Questions for HYPSM alumni
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Anonymous
OOPS. I meant HYPSM. |
Anonymous
I went to Harvard and have never heard of these frats. There's minimal Greek life at Harvard... |
Anonymous
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I took a few years out of the workforce after having my second child. The H alumni network helped me reconnect with people once I wanted to get back to work, but in a slightly different field pre-kids. I've told my DD that an Ivy degree is not only a great way to get a foot in the door immediately after graduation, but also helps to open doors years later. The downside, though, is that whenever people find out you went to a school in Cambridge, they make all sorts of assumptions that aren't always positive.
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Anonymous
Ha! I went to Ohio State and my best friend from high school went to Harvard. It was a little bit of a joke, but she used to say that one of the problems with Harvard is that you can't really have any school spirit 
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Anonymous
Oh, geez. Yes you have heard of them. Remember A.D. and Fly? When Harvard closed most of its frats Alpha Delta Phi split into two private clubs, A.D. and Fly. St. Anthony’s Hall was founded at Columbia but its most famous chapter is at Yale. F. Scott Fitzgerald mentions St. Anthony’s. He also mentions Skull & Bones. At least in the past, Skull & Bones recruited primarily from Yale’s chapter of Alpha Delta Phi. |
Anonymous
St. Anthony's used to be the fraternity equivalent at Columbia of a finals club at Harvard or Yale, or Ivy Club at Princeton. Not sure if it's still a big thing there. It had chapters at some other schools, but again don't know if they are active or carry any particular social weight. |
Anonymous
| Trivia. M is a land grant university. |
Anonymous
Did not know that. And according to Wikipedia, its original charter was drafted by a professor at U. Va., which is outstanding for its potential ability to make the usual heads spin. |
Anonymous
Yes, they still carry social weight. Fly certainly carries social weight at Harvard (A.D. not so much). St. Anthony’s is a senior society at Yale so you can’t become a member of Skull & Bones if you join St. A’s but Skull & Bones, which still carries social weight (though less since it went coed) still recruits from Alpha Delta Phi. St. A’s is Princeton’s best eating club because it’s the only one that has chapters at other schools and thus provides more contacts. At schools with Alpha Delta Phi but no St. A’s, like Cornell, Alpha Delta Phi is then most elite frat. |
Anonymous
| Most elite frat sounds awful. It needs better PR. |
Anonymous
St. A's is an under-the-radar fraternity at Princeton, not an eating club. I wouldn't say the various Ivy League secret societies, eating clubs and fraternities are irrelevant to a student's future professional opportunities, but neither do they have the importance they once did. |
Anonymous
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Yes, I've had intern and job experiences roll out the red carpet for me with my HYS degrees. Application pools that had closed were magically reopened when people saw the school name. It was more important early in my career than after a decade or so, when work experience becomes more important.
Would I want my kids to go there? Many years away, but I wouldn't want them to overwork themselves in high school just for that opportunity. If they did get in, great for them, but I don't want them to feel so much pressure in high school to be the best at everything. It's not work sacrificing health when the odds of admittance are so slim. I'm not a big donor, so I doubt they'd get any legacy edge. As a supervisor and hiring manager, I've had the best luck with Stanford, Yale, and Princeton grads in that order, which may have to do with the relative strengths of the particular undergrad programs related to my field (at the nexus of science and social science). Don't get many applications from MIT, so can't compare. Of the dozen or so Harvard grads that I've hired and supervised over the years, well over half looked good on paper and interviewed well but wanted to coast through the job and rest on their laurels. I'm more wary of hiring from Harvard. By contrast, some of my hardest and most committed staff members have been state school grads. |
Anonymous
Sounds awful to whom? When an Alpha Delt or Saint A’s member happens to be interviewing with an Alpha Delt or St. A’s alumnus, it’s a BIG help. This is not so much the case with fraternities like FIJI or Beta Theta Pi which seem to have chapters at every college. Also, many fraternities, such as Beta Theta Pi, have been closed by their colleges because pledges have died from alcohol poisoning or molestation of women at parties. These things just don’t happen at Alpha Delta Phi or St A’s. Parties at these frats (both of which are devoted to literary criticism), tend to be cocktail parties, black tie balls and high teas. |
Anonymous
When I was at Columbia St A’s had a reputation for serious drug use and cavalier treatment towards women. I think you’re over-invested in the fraternity scene and its importance at these particular schools - actually wonder if you might not be a Penn grad trying to be part of a dialogue that isn’t really about you. |
Anonymous
I never even saw any drugs at all at St. A’s at Columbia. There was marijuana at Alpha Delta Phi at Columbia but never anything harder. It seems odd to say that St. A’s had a cavalier attitude towards women because St. A’s was the first fraternity to coeducate at Columbia. Columbia’s chapter of St. A’s adamantly refused to engage in any programs with St. A’s chapters that were not coed. |