Advice on joining a frat

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Medical Bear

Medical Bear

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Hi guys I was wondering whether or not joining a frat would consume too much of my time or if it would be a valuable experience. I know many pre-meds have gone greek and succeeded but is it too much of a commitment along with maintaining gpa, volunteering, etc.. Thanks in advance!
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I probably would have failed out of college. I have a greek friend who's now an HMS alum. Just have to know yourself. My advice would be wait a year
 
I joined one and it worked out fine. Just make sure it doesn't consume your GPA. If you can make time to study, then you'll be fine, but if you're not disciplined enough to do so, it can become a problem.
 
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If that's what you really want to do, there's no one stopping you. Like all other ECs, it's up to you whether or not you can shoulder the time commitment without letting it get in the way of your grades.
 
Medical Bear said:
Hi guys I was wondering whether or not joining a frat would consume too much of my time or if it would be a valuable experience. I know many pre-meds have gone greek and succeeded but is it too much of a commitment along with maintaining gpa, volunteering, etc.. Thanks in advance!
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Pledged one my freshman year and just got my first acceptance on Friday. It is definitely doable to be greek and have a strong GPA/EC's. Just understand that you will probably miss a few events each semester because you have work to do or have a test to study for. To be honest, joining a fraternity was the best decision I ever made because it forced me to perfect my time management skills and I was able to move up to executive board during my time.
 
Completely depends on where you're at, what school and what fraternity. SAE at Alabama? good luck. Pike at small liberal arts school in middle of Pennsylvania? You'll be fine. Some fraternities are far more intense in terms of its pledging and partying, and one has to look at the types of people in each class to see if it's a good fit for you. I would say it's generally doable but there are many exceptions.
 
BurghMed said:
Completely depends on where you're at, what school and what fraternity. SAE at Alabama? good luck. Pike at small liberal arts school in middle of Pennsylvania? You'll be fine. Some fraternities are far more intense in terms of its pledging and partying, and one has to look at the types of people in each class to see if it's a good fit for you. I would say it's generally doable but there are many exceptions.
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Be careful about what you say about certain fraternities at Alabama 😉
 
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Entirely dependent on
a) The specific school: frat life at an Arizona State or Penn State is a lot different than at a school like Carnegie Mellon or WashU. At the former, it's the type of thing that can consume and affect even the more serious and focused students. However, these types of schools aren't all that particularly abundant.
b) Your own discipline time management skills: At most schools frat commitments and all there is still more than enough time for work. People who like to blame their frat involvement for their poor grades aren't managing their time. However, if you are someone who isn't great at managing time then you need all the time you can get and a frat will take away from that. Likewise if you have tons of work, it takes some discipline to say "no I'm staying in on studying" on a Wednesday or Thursday night when all your friends are going bar-hopping and you have that formal everybody's been talking up for weeks. At the same time, just staying in does jack squat. It's what you do with it. There were many people I knew in college who would day-drink 3 day's a week and hit 3.8+ every semester. There are many others I knew who would just live in the library yet semester after semester stay in the 3.2-3.4 range. It's about your own abilities and managing your time.
c) What you are looking to get out of it. No by itself involvement in a pre-med frat by itself does jack-squat for your app. IF you think just obtaining a leadership position and being able to put that on paper will boost your app much, again, that's not how to look at this. The reasons you want to join are important. Making friends for life, making connections, experiencing a side of college that's hard to experience without joining greek life etc, that's what the greatest parts about greek life are, not that it is a resume booster in itself.

My general suggestion by and large though is to wait a semester or two before joining. See if you are the type of person who can be a good student without such a commitment first.
 
coldcase331 said:
Pledged one my freshman year and just got my first acceptance on Friday. It is definitely doable to be greek and have a strong GPA/EC's. Just understand that you will probably miss a few events each semester because you have work to do or have a test to study for. To be honest, joining a fraternity was the best decision I ever made because it forced me to perfect my time management skills and I was able to move up to executive board during my time.
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This. Just know yourself and understand that you will have to make sacrifices and may miss some really fun times. I had a blast being in a fraternity and it has tons of advantages other than social aspects. It is a great way to network, do philanthropy and volunteer work etc.

BurghMed said:
Completely depends on where you're at, what school and what fraternity. SAE at Alabama? good luck. Pike at small liberal arts school in middle of Pennsylvania? You'll be fine. Some fraternities are far more intense in terms of its pledging and partying, and one has to look at the types of people in each class to see if it's a good fit for you. I would say it's generally doable but there are many exceptions.
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This is a very true statement. I was in a big greek fraternity at an SEC school and I held off on starting my science classes my first semester because I knew the pledging was so intense. I probably would have done terribly if I had taken some real classes during that time. There's no harm in putting your tough classes behind a semester if you're diligent and catch up.
 
yes
 
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As a side note, if you didn't already know this, fraternities can cost a lot of money (you will be paying dues). To a lot of people it's worth the money, but to others it's an added burden if money doesn't come easily
 
I'm pledging KA at a large, southern, state school right now. I decided to put prerequisites off for a semester. Pledging will consume an inhuman amount of your time but like the others above said, it's a great way to learn time management.
 
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Joining a fraternity was one of the best decisions I've made. It teaches you how to converse with all different types of people and really reduces social anxiety. This is s huge plus when it comes to interviews.
 
Here's my anecdotal advice on joining a frat:

Don't do it.

It's a lot of wasted money and if you are serious about your grades in a challenging major you will have to miss out on almost everything, and consequently not get your money's worth. In fact, I think the ROI is poor even if you get to do all the activities. Too much dues money gets blown on stupid stuff like buying cookie cakes three nights a week for sororities or paying national fees that are wasted on leadership development programs with little external validity or insurance incase some brother screws up really bad. Not to mention getting fined for missing activities or eating garbage food that cost way too much per plate. I'm so glad I quit. The only thing I look back on with fond memories was pledge semester. Interestingly, I will be the only person going to an MD school out of all the pre-meds I knew in my fraternity (younger and older). One person went DO and one dental, but everyone else I assume are currently reapplicants.

N=1 though and judging from the other responses not everyone has such a negative experience. If you do pledge, don't hesitate to drop if you realize it isn't for you.
 
Would you recommend joining if I'll be a commuting to school?
 
Joined a large and well known social fraternity and do not regret one second of it. Yes, you will miss some events. Yes, you may end up with a 3.8 GPA instead of a 4.0 for a semester. But you will make friends and memories that really will last a lifetime. Decide whether its worth the risk/reward for you. Highly recommend it but enter it with the mindset that your time management skills will be of utmost importance.
 
Medical Bear said:
Would you recommend joining if I'll be a commuting to school?
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Med school dreams aside, most frats frown upon commuters. You would have to bring some real skills and/or connections to the frat if you want to stick around. Lots of the real frat stuff ("hazing" and frat events) happen late at night. If you're living with annoying "come home at 8 latest" parents, it's just not going to happen.

If you're going to pick a frat, find one where the members do respect academics and your wish to do well in school. Some frats ask a lot out of their members since they're usually lighter majors like business.
 
Pledging a legitimate fraternity--and likely if they're good or 'legitimate' at your school, they probably haze and party a lot--is a 12 or 14 hour job some days, 21 hours possibly, if you have early classes. It'll be hard to do that as a commuter. Also as said above, a lot of stuff happens at night.

Some of this information might be more accurate and tailored to you and your institution if you go out and meet some current brothers and pledges. Don't forget that both will be trying to recruit for their organization, though, and will say a lot to get you to rush them.
 
As mentioned it's all about you and your own discipline. If you live in a place with a tapped keg 24/7 and parties 3 times a week and a never ending supply of social invites to do x, y and z, will you still put in enough time in the library to get good grades? It's really not demands of your time that are the problem. It's the never ending opportunities for distraction.
 
If you're interested, then shop around. Talk to as many groups as possible early and be completely honest. Ask them how they feel about commuting and what life will be like after pledging. Pledging will be rough, but it doesn't have to kill your GPA. I got a 3.9+ the semester I pledged and our pledging process was pretty rough, so it's certainly doable. There are too many factors here (fraternity's national policies, school you're at, cost, time commitment, size, etc.) which vary for anyone here to give you real advice on whether you should join a specific group or even go greek at all.

The best advice I can think of is to explore while you can and be open about what you're looking for and what your personal goals/expectations are. If they don't like you or your goals don't line up, there's a decent chance they won't try and recruit you.
 
They're extremely fun and you get close to A LOT of people, both men and women. You'll be meeting hundreds of new people every weekend and you'll always have events to go to. As with anything in life, manage your time. If you're in a frat and have a low GPA, it's because of you, not because of the fraternity. You chose to party instead of study, not the fraternity. If you're responsible, it'll probably help your GPA. The older guys showed me the ropes and I returned that to the younger members.
 
Completely depends on the school/region and your personality. Essentially anywhere but the Southern states, fraternities are a lot more relaxed. I pledged at a huge Greek school in the south and my pledge semester was hell, sleeping 3 hours a day, constantly sick because of it, not being able to make a set class schedule because of mandatory pledge events, etc. And it resulted in a 2.7. I wouldn't trade it for anything though, I learned great time management, I met some of my closest friends, 90% of the guys in my wedding will be from my fraternity, I started a company with some of my pledge brothers, and the list goes on.

Just go through rush, see if it feels right to you, and go from there. Don't pledge anything that doesn't seem to fit your personality.
 
^
 
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Hospitalized said:
(I've actually heard it can be a negative)
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If that's the only thing on your application, sure. Otherwise why would being in a fraternity be negative? Because there are some stories of random frats across the nation that **** up? That occurs in every sect of life.
 
clippers50fan said:
If that's the only thing on your application, sure. Otherwise why would being in a fraternity be negative? Because there are some stories of random frats across the nation that **** up? That occurs in every sect of life.
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You answered your own question. My point is that there is a possibility it could be negative, but there is essentially no chance it is positive.
 
Hospitalized said:
You answered your own question. My point is that there is a possibility it could be negative, but there is essentially no chance it is positive.
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It's a very positive experience. Being able to handle school, ECs, and a fraternity is very impressive. Actually in most of my interviews for jobs/internships it's always come up and I've been able to speak about it. Obviously there's a difference betwee an SEC fraternity and the one I was in, but even then the greek life at my school was pretty "fratty" by all intensive purposes.

Anyways, if a fraternity takes away your ability to study and you can't handle it, then obviously it's a giant negative.
 
clippers50fan said:
It's a very positive experience. Being able to handle school, ECs, and a fraternity is very impressive. Actually in most of my interviews for jobs/internships it's always come up and I've been able to speak about it. Obviously there's a difference betwee an SEC fraternity and the one I was in, but even then the greek life at my school was pretty "fratty" by all intensive purposes.

Anyways, if a fraternity takes away your ability to study and you can't handle it, then obviously it's a giant negative.
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There's learning opportunities in pretty much everything that can be elaborated on in interviews. I'm glad your experience is positive; hopefully it is fruitful for you come time for your application cycle.
 
My advice on a frat: DON'T! Biggest mistake during my time in undergrad. I got accepted to medical school IN SPITE of those fat, drunk and stupid clowns. Sorry to be so blunt.
 
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