Schools without Fraternities

[Anonymous]

Look at engineering schools. They will have design teams that are a great way to make friends without a frat. RPI, Case Western, Clarkson, Carnegie Mellon, etc.

[Anonymous]

I went to Ricein part because it doesn't allow frats.

The residential college system instantly and randomly makes every freshman part of a very supportive group for the duration of their undergraduate years -- whether you live on campus or off. All intramural sports, drama, and student government are based in the colleges, so your DS would have plenty of opportunity to participate without having to go through some ridiculous pledge process or spend one extra cent.

To this day if I meet another Rice alum, the first question I'm asked is "which college were you in?"

It was Lovett, by the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to a Jesuit school and that's all we did- drink!

Me too, but no frats.

[Anonymous]

Brigham Young University ?

[Anonymous]

I went to Rice, too. Just be aware that there is plenty of drinking - in fact, it is a wet campus (two bars on campus) - and many frat-like parties held on campus. But it has a very strong engineering program, no frats, and a residential college system as PPs mentioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to Rice, too. Just be aware that there is plenty of drinking - in fact, it is a wet campus (two bars on campus) - and many frat-like parties held on campus. But it has a very strong engineering program, no frats, and a residential college system as PPs mentioned.

Yes, there are parties at Rice and there's drinking, and there's at least 1 on-campus pub, but the residential college parties are not "frat-like" according to our son, who transferred to Rice from a school with frats, where he found the party scene seriously out of control (as in students being taken to the ER) and predatory toward women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most big state schools have frats, but you can easily ignore them.

I went to a big football school, hung out with like-minded nerdy/creative types and graduated without giving the Greeks any thought.

I think this is harder to do at places like Penn State where it's really difficult to carve out a social niche without being in a sorority or fraternity.

There are many social cliques at large schools. Avoiding frats is easier at a large school. A small, frat-heavy school maybe be difficult, though.

[Anonymous]

In my experience, the heaviest partiers came from wealthy backgrounds. At a certain point all of that booze (and drugs) is unaffordable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Haverford

Viva la Ford, but it doesn't offer an engineering major.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haverford

Viva la Ford, but it doesn't offer an engineering major.

I thought Haverford has something worked out with Penn and Cal Tech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most big state schools have frats, but you can easily ignore them.

I went to a big football school, hung out with like-minded nerdy/creative types and graduated without giving the Greeks any thought.

I think this is harder to do at places like Penn State where it's really difficult to carve out a social niche without being in a sorority or fraternity.

I went to Penn State, and found it easy to make friends precisely because of its size. You can ignore the frats if you want. There are opportunities to get involved in the party scene without having to attend the creepy frat parties. If you don't like to party, there are so many avenues to get involved and because of its size, there are plenty of people out there who don't party. You can ignore the Greeks if you want.

Compare that to a school like Dartmouth, with only 4000 students and nearly half participating in Greek life, or Denison, 2200 students and 30% in frats and 46% sororities. Just by pure numbers there are far fewer Greeks and far fewer means of non-frat socializing at a place like Penn State than the small schools with Greek presence (I'd say for those, greater than 20% would give me pause).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most big state schools have frats, but you can easily ignore them.

I went to a big football school, hung out with like-minded nerdy/creative types and graduated without giving the Greeks any thought.

I think this is harder to do at places like Penn State where it's really difficult to carve out a social niche without being in a sorority or fraternity.

I went to Penn State, and found it easy to make friends precisely because of its size. You can ignore the frats if you want. There are opportunities to get involved in the party scene without having to attend the creepy frat parties. If you don't like to party, there are so many avenues to get involved and because of its size, there are plenty of people out there who don't party. You can ignore the Greeks if you want.

Compare that to a school like Dartmouth, with only 4000 students and nearly half participating in Greek life, or Denison, 2200 students and 30% in frats and 46% sororities. Just by pure numbers there are far fewer Greeks and far fewer means of non-frat socializing at a place like Penn State than the small schools with Greek presence (I'd say for those, greater than 20% would give me pause).

Good point -- this is also true of Michigan and Wisconsin -- lots of students are in frats, but lots aren't, and the coexistence works in terms of social life. In the same vein, another point to consider is whether a majority of students in your kid's cohort or affinity group are in frats. For example, at UChicago, though fraternity membership among all male students is relatively low, a majority of male varsity athletes are in frats. For our son, who was a varsity athlete at Chicago, this meant that most of his friends and dormmates, who were also athletes, went Greek, which left him -- as someone who sees frats as exclusionary, a waste of time and generally obnoxious -- without a social cohort.

[Anonymous]

University of Notre Dame

Great engineering program, and students generally live in the same single sex dorm for 3 or 4 years, so you get the close-knit community without the other Greek stuff.

But yeah, there's still a ton of drinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a Jesuit school and that's all we did- drink!

Me too, but no frats.

Yes, Boston College has no frats and is like this. A big party school.

It's an Irish Catholic thing. (I'm Irish Catholic and grew up in that environment.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haverford

Viva la Ford, but it doesn't offer an engineering major.

I thought Haverford has something worked out with Penn and Cal Tech.

You can do a 4/1 program so you get a bachelor's from Haverford and a master's in engineering from UPenn, but if someone wants to have a bachelor's in engineering, nope.