boarding schools married well. Literally 100%. All of them are married to either successful MDs, law partners, business executives, or entrepreneurs. No divorces. All of them have children. They live in elegant homes, especially for our age range, in premier neighborhoods. And for the sake of total honestly, these sisters were and are largely average appearance-wise. I am not saying that to be cruel or out of jealously, I was also average if not below average for our chapter, and I went to public school.

Is there something to this?

You do not know what is going on is someone else’s marriage or their finances.

Actually I do. I am in iMessage group chats with dozens of sisters. We get together all the time. We talk on the phone and FaceTime. If anything, we all know too much about each other's marriages, careers, and personal lives!

No one dares to stray and use Android?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are surprised that people with money marry people with money?

+1. Is this really the first time you've noticed this, OP?

None of my public school sorority sisters grew up deprived. Public or prep high school, all of us were more or less from the same cluster of affluent towns. Of course if you force me to think, I guess I understand the richest tend to marry rich, but I've never seen such a close controlled data set where it's literally 100% of the private/prep school women married well and it's so hit and miss with their prettier public school peers. I was shocked last night as I was clicking through Facebook friends, so I thought I'd share. I did not know this was so obvious and common.

I can't think of a single person I went to my private high school with who is divorced. In our graduating class I knew of only two kids who had divorced parents.

I went to a fancy private school in the 90s and plenty of people got divorced. Some got remarried. Some are unhappily married and not divorced. Guess what, even rich people are still people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thai is literally the reason people send their kids to private schools op to mingle with other rich kids.

Only a handful are married to men they went to high school with.

You don’t get it. I went to a private school in DC. We hung out with kids from other DC private schools. I cannot think of one public school kid we hung out with with the exception of summer swim team. So you meet other private school friends, visit them in college, meet their private school college friends, go to the same county clubs and beaches, and ski resorts, etc.

I see. So it's not just the immediate alumni network of the prep school, it's also friends of friends from that alumni network paying dating, social and even career dividends?

I started a thread recently about people in this area and how much they seem to care about getting their kid into the right private schools. They seem to care less about not going to a top college. I’m glad I am not imagining this.

I suspect this will change and is fundamentally the reason that Columbia is no longer requiring sat and act scores as part of the undergrad admissions criteria. With such an objective, meritocratic measures we've created an over production of elites and the class signal from the Ivies has been diluted. With subjective admissions criteria, there will be more spots for super rich kids who would have had mediocre test scores.

It doesn't particularly bother me bc it's just human nature but I hope we stop associating these schools with our country's best and brightest minds and treat them as the guardians of elite society that all of these schools are and have been.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are in your 40s and just now realizing this is how the world works? Also, law partners and MDs are not the truly wealthy and likely did not come from a great deal of wealth.

+100

[Anonymous]

Not a Greek system person here, but OP remember you're asking this on a place with lots of anti-sorority folks.

As an amrchair sociologist, I'd say that maybe these women with really good looks attracted the wrong type of mate, and that's how they ended up the way they did.

My 25-year reunion was good fun. The "cool" people all ended up in people-friend but low achievement jobs (car salesperson, insurance broker, etc). The straight-A students followed the usual path and are lawyers and doctors.

The most successful money-wise (and I know there are other ways to measure) were the B-students, and just about all were entrepreneurs. My theory is they could earn A's, but were busy doing other stuff than studying also, and it's that type of person who is more likely to take risks. The A-students tend not to be risk-takers, but rule-followers.

We need all kinds, and they're all great, just interesting how everyone turned out.