Delta Delta Delta, can I help ya help ya help ya?
June 26, 2019 1:12 PM Subscribe
The Strange World of Sorority Rush Consultants -- Would you pay an expert to get your daughter into the sorority of her dreams?
She will do damage control when needed, like in the case of the PNM whose winter break Snapchat showing her dancing with another girl went viral in the days before her second semester rush.
Hm, attractive. Just in case we were confused about who we were dealing with.
posted by Frowner at 1:28 PM on June 26, 2019 [41 favorites]
Hm, attractive. Just in case we were confused about who we were dealing with.
posted by Frowner at 1:28 PM on June 26, 2019 [41 favorites]
I’ve been through this process on both sides and wish there was a way to tell these women that their lives are going to be so much bigger than they think. There are so many ways to be happy and fulfilled.
That’s not to say learning how to have an engaging conversation with a stranger isn’t useful—my recruitment experience helped me with every interview process I’ve ever gone through, not to mention awkward small talk with neighbors and friends of friends. But there’s no need for that to be tied to sorority recruitment.
posted by sallybrown at 1:28 PM on June 26, 2019 [6 favorites]
That’s not to say learning how to have an engaging conversation with a stranger isn’t useful—my recruitment experience helped me with every interview process I’ve ever gone through, not to mention awkward small talk with neighbors and friends of friends. But there’s no need for that to be tied to sorority recruitment.
posted by sallybrown at 1:28 PM on June 26, 2019 [6 favorites]
Would you pay an expert to get your daughter out of the sorority of her dreams?
I think the term you are looking for is "deprogramming."
posted by MrGuilt at 1:36 PM on June 26, 2019 [14 favorites]
I think the term you are looking for is "deprogramming."
posted by MrGuilt at 1:36 PM on June 26, 2019 [14 favorites]
I mean, I'd be a lot more sympathetic to the "learn how to network, learn how to make conversation, make friends" counterintuitive/positive take on sororities if there weren't so many stories about how relentlessly Black women and non-straight women are excluded or mistreated.
posted by Frowner at 1:41 PM on June 26, 2019 [33 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 1:41 PM on June 26, 2019 [33 favorites]
I'm one of the biggest defenders of the Greek system on Metafilter, but even that has its limits. Sorority rush is weird, man.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:42 PM on June 26, 2019
posted by kevinbelt at 1:42 PM on June 26, 2019
#whitepeopleproblems
posted by astapasta24 at 1:42 PM on June 26, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by astapasta24 at 1:42 PM on June 26, 2019 [4 favorites]
> "Would you pay an expert to get your daughter into the sorority of her dreams?"
No.
posted by kyrademon at 1:58 PM on June 26, 2019 [10 favorites]
No.
posted by kyrademon at 1:58 PM on June 26, 2019 [10 favorites]
Grant aims to get her girls into one of their top two houses, and says she hit the mark for every one of the 20 girls she put through recruitment last year. She charges $1,500 for her most popular package, which includes 40 hours of text, chat, and skype, as well as workbooks and handouts
That actually seems like a lot of work for $1,500. I wouldn't pay an expert to get my daughter into a sorority, but clearly some people will, and it strikes me that Grant is way undercharging them.
posted by AndrewInDC at 2:07 PM on June 26, 2019 [28 favorites]
That actually seems like a lot of work for $1,500. I wouldn't pay an expert to get my daughter into a sorority, but clearly some people will, and it strikes me that Grant is way undercharging them.
posted by AndrewInDC at 2:07 PM on June 26, 2019 [28 favorites]
The Strange World of Sorority Rush Consultants
oh boy here we go
You want to be your best self
Vince McMahon reaction image, panel 1!
You have to meet what’s expected until you’re established
Vince McMahon reaction image, panel 2!
Don’t drink (or get drunk)
Vince McMahon reaction image, panel 3 (with addition of pixelated sunglasses)!
Get more sleep than you think you need
...
OK, Chrysostom, I'm sorry to do this to you, but I'm withholding the final panel of the Vince McMahon reaction image. This just isn't a very strange world at all.
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:10 PM on June 26, 2019 [2 favorites]
oh boy here we go
You want to be your best self
Vince McMahon reaction image, panel 1!
You have to meet what’s expected until you’re established
Vince McMahon reaction image, panel 2!
Don’t drink (or get drunk)
Vince McMahon reaction image, panel 3 (with addition of pixelated sunglasses)!
Get more sleep than you think you need
...
OK, Chrysostom, I'm sorry to do this to you, but I'm withholding the final panel of the Vince McMahon reaction image. This just isn't a very strange world at all.
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:10 PM on June 26, 2019 [2 favorites]
once long ago i was on a university campus during their rush season or whatever, and found a little promotional card talking about the benefits of joining a fraternity or sorority. the card noted that something like 85% of all senators and members of the house of representatives were in a fraternity or sorority when they were in college.
and i think that's when i fully realized:
and i think that's when i fully realized:
- that america isn't a democracy
- that america is doomed
100% of all frat boys were in a fraternity.
posted by pracowity at 2:22 PM on June 26, 2019 [34 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 2:22 PM on June 26, 2019 [34 favorites]
My university banned sororities and fraternities. They had a rule that the only membership criteria that any club on campus could use to exclude people was their major, for the departmental undergraduate societies (and only then because some had members sitting on departmental committees). The other clubs could not exclude people based on gender, race, ethnicity or fashion-choice or personality or whatever.
We still had a few underground fraternities, but they (of course) had no official support from the university and weren't even allowed to have a table with the other clubs during recruitment week. It was great.
(That said: I went to a massive urban commuter-school. Even if we had had them, I doubt that they would have been significant on campus. There's nothing like having to drive/take the bus home for 1-2 hours to put a real damper on staying for a kegger. I think I drank 2 or 3 pints of beer on campus in four years.)
All of which is to say: this is alien, and I wish I could just make a joke about wanting to join Lambda Lambda Lambda - only adult me is perturbed by the rapiness. (My favourite character was always Lamar, though - and I grew up to be the afab Booger).
posted by jb at 2:33 PM on June 26, 2019 [5 favorites]
We still had a few underground fraternities, but they (of course) had no official support from the university and weren't even allowed to have a table with the other clubs during recruitment week. It was great.
(That said: I went to a massive urban commuter-school. Even if we had had them, I doubt that they would have been significant on campus. There's nothing like having to drive/take the bus home for 1-2 hours to put a real damper on staying for a kegger. I think I drank 2 or 3 pints of beer on campus in four years.)
All of which is to say: this is alien, and I wish I could just make a joke about wanting to join Lambda Lambda Lambda - only adult me is perturbed by the rapiness. (My favourite character was always Lamar, though - and I grew up to be the afab Booger).
posted by jb at 2:33 PM on June 26, 2019 [5 favorites]
I would have paid an expert to talk my daughter out of applying to be in a sorority except that she had enough sense to learn all those social skills on her own and she didn't even have time for that s***!
posted by Lynsey at 2:36 PM on June 26, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Lynsey at 2:36 PM on June 26, 2019 [4 favorites]
ihaveaveryparticularsetofskills.gif
posted by hototogisu at 2:39 PM on June 26, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by hototogisu at 2:39 PM on June 26, 2019 [6 favorites]
Imagine paying money to get your daughter into a sorority at Texas Christian University.
Also the picture captions are hysterical. I want them to be deliberately funny but probably just lazy.
posted by atrazine at 2:42 PM on June 26, 2019 [5 favorites]
Also the picture captions are hysterical. I want them to be deliberately funny but probably just lazy.
posted by atrazine at 2:42 PM on June 26, 2019 [5 favorites]
My high school in the south had fraternities and sororities. They sat together at lunch wearing their party t-shirts. It was weird.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:48 PM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:48 PM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
There has to be more to the story -- if it worked, lots of people would pay $15,000 to get into the sorority or fraternity of their choice at flagship public schools in the South. That consultant must either guide the girls to a less-ambitious choice of houses, or must pre-select her candidates to be very close to the rush ideal.
posted by MattD at 3:20 PM on June 26, 2019 [14 favorites]
posted by MattD at 3:20 PM on June 26, 2019 [14 favorites]
agreed; I'm surprised she charges so little.
posted by notquitemaryann at 3:23 PM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by notquitemaryann at 3:23 PM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
#whitepeopleproblems
But are the sororities (and/or fraternities) at HBCUs any better regarding the rush process? I truly don't know, as I've never read much about them directly, but I personally feel just as weird around Greek chatter from black folk (once it veers away from stepping, that is, which will remain forever in my top five favorite artforms). Okay, not just as weird, because obviously there are differences regarding how/why they exist as compared to historically white societies, but they still seem to have and maintain the kind of strict, internal hierarchies that can so easily lead to abuses.
posted by youarenothere at 3:29 PM on June 26, 2019
But are the sororities (and/or fraternities) at HBCUs any better regarding the rush process? I truly don't know, as I've never read much about them directly, but I personally feel just as weird around Greek chatter from black folk (once it veers away from stepping, that is, which will remain forever in my top five favorite artforms). Okay, not just as weird, because obviously there are differences regarding how/why they exist as compared to historically white societies, but they still seem to have and maintain the kind of strict, internal hierarchies that can so easily lead to abuses.
posted by youarenothere at 3:29 PM on June 26, 2019
RobotVoodooPower: My high school in the south had fraternities and sororities. They sat together at lunch wearing their party t-shirts. It was weird.
My Long Island area in the early-mid 90s had frats that were banned from the schools due to fights and gang-like activities. I always assumed that they were dopey kids copying what their older brothers were doing at college, but was stunned to learn that these frats had been around for decades. I imagine it was more out in the open and in the schools in the 50s-60s.
posted by dr_dank at 3:39 PM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
My Long Island area in the early-mid 90s had frats that were banned from the schools due to fights and gang-like activities. I always assumed that they were dopey kids copying what their older brothers were doing at college, but was stunned to learn that these frats had been around for decades. I imagine it was more out in the open and in the schools in the 50s-60s.
posted by dr_dank at 3:39 PM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
My high school in the south had sororities and one fraternity in the 90s. They had sweatshirts and t-shirts and hazing and big parties that the cops got called to because of underage drinking, the whole nine yards.
I didn't realize it was weird until later.
The university I got my grad degree at moved rush to Spring semester to mitigate students dropping out if they didn't get into their preferred house.
posted by momus_window at 3:53 PM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
I didn't realize it was weird until later.
The university I got my grad degree at moved rush to Spring semester to mitigate students dropping out if they didn't get into their preferred house.
posted by momus_window at 3:53 PM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
finally, she says, “Play your cards close to the cuff. You never know who’s listening.”
How many metaphors do you get for $1500?
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:13 PM on June 26, 2019 [15 favorites]
How many metaphors do you get for $1500?
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:13 PM on June 26, 2019 [15 favorites]
I have a relative who really wanted to join a sorority when she rushed, less than ten years ago, at a small liberal arts college in the northeastern US.
This relative was told she did not get a bid because she was "too involved with Hillel." She was not, and is not, particularly observant or intensely involved with Jewish organizations, but she didn't make a secret of her Jewishness.
So, like, fuck these people.
posted by bagel at 4:14 PM on June 26, 2019 [31 favorites]
This relative was told she did not get a bid because she was "too involved with Hillel." She was not, and is not, particularly observant or intensely involved with Jewish organizations, but she didn't make a secret of her Jewishness.
So, like, fuck these people.
posted by bagel at 4:14 PM on June 26, 2019 [31 favorites]
youarenothere: "But are the sororities (and/or fraternities) at HBCUs any better regarding the rush process?"
There are also traditional African-American Greek organizations at non-HCBU schools, as well.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:09 PM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
There are also traditional African-American Greek organizations at non-HCBU schools, as well.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:09 PM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
Y'know, if I was in a US college (and not, say, 33 in Australia) I would do this as a kind of YouTube pop ethnography experience. Me being QPoC would probably disqualify me off the bat, but at the same time it'd be interesting to interrogate the rules and see what goes on beyond the "vapid WASP girl" stereotype.
posted by divabat at 6:19 PM on June 26, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by divabat at 6:19 PM on June 26, 2019 [3 favorites]
see what goes on beyond the "vapid WASP girl" stereotype.
Judging by most women I've met who were in sororities at schools with lots of Greek life, there's not much else beyond vapid WASP girl.
The ones in my grad program who were in sororities are insufferable. They also make up the majority of my program and closed ranks amongst themselves to exclude anyone who wasn't like them. One vapid WASP woman visibly shook everytime she had to interact with the one black student in the cohort. Guess she missed the boat on this consulting company to be able to hold a conversation. Though I guess the consultants really aren't teaching them how to interact with those who are different from them.
posted by astapasta24 at 7:14 PM on June 26, 2019 [3 favorites]
Judging by most women I've met who were in sororities at schools with lots of Greek life, there's not much else beyond vapid WASP girl.
The ones in my grad program who were in sororities are insufferable. They also make up the majority of my program and closed ranks amongst themselves to exclude anyone who wasn't like them. One vapid WASP woman visibly shook everytime she had to interact with the one black student in the cohort. Guess she missed the boat on this consulting company to be able to hold a conversation. Though I guess the consultants really aren't teaching them how to interact with those who are different from them.
posted by astapasta24 at 7:14 PM on June 26, 2019 [3 favorites]
(...this is the only MetaFilter post with the "greeklife" tag? Really?)
posted by reductiondesign at 8:40 PM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by reductiondesign at 8:40 PM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
that reminds me i should put together a post on hellenistic period philosophers
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:40 PM on June 26, 2019 [11 favorites]
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:40 PM on June 26, 2019 [11 favorites]
that reminds me i should put together a post on hellenistic period philosophers
This is pretty much the perfect tangent for the snarky question I came here to rhetorically ask, which is this:
I've always wondered exactly what in the hell actual Greek people think of all this weird #greeklife bullshit we've been up to over here for however long.
And exactly what kind of an eyeroll does it trigger?
posted by loquacious at 11:21 PM on June 26, 2019 [3 favorites]
This is pretty much the perfect tangent for the snarky question I came here to rhetorically ask, which is this:
I've always wondered exactly what in the hell actual Greek people think of all this weird #greeklife bullshit we've been up to over here for however long.
And exactly what kind of an eyeroll does it trigger?
posted by loquacious at 11:21 PM on June 26, 2019 [3 favorites]
I went to a small Quaker college and we didn't have fraternities or sororities. I didn't even know what they were until after I graduated and I still don't understand them. They seem terrible to me; rush sounds like some nightmare, and their racism and homophobia and drinking/rapey culture are even worse. It boggles my mind that people would want to be in them.
posted by ceejaytee at 6:23 AM on June 27, 2019
posted by ceejaytee at 6:23 AM on June 27, 2019
It boggles my mind that people would want to be in them.
Hi, I'm a fraternity member (mostly lapsed since graduation over 15 years ago). My house is a chapter affiliated with a national fraternity, though it started as an independent organization and only joined the national organization many years in. I had an opportunity to visit chapters at other campuses during my undergrad years, and what I can tell you is that it's hard to make blanket statements because (from my experience) the greek system is often highly specific to a given college. Even two supposedly affiliated chapters under one national name can have very different vibes.
So, I can't speak for everyone. I can say that at my (small, technical) college, there are a dozen fraternities and two sororities (which is not far off the male:female ratio, sadly), and large parts of the student body are involved. And again, only speaking for my experience, but it was a positive one, though not without problems.
Rush isn't a nightmare -- rush is when the houses are trying to sell themselves to outsiders, which means it's basically fun the whole time. Come to our house and have a barbecue. Come play paintball with us. Come play in a for-fun poker tournament. Come do all sorts of stuff that's intended to give you a chance to get to know us and us to know you.
Pledging can be a different story, depending on the house. I ran our pledge program one year, and the intent is broadly: getting these new people to know one another and to bond, because they're going to be the ones running the organization in a year or two. I know there are houses that do this in really shitty ways. That's not how we ran things, and the majority of pledging for us involved events to spend time together, compete against one another (full members vs. pledges), to help promote the new guys bonding against a common "enemy" (but we're talking like flag football or other games), and starting to take responsibility for stuff they'd be expected to do when they were full members (e.g. house chores, which everyone already in also did).
As for why? Because it's fun, mainly. I mean, it's a more formalized way of getting a big group of friends together and have a house and do college-type events and also in our case a fair bit of community service stuff. Could you do it without the greek system? Absolutely. Are all houses good? Fuck no, and on the "bad" side, even at my college where I think things were generally decent there was for sure a specific "that house you tell your female friends not to go to", which is super fucked up and bothered me a lot then and now, that it was basically known and yet seemed like nothing could be done about it.
All of which is to say, the reasons people would want to be in them can vary a lot, because the systems and houses themselves vary a lot. I don't begrudge people thinking the whole system should be torn down, and I don't pretend that the fact that my house was (to the best of my knowledge) actually pretty good with respects to treating women well, being diverse, being openly supportive of LGBTQ people, etc, makes up for the fact that there's a lot of houses that are terrible. Long-winded I know, but, felt worth giving at least my own perspective.
posted by tocts at 7:04 AM on June 27, 2019 [16 favorites]
Hi, I'm a fraternity member (mostly lapsed since graduation over 15 years ago). My house is a chapter affiliated with a national fraternity, though it started as an independent organization and only joined the national organization many years in. I had an opportunity to visit chapters at other campuses during my undergrad years, and what I can tell you is that it's hard to make blanket statements because (from my experience) the greek system is often highly specific to a given college. Even two supposedly affiliated chapters under one national name can have very different vibes.
So, I can't speak for everyone. I can say that at my (small, technical) college, there are a dozen fraternities and two sororities (which is not far off the male:female ratio, sadly), and large parts of the student body are involved. And again, only speaking for my experience, but it was a positive one, though not without problems.
Rush isn't a nightmare -- rush is when the houses are trying to sell themselves to outsiders, which means it's basically fun the whole time. Come to our house and have a barbecue. Come play paintball with us. Come play in a for-fun poker tournament. Come do all sorts of stuff that's intended to give you a chance to get to know us and us to know you.
Pledging can be a different story, depending on the house. I ran our pledge program one year, and the intent is broadly: getting these new people to know one another and to bond, because they're going to be the ones running the organization in a year or two. I know there are houses that do this in really shitty ways. That's not how we ran things, and the majority of pledging for us involved events to spend time together, compete against one another (full members vs. pledges), to help promote the new guys bonding against a common "enemy" (but we're talking like flag football or other games), and starting to take responsibility for stuff they'd be expected to do when they were full members (e.g. house chores, which everyone already in also did).
As for why? Because it's fun, mainly. I mean, it's a more formalized way of getting a big group of friends together and have a house and do college-type events and also in our case a fair bit of community service stuff. Could you do it without the greek system? Absolutely. Are all houses good? Fuck no, and on the "bad" side, even at my college where I think things were generally decent there was for sure a specific "that house you tell your female friends not to go to", which is super fucked up and bothered me a lot then and now, that it was basically known and yet seemed like nothing could be done about it.
All of which is to say, the reasons people would want to be in them can vary a lot, because the systems and houses themselves vary a lot. I don't begrudge people thinking the whole system should be torn down, and I don't pretend that the fact that my house was (to the best of my knowledge) actually pretty good with respects to treating women well, being diverse, being openly supportive of LGBTQ people, etc, makes up for the fact that there's a lot of houses that are terrible. Long-winded I know, but, felt worth giving at least my own perspective.
posted by tocts at 7:04 AM on June 27, 2019 [16 favorites]
helping girls [...] “prepare for one of the most important aspects of higher education”
Silly me, I thought the education was one of the more important aspects of higher education.
Some guys in my dorm joined a fraternity freshman year. It was weird. They had a whole floor full of people waiting to make friends, and instead they went out of their way to join a group of people who treated them like shit so that they could eventually be friends. I still get together with some of the guys I met as a freshman 25+ years ago, but those guys who joined the frat? Haven't seen them since 1st semester. They flat refused to talk to anyone who wasn't in the frat.
College is a big place, there are lots of people. You can make friends anywhere. But deciding to exclude people as possible companions because they are not in your special club always struck me as weird.
(My favorite frat story? Farmhouse Fraternity at my alma mater. Huge parking lot FULL of pickups. I think you basically had to drive a pickup to be a member. All of them were giant Ford and Dodge and Chevy beasts, nearly all duallies, made for serious work... except for the one tiny Ford Ranger. I cannot IMAGINE how much shit that member caught for driving a truck that small.)
posted by caution live frogs at 7:06 AM on June 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
Silly me, I thought the education was one of the more important aspects of higher education.
Some guys in my dorm joined a fraternity freshman year. It was weird. They had a whole floor full of people waiting to make friends, and instead they went out of their way to join a group of people who treated them like shit so that they could eventually be friends. I still get together with some of the guys I met as a freshman 25+ years ago, but those guys who joined the frat? Haven't seen them since 1st semester. They flat refused to talk to anyone who wasn't in the frat.
College is a big place, there are lots of people. You can make friends anywhere. But deciding to exclude people as possible companions because they are not in your special club always struck me as weird.
(My favorite frat story? Farmhouse Fraternity at my alma mater. Huge parking lot FULL of pickups. I think you basically had to drive a pickup to be a member. All of them were giant Ford and Dodge and Chevy beasts, nearly all duallies, made for serious work... except for the one tiny Ford Ranger. I cannot IMAGINE how much shit that member caught for driving a truck that small.)
posted by caution live frogs at 7:06 AM on June 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
And now that I have thought about it more...
geez, this article. An awful lot of the advice seems to be “don’t be yourself, they don’t want that. You can be you after they already decided you were in.” Even down to the last paragraphs - “She’d help me decide the order of the houses I liked” - read to me like “She told me what I actually wanted” rather than “She helped me prioritize”. I think the rest of the article primed me to see it that way.
If you join a Greek org that takes you as you are, and it was a good experience, great. You do you. But if you have to totally change your entire personality to be friends? Then those people are not your friends. This is an important life lesson.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:21 AM on June 27, 2019
geez, this article. An awful lot of the advice seems to be “don’t be yourself, they don’t want that. You can be you after they already decided you were in.” Even down to the last paragraphs - “She’d help me decide the order of the houses I liked” - read to me like “She told me what I actually wanted” rather than “She helped me prioritize”. I think the rest of the article primed me to see it that way.
If you join a Greek org that takes you as you are, and it was a good experience, great. You do you. But if you have to totally change your entire personality to be friends? Then those people are not your friends. This is an important life lesson.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:21 AM on June 27, 2019
There has to be more to the story -- if it worked, lots of people would pay $15,000 to get into the sorority or fraternity of their choice at flagship public schools in the South. That consultant must either guide the girls to a less-ambitious choice of houses, or must pre-select her candidates to be very close to the rush ideal.
I'm sure people who have absolutely no chance to join a top-ranked sorority at a Southern college where they dominate social life don't start preparing for entry while still in high school and don't have parents who will drop $1,500 on it. So most of these girls would have been reasonable contenders anyway and are being coached to get into a top-tier sorority when the worst case for them is something in the middle. If their parents will drop that amount (not much for rich people) on this then they have already spend thousands on their daughter's wardrobe, hair, etc.
Of course, if you could genuinely guarantee entry for absolutely anyone you could charge much more but the people looking for this service are self selecting.
posted by atrazine at 8:42 AM on June 27, 2019
I'm sure people who have absolutely no chance to join a top-ranked sorority at a Southern college where they dominate social life don't start preparing for entry while still in high school and don't have parents who will drop $1,500 on it. So most of these girls would have been reasonable contenders anyway and are being coached to get into a top-tier sorority when the worst case for them is something in the middle. If their parents will drop that amount (not much for rich people) on this then they have already spend thousands on their daughter's wardrobe, hair, etc.
Of course, if you could genuinely guarantee entry for absolutely anyone you could charge much more but the people looking for this service are self selecting.
posted by atrazine at 8:42 AM on June 27, 2019
Alexandra Robbins wrote Pledged about this. She went undercover to experience the vapidity firsthand.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:59 AM on June 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:59 AM on June 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
May I recommend Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality by Elizabeth A. Armstrong, Laura Hamilton (Harvard University Press, 2013)? Two sociologists closely studied young women trying to into sororities at a flagship Midwestern public university. Very respectful and critical.
posted by doctornemo at 10:10 AM on June 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by doctornemo at 10:10 AM on June 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
In the 1990s, after most of a year at the University of Washington, my most neatly groomed acquaintance finally asked in surprise why I hadn't joined a sorority -- when she found out what my father did. I found this neither flattering nor appealing.
Did anyone else notice the link in the original article to the really expensive sorority house at 'Bama? It looks like an extravagant governor's mansion. I should think it's an effective plan for the consultant to choose her clients, charge them little, and maintain strong links to a stable of people who expect to fill the regional power structure.
Oddly, all the discussion of self-control and non-self-expression struck me as the flipside of the thread on `celebrity kill me' memes. Both are adaptations to the return of a courtier-and-gentry society, but on different sides of the line.
posted by clew at 10:43 AM on June 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
Did anyone else notice the link in the original article to the really expensive sorority house at 'Bama? It looks like an extravagant governor's mansion. I should think it's an effective plan for the consultant to choose her clients, charge them little, and maintain strong links to a stable of people who expect to fill the regional power structure.
Oddly, all the discussion of self-control and non-self-expression struck me as the flipside of the thread on `celebrity kill me' memes. Both are adaptations to the return of a courtier-and-gentry society, but on different sides of the line.
posted by clew at 10:43 AM on June 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
Clew, the Phi Mu house at Alabama is not especially remarkable in the context of Greek houses at Alabama, or at most big SEC schools. It might be a little newer and nicer, but it's a difference of degree and not kind.
This alone is an indictment of the Greek system.
Tocts, I submit that the Greek experience at your school is not representative. The whole thing is racist poison, and needs to be shitcanned.
posted by uberchet at 11:34 AM on June 27, 2019
This alone is an indictment of the Greek system.
Tocts, I submit that the Greek experience at your school is not representative. The whole thing is racist poison, and needs to be shitcanned.
posted by uberchet at 11:34 AM on June 27, 2019
One thing they don't go into in the article, but I wish they did---although maybe most of their readers already understand it---what is it that makes getting into a sorority *such* a big deal? Like, I understand how people might be motivated to lay out the cash in order to get their kid into some place like Harvard, but what is it about the sororities that makes them so valuable? I always thought of sororities (and sometimes frats) as being mainly about social cachet during your time at college, but that doesn't seem like enough to warrant the kind of effort described in the article. I know Greek organizations like to play up their networks, but I've never heard of anyone else describing sororities or fraternities as an important step on the way to future success, unlike, say, Ivy University or Fancy New England Prep.
posted by Meow Face at 1:04 PM on June 27, 2019
posted by Meow Face at 1:04 PM on June 27, 2019
The real economic reason to shell out money for a selective private institution of higher learning isn't to access to fancy facilities and high quality instruction—indeed, professors at such institutions are not hired or promoted based on their teaching ability—but because one's classmates form an important network that one can tap into for the rest of one's life. Greek organizations are just another network of the rich and privileged overlaid on the higher education landscape.
posted by BrashTech at 1:20 PM on June 27, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by BrashTech at 1:20 PM on June 27, 2019 [4 favorites]
I've never heard of anyone else describing sororities or fraternities as an important step on the way to future success
I've heard it's a huge deal in, surprise, finance.
posted by thelonius at 1:23 PM on June 27, 2019 [3 favorites]
I've heard it's a huge deal in, surprise, finance.
posted by thelonius at 1:23 PM on June 27, 2019 [3 favorites]
I work in finance. I would say frats and finance are more of a correlation without causation. It just so happens that a lot the hiring process for certain kinds of entry level jobs favor fratty dudes.
It's actually pretty clear to me why this would be the case. The frattiness goes away pretty quickly as you climb up the ladder
posted by JPD at 3:28 PM on June 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's actually pretty clear to me why this would be the case. The frattiness goes away pretty quickly as you climb up the ladder
posted by JPD at 3:28 PM on June 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's a big deal because it's the single biggest factor in the romantic relationships you'll have in college, which, at more traditionally-minded schools, also means your marriage prospects and therefore most of your future life.
If you get into a top sorority, you'll date guys from top fraternities. Guys with names like J. Wellington Trustfund VII. Guys who are under pressure to propose to their college sweethearts ASAP so that, by the time they run for their seat in the state legislature at age 28, they'll be able to include a photo of you and your by now three children in matching Vineyard Vines polo shirts in their campaign materials.
If you get into a mid-level sorority, you'll date guys in mid-level fraternities like tocts and me. You'll probably break up after graduation as he focuses on establishing his career. You'll have to go to work, you'll probably have a cloud of student loan debt, and you'll go on a string of Tinder dates until you're 30. Not a bad life, necessarily (I am talking about myself here, after all), but nothing like the life you'd have with J. Wellington.
It's an even bigger deal if your dad is J. Wellington Trustfund VI and he expects you to give him a son-in-law just like himself. If you're a middle class kid who gets into a top sorority, it can actually be an agent of social mobility, but if you're a rich girl and you don't, it's abject, life-ruining failure.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:33 PM on June 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
If you get into a top sorority, you'll date guys from top fraternities. Guys with names like J. Wellington Trustfund VII. Guys who are under pressure to propose to their college sweethearts ASAP so that, by the time they run for their seat in the state legislature at age 28, they'll be able to include a photo of you and your by now three children in matching Vineyard Vines polo shirts in their campaign materials.
If you get into a mid-level sorority, you'll date guys in mid-level fraternities like tocts and me. You'll probably break up after graduation as he focuses on establishing his career. You'll have to go to work, you'll probably have a cloud of student loan debt, and you'll go on a string of Tinder dates until you're 30. Not a bad life, necessarily (I am talking about myself here, after all), but nothing like the life you'd have with J. Wellington.
It's an even bigger deal if your dad is J. Wellington Trustfund VI and he expects you to give him a son-in-law just like himself. If you're a middle class kid who gets into a top sorority, it can actually be an agent of social mobility, but if you're a rich girl and you don't, it's abject, life-ruining failure.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:33 PM on June 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
And that's one of the key differences between fraternities and sororities. I'm still close with some of my fraternity brothers 20 years later. One guy and I were groomsmen in each other's weddings, for example. But it's never really benefitted me professionally. It was purely social.
With sororities, on the other hand, the networking aspect is often explicit, especially at certain schools and in certain sororities. Not the network of other alumnae; the network of dudes you went on dates with. For a lot of PNMs, it really is a shot at an MRS degree.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:41 PM on June 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
With sororities, on the other hand, the networking aspect is often explicit, especially at certain schools and in certain sororities. Not the network of other alumnae; the network of dudes you went on dates with. For a lot of PNMs, it really is a shot at an MRS degree.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:41 PM on June 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'd be interested in data on that as anecdotally I don't see much of that as sort of a member of the prime cohort for that sort of thing. Granted I'm from the northeast so maybe that's true at ole Miss.
Education/school/career as the backing of assortive mating absolutely, but age of first marriage even for th economically super elite is still late 20s early thirties.
I know way more couples that met at bschool than undergrad.
posted by JPD at 8:49 PM on June 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
Education/school/career as the backing of assortive mating absolutely, but age of first marriage even for th economically super elite is still late 20s early thirties.
I know way more couples that met at bschool than undergrad.
posted by JPD at 8:49 PM on June 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
As anecdata, kevinbelt’s generalizations were completely wrong about not just my group of sorority sisters, but every woman I know who was in a sorority, from the Deep South to the west coast. Probably 10% of those women are married to men they met in college and most of those men weren’t in fraternities. Also, we...have careers and lives outside of men! Shocking, I know.
posted by sallybrown at 8:53 PM on June 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by sallybrown at 8:53 PM on June 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
Yeah, this is...a thing. I'm not surprised there are rush coaches, because there's a coach for everything now. It's interesting that they were talking about southern colleges, and specific girl they mentioned was not from the South. When I was at my southern high school, I mostly applied to schools...elsewhere. One of the weirdest things about CA is how many bright young teens are eagerly attempting to get into the University of Alabama. (And look, I know plenty of people who went there! It's not a bad school, but also who would choose to move there.) I've been told that UC and even Cal State schools are considered really hard to get into; that out-of-state tuition in most states is still cheaper than private school; that kids who want the big university experience are attracted to SEC schools. I guess it makes sense! (It breaks my brain.)
Something about it makes me think about the college entrance cheating scandal with rich, not-especially-well-educated parents breaking the law to get their kids into mid-tier schools. This is more like a rich family hiring a very good college admissions counselor, though. Any young woman whose parents will spend $10K to get her into a sorority has presumably already got a decent wardrobe and a standing appointment with a dermatologist. She's probably at the top of the pool already! Of the actions described -- heavy wardrobe assistance, minor therapy, and a constant reminder that the sorority's standards are more conservative than what the applicant would consider normal and natural -- only the last seems particularly unique.
It makes it feel like they're coaching a lot of non-Southerners. If you're from a "nice" area, there's a particular socialization that means most young women would probably understand the right sort of chattiness, or not to wear suggestive clothing while they were trying to impress other women. (I don't mean to suggest that women in the South are more modest or genteelly gregarious, just that this kind of thing has had an effect on me and I'm a maybe-on-the-spectrum misanthrope. It's like a low-level pressure to be the hostess everywhere you go. I know that might sound like basic "how to be a woman in America" stuff, but it's actually a lot more intense.) Again, that they'd have to stress the "don't get drunk" during rush thing...it just suggests that the coaches are dealing with a lot of girls who didn't...grow up where I did. Sorry, that's falling apart on me a little bit. I guess it's just the same weird standards America always has for female behavior, but, I must reiterate, a lot more intense.
FWIW I knew some girls who were in not-especially-selective sororities. Most of them used it to make friends. They dropped out after a year or two because they had made their friends, found a source of alcohol, and didn't need to pay thousands of dollars extra to be in a special club. I suspect women in more selective sororities might feel a little more invested. (If you're trying for a competitive sorority, you've probably also got some unresolved feelings about the popular kids' tables at your school cafeteria.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:09 PM on June 27, 2019 [3 favorites]
Something about it makes me think about the college entrance cheating scandal with rich, not-especially-well-educated parents breaking the law to get their kids into mid-tier schools. This is more like a rich family hiring a very good college admissions counselor, though. Any young woman whose parents will spend $10K to get her into a sorority has presumably already got a decent wardrobe and a standing appointment with a dermatologist. She's probably at the top of the pool already! Of the actions described -- heavy wardrobe assistance, minor therapy, and a constant reminder that the sorority's standards are more conservative than what the applicant would consider normal and natural -- only the last seems particularly unique.
It makes it feel like they're coaching a lot of non-Southerners. If you're from a "nice" area, there's a particular socialization that means most young women would probably understand the right sort of chattiness, or not to wear suggestive clothing while they were trying to impress other women. (I don't mean to suggest that women in the South are more modest or genteelly gregarious, just that this kind of thing has had an effect on me and I'm a maybe-on-the-spectrum misanthrope. It's like a low-level pressure to be the hostess everywhere you go. I know that might sound like basic "how to be a woman in America" stuff, but it's actually a lot more intense.) Again, that they'd have to stress the "don't get drunk" during rush thing...it just suggests that the coaches are dealing with a lot of girls who didn't...grow up where I did. Sorry, that's falling apart on me a little bit. I guess it's just the same weird standards America always has for female behavior, but, I must reiterate, a lot more intense.
FWIW I knew some girls who were in not-especially-selective sororities. Most of them used it to make friends. They dropped out after a year or two because they had made their friends, found a source of alcohol, and didn't need to pay thousands of dollars extra to be in a special club. I suspect women in more selective sororities might feel a little more invested. (If you're trying for a competitive sorority, you've probably also got some unresolved feelings about the popular kids' tables at your school cafeteria.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:09 PM on June 27, 2019 [3 favorites]
I've always wondered exactly what in the hell actual Greek people think of all this weird #greeklife bullshit we've been up to over here for however long.
I'm not in the US so I only see this on Metafilter - I guess I find it mildly obnoxious, on par with using Σ as a Greek-looking Ε in signage.
posted by each day we work at 1:28 AM on June 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'm not in the US so I only see this on Metafilter - I guess I find it mildly obnoxious, on par with using Σ as a Greek-looking Ε in signage.
posted by each day we work at 1:28 AM on June 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
May I recommend Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality by Elizabeth A. Armstrong, Laura Hamilton (Harvard University Press, 2013)? Two sociologists closely studied young women trying to into sororities at a flagship Midwestern public university. Very respectful and critical.
This was a great book. Some highlights for me were:
-The way that it addresses the kind of college that the broad middle of American college-bound kids go to. There is a lot of focus on who gets into Harvard and a lot of writing about what happens at for-profit colleges but most Americans who go to college go to state colleges.
-Because these colleges have such broad intakes, the sorting and different "pathways" that exist within the institution are much more important than at institutions at either end of the scale. A whole set of parallel systems exist where people attending notionally the same college may either get rigorous education leading to vocational post-graduate study in law, medicine, and dentistry or spend four years learning nothing and preparing for nothing.
-How illusory and slippery status mobility is. One of the girls in particular went down the sorority pathway but didn't really have the financial resources to make the best use of it. At the end of college, her friends went on to unpaid internships and arranged jobs in media and PR in NYC despite their bad grades because of their family connections. She had the same bad grades but no connections and therefore found herself completely adrift from girls she had thought of as basically social equals almost as soon as she graduated.
-The tragic fact that the only working class women who managed to grasp status mobility did so by severing their romantic ties to men from their communities of origin or who move to regional colleges closer to their homes (which is not that bad but does mean that entry based measures of social mobility through tertiary education needs to be considered quite carefully).
-How impersonal and cold the place seemed and the complete lack of guidance. If you don't come in knowing that some courses are deliberately easy and that some are rigorous and that a degree made up of the former is likely worth little in terms of either learning (which many of these kids don't care about) and career possibilities (which they do).
posted by atrazine at 4:47 AM on June 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
This was a great book. Some highlights for me were:
-The way that it addresses the kind of college that the broad middle of American college-bound kids go to. There is a lot of focus on who gets into Harvard and a lot of writing about what happens at for-profit colleges but most Americans who go to college go to state colleges.
-Because these colleges have such broad intakes, the sorting and different "pathways" that exist within the institution are much more important than at institutions at either end of the scale. A whole set of parallel systems exist where people attending notionally the same college may either get rigorous education leading to vocational post-graduate study in law, medicine, and dentistry or spend four years learning nothing and preparing for nothing.
-How illusory and slippery status mobility is. One of the girls in particular went down the sorority pathway but didn't really have the financial resources to make the best use of it. At the end of college, her friends went on to unpaid internships and arranged jobs in media and PR in NYC despite their bad grades because of their family connections. She had the same bad grades but no connections and therefore found herself completely adrift from girls she had thought of as basically social equals almost as soon as she graduated.
-The tragic fact that the only working class women who managed to grasp status mobility did so by severing their romantic ties to men from their communities of origin or who move to regional colleges closer to their homes (which is not that bad but does mean that entry based measures of social mobility through tertiary education needs to be considered quite carefully).
-How impersonal and cold the place seemed and the complete lack of guidance. If you don't come in knowing that some courses are deliberately easy and that some are rigorous and that a degree made up of the former is likely worth little in terms of either learning (which many of these kids don't care about) and career possibilities (which they do).
posted by atrazine at 4:47 AM on June 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
It's interesting that they were talking about southern colleges, and specific girl they mentioned was not from the South. When I was at my southern high school, I mostly applied to schools...elsewhere. One of the weirdest things about CA is how many bright young teens are eagerly attempting to get into the University of Alabama.Definitely.
I mean, I went there, but for me it was trading up -- Alabama, for me, was the substantially more cosmopolitan and sophisticated state to the immediate east. It was my safety school, but I ended up going there when they offered frankly ridiculous amounts of scholarships vs. fairly meager offerings from other, more expensive options.
Anyway, what draws folks from big states with far better schools is, overall, a mystery to me, but there are two leading candidates.
FIRST, it's Nick Saban. Like it or not, Alabama's status as a perennial title contender has drastically increased their overall prestige. They get many, many more out of state students now than they did when I went there (88-92), or than they did before hiring Saban and winning 5 titles in 10 years.
People who support paying coaches "enough money to burn a wet dog" (as Rick Bragg famously described Saban's initial salary) tend to point to Alabama's increased academic competitiveness and national attractiveness as justification, but it really only works if you're on top of the heap. There's not room for another while Saban is coaching in Tuscaloosa.
But as long as he's there, they're in HIGH cotton, and it shows all over, especially in capital improvements (the number of new buildings on campus since the turn of the century is astonishing), all of which go towards additional prestige.
SECOND, at least in Texas where I live now, there's the issue of the legislature. We have a weird situation here.
UT and Texas A&M are, I'm told, two of the best state universities in the country. They're enormous and also prestigious, especially in this part of the world. But many, many, many very bright high school grads in Texas can't get in to either one.
Why? Because the legislature passed a law many years ago that guarantees admission to a Texas state university to the top 10% of every high school's graduating class. This SOUNDS reasonable on its face, but the effect is weird: kids who go to crappy rural schools end up in line ahead of the kids who were in more competitive schools. Having your kid in a highly prestigious private high school actually makes it HARDER for them to go to A&M or UT.
This creates some weird situations. I've known more than one family whose kid wanted to go to Austin, but applied to somewhere like SMU or Vanderbilt as "safeties," in case they couldn't get a spot. Less academically intense kids will slot in Georgia or Alabama or even (god help them) Ole Miss as backups if they can't get in locally.
It makes it feel like they're coaching a lot of non-Southerners. If you're from a "nice" area, there's a particular socialization that means most young women would probably understand the right sort of chattiness, or not to wear suggestive clothing while they were trying to impress other women. (I don't mean to suggest that women in the South are more modest or genteelly gregarious, just that this kind of thing has had an effect on me and I'm a maybe-on-the-spectrum misanthrope. It's like a low-level pressure to be the hostess everywhere you go. I know that might sound like basic "how to be a woman in America" stuff, but it's actually a lot more intense.)Absolutely. The quote-unquote "right" sororities are trying to turn out amalgams of Donna Reed and Martha Stewart, perfect hostesses and companions and wives, who mesh seamlessly with the previous generation, etc. I'm sure this isn't how it is on every campus, but at a place like Alabama, yeah, that's what's happening. A girl raised with money in the right area of Birmingham or Jackson or Atlanta is going to know these dance steps, and be able to code switch into that mode pretty effortlessly. If you don't come from the right background, or aren't Southern, it's gonna be MUCH harder.
posted by uberchet at 5:27 AM on June 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I think it's great in terms of providing opportunity to kids from different backgrounds and very reasonable for a public school!
Oh wow, I clicked onto the House 588 Bill Wikipedia page and fell into an absolute rabbit hole. It looks like it was developed to undermine UT's ability to consider race in determining entry. Texas is a diverse place, but a lot of that diversity is clustered in urban areas....so I'm assuming it does disproportionately benefit white (and maybe Latino) kids. On the other hand, it looks like this decision might've encouraged parents to send their teens to keep their kids in less impressive school districts...which might actually improve those other school districts. As with everything weird in America, it doesn't seem to be as well-studied as one might hope. (The CA-based school drama was that UC schools were maybe taking a lot of out-of-state and foreign students to get that extra tuition money. But IDK how true that is, as the nicest white person you know will show themselves to be virulently racist when their kid is trying to get into a UC school.)
Anyway, regardless of whether you think it's a net positive or not, it does probably mean that there are a lot of 75-89% class rank kids in TX and CA who are applying to Auburn and AL when they might not be entirely familiar with the local culture.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:42 AM on June 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
Oh wow, I clicked onto the House 588 Bill Wikipedia page and fell into an absolute rabbit hole. It looks like it was developed to undermine UT's ability to consider race in determining entry. Texas is a diverse place, but a lot of that diversity is clustered in urban areas....so I'm assuming it does disproportionately benefit white (and maybe Latino) kids. On the other hand, it looks like this decision might've encouraged parents to send their teens to keep their kids in less impressive school districts...which might actually improve those other school districts. As with everything weird in America, it doesn't seem to be as well-studied as one might hope. (The CA-based school drama was that UC schools were maybe taking a lot of out-of-state and foreign students to get that extra tuition money. But IDK how true that is, as the nicest white person you know will show themselves to be virulently racist when their kid is trying to get into a UC school.)
Anyway, regardless of whether you think it's a net positive or not, it does probably mean that there are a lot of 75-89% class rank kids in TX and CA who are applying to Auburn and AL when they might not be entirely familiar with the local culture.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:42 AM on June 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
the effect is weird: kids who go to crappy rural schools end up in line ahead of the kids who were in more competitive schools
I can't speak for how this shakes out in Austin and College Station, but a flipside of this when I was teaching at UNT was watching kids who'd been guaranteed admission from their podunk rural school flame out immediately because their schools had never, ever prepared them for any kind of college-level work. Teaching intro courses that were required of every student, by law, effectively meant telling a whole bunch of kids every semester that no, you don't actually get to go to college. Super not fun.
(to be clear, the podunk rural schools seemed to be either really solid or just not without much room in between, as it was all down to specifically who the few teachers they had were)
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:18 AM on June 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
I can't speak for how this shakes out in Austin and College Station, but a flipside of this when I was teaching at UNT was watching kids who'd been guaranteed admission from their podunk rural school flame out immediately because their schools had never, ever prepared them for any kind of college-level work. Teaching intro courses that were required of every student, by law, effectively meant telling a whole bunch of kids every semester that no, you don't actually get to go to college. Super not fun.
(to be clear, the podunk rural schools seemed to be either really solid or just not without much room in between, as it was all down to specifically who the few teachers they had were)
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:18 AM on June 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
Why? Because the legislature passed a law many years ago that guarantees admission to a Texas state university to the top 10% of every high school's graduating class. This SOUNDS reasonable on its face, but the effect is weird: kids who go to crappy rural schools end up in line ahead of the kids who were in more competitive schools. Having your kid in a highly prestigious private high school actually makes it HARDER for them to go to A&M or UT.
I think it's down to 6% now. The logic being it's a public state university so students from throughout the state should benefit, even those from the "crappy rural schools" in the communities that grow your food. Another dynamic you'll see, at least at UT-Austin, is the playing field is leveled quite well if you're willing to do enough hours at local community colleges, which are much more accessible to those without the means for private, and the credits transfer to save you time and money. Still hard for those who have to work to live, too, but they weren't getting in on the old pipelines anyway.
Impeding the traditional pipeline of rich kids getting in because they went to more expensive schools is a feature, imo, even if it wasn't the intention (my sense is the 10% rule was initially put in place to stick it to "the librul urban elite" and get in more "Joe Americas").
posted by avalonian at 8:48 AM on June 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I think it's down to 6% now. The logic being it's a public state university so students from throughout the state should benefit, even those from the "crappy rural schools" in the communities that grow your food. Another dynamic you'll see, at least at UT-Austin, is the playing field is leveled quite well if you're willing to do enough hours at local community colleges, which are much more accessible to those without the means for private, and the credits transfer to save you time and money. Still hard for those who have to work to live, too, but they weren't getting in on the old pipelines anyway.
Impeding the traditional pipeline of rich kids getting in because they went to more expensive schools is a feature, imo, even if it wasn't the intention (my sense is the 10% rule was initially put in place to stick it to "the librul urban elite" and get in more "Joe Americas").
posted by avalonian at 8:48 AM on June 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
As I understand it, the 10% rule is to replace race-based affirmative action, as grandiloquiet said. It's aimed more at the top 10% of inner city high schools rather than rural areas. The idea is that, since inner-city schools in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio are almost entirely black or Latino, guaranteeing admission to top-10%ers ensures that you'll meet your quota, I mean, have plenty of black and Latino kids admitted to UT-Austin and TAMU-College Station. But trust me, they're still admitting plenty of "[sub]urban elite" types, too.
posted by kevinbelt at 10:12 AM on June 28, 2019
posted by kevinbelt at 10:12 AM on June 28, 2019
You're right, kevinbelt and grandiloquiet, it appears to have been an affirmative action workaround. Though anything approved by the Texas Legislature and signed by Dubya that appears well-meaning I assume has a different intent, which is why I usually ignore the stated intent.
I know when I graduated high school in 2002, my school was in a fairly urban area with at least half latinx students, but it was much rarer for them to be in the AP courses that were graded on 5 point scales rather than 4 point scales. From what I saw attending or working in/with public schools in Fort Worth, Corpus Christi, and Austin, TX, almost every "urban school" has at least 10-25% affluent white students for various reasons. Those students are usually tracked by 3rd to 5th grade into more accelerated programs that dictate their chances at making it into AP at that point.
posted by avalonian at 10:40 AM on June 28, 2019
I know when I graduated high school in 2002, my school was in a fairly urban area with at least half latinx students, but it was much rarer for them to be in the AP courses that were graded on 5 point scales rather than 4 point scales. From what I saw attending or working in/with public schools in Fort Worth, Corpus Christi, and Austin, TX, almost every "urban school" has at least 10-25% affluent white students for various reasons. Those students are usually tracked by 3rd to 5th grade into more accelerated programs that dictate their chances at making it into AP at that point.
posted by avalonian at 10:40 AM on June 28, 2019
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