Fraternities and sororities are often the cause of embarrassment, and admissions offices won’t be quick to share embarrassing information. Even at high-frat schools,the admissions office will give you some version of “There are frats if you’re interested, but there are numerous other social and living options for upperclassmen who aren’t interested in frats.” Translation: Frats are a big deal, and either you join one or you spend Friday night ordering pizza and watching Jersey Shore re-runs. How do you find out the truth? First, find a junior, senior, or recent graduate of the college, and ask them; unless they work for the admissions office, they will usually give you a fair and reasonable answer. Second, ask the admissions office what percent of upperclassmen (juniors and seniors) join fraternities and sororities. You can then take this number and compare it with the other colleges you’re considering.

You should translate the answer like this:
• Less than 20% of upperclassmen in frats and sororities: not a big deal; substantial social life exists outside of frats.
• 20%-30%: not bad, but you will probably “loose” some freshmen friends to frats unless you join too.
• 30%-50%: not much social life outside of frats; you will want to join one (or get a satellite dish to amuse yourself while all your friends are at frat parties).
• Over 50%: frat city; you should either love frats or not apply to this college.

Whether or not you would like to join a fraternity is a complex question. While many fraternities are of the Animal House variety, colleges are aggressively trying to reform the Greek scene by (typically) limiting or banning kegs, restricting alcohol during rush weeks, punishing hazing/initiation rites, and often requiring parties to be registered and/or monitored. The social life the Greeks engender usually is of the superficial, Mardi Gras sort, but they do tend to provide some semblance of community at large universities where there otherwise is little.

It’s also worth noting that frat culture can vary greatly from college to college and region to region. Fraternities in the South are much less Animal House and much more country-club and usually have a strong (and serious) emphasis on community service. It’s also not unusual for southern fraternities to have black-tie events, sometimes several per year. Of course, they also sometimes have dress-as-your-favorite-Confederate-soldier events.

Another question to ask admissions offices and current students is whether or not a large number of students stay on-campus or in town over the summer. Usually, if a large number of students stick around over the summer, then the college and/or the town have developed a desirable collegiate community. It’s a bit suspect if all the students immediately evacuate the campus and town once final exams are over: what’s wrong that everyone is so interested in getting out?

And finally, the political climate on campus may affect the social life of the community. Political activists on college campuses have birthed untold inanities, from protesting the campus newspaper by stealing and destroying all the copies (Cornell) to requiring students to sign a “dating agreement” prior to going on a date which spells out what each person can and cannot expect from the other (Antioch). And in many cases, the professors on campus tend to be activists, chasing the latest theoretical fad and exorcising the newest demon in society. Some campuses are notoriously activist – Stanford, UC-Berkeley, U. Michigan, Duke. You can ask current students and recent graduates about the political climate, but this may be fruitless because different people will have different opinions: the liberal activist may think the UCBerkeley campus isn’t political enough. You should pick up a copy of the campus newspaper when you visit, and hopefully you have a well-informed counselor who can teach you the ways of campus politics.

When in 2006 Harvard and Princeton announced they would end their early admissions programs, both universities claimed it would make the admissions process more socioeconomically equitable.

“Officials from both universities were concerned that low-income students would not want to put themselves in situations in which they were unable to compare financial aid offers,” claimed David Hawkins, director of public policy and research at the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

Prior to eliminating their early admission programs, Harvard offered Early Action and Princeton Early Decision. Early Decision (ED) allows high school seniors whose sights are set on a certain school to apply by early November and receive an admission decision by mid-December. This decision is binding, so students cannot apply early to any other schools and must accept an offer of admission if granted.

Early Action (EA) often includes the stipulation of single-choice, meaning you cannot apply early anywhere else. However, students who apply through EA programs don’t have to accept an offer of admission, and can defer their decision until after receiving admission decisions from other colleges. This allows them to apply to other schools during the regular admissions process and compare financial aid packages before committing to a school in May.

Besides being done with the college search months ahead of peers, students enjoy other incentives associated with applying early. Acceptance rates tend to be two to three times higher for early applicants than for the regular applicant pool; however, admissions directors are adamant that higher admittance rates are indicative of strong early applicant pools—not weaker standards. Early decision programs still remain controversial due to the perceived advantage.

“What the research suggested is that applying early decision basically gave students a bump of something like 200 points on the SAT,” Hawkins said.

The ED bump could be a result of some colleges’ desire to improve their standing in U.S. News and World Report’s annual college rankings. Schools that aim to boost their ranking will manufacture lower admission rates (making them seem more selective) by accepting a greater percentage of their incoming class ED. Such maneuvering also creates higher yield percentages (% of the class admitted who matriculate), so the college can accept fewer applicants during the regular round because they have less seats to fill. Critics speculate that Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Pennsylvania saw a rise in their respective rankings because they aggressively practiced these tactics.

Research suggests that ED programs are mainly attractive to families not seeking financial aid, and, in fact, disadvantage those from less affluent families:

1) Applying ED precludes families from considering and comparing multiple colleges’ financial aid offers, thus preventing them from making the most fiscally responsible decision.

2) Peers without financial concerns could benefit from the apparent admission advantages associated with ED programs without worries about being bound to a certain college and its tuition expenses.

Dartmouth’s Dean of Admissions, Maria Laskaris, said low-income students are not disadvantaged by binding early decision programs at the College since Dartmouth offers “a very strong and comprehensive financial aid program.”

Harvard and Princeton reversed their early admission policies yet again in 2011—Harvard reinstated EA and Princeton adopted EA as well. Harvard feared it was losing top students to peer institutions that offered early admission—including “some of the best prepared low-income and underrepresented minority students”—according to Harvard Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences Michael Smith. Ironically, Harvard cited low-income and minority students as their main cause for eliminating EA in 2006 and for reinstating it in 2011.

Princeton had hoped that ending ED in 2006 would instigate an avalanche of academic institutions dropping their early admissions programs. Princeton’s President, Shirley Tilghman said, “In eliminating our early program four years ago, we hoped other colleges and universities would do the same and they haven’t. One consequence is that some students who really want to make their college decision as early as possible in their senior year apply to other schools early, even if their first choice is Princeton.”

Peer Ivy League institutions experienced a rise in applicants to their early admissions programs during the years that Harvard and Princeton had none, but the increase in early applications paralleled increasing application numbers in the regular decision pool. 2011 yielded a decrease in early admission applications to a few of Harvard and Princeton’s peers, namely Yale, Columbia, and UPenn. Each year prior to 2011 has been marked by record high application numbers and record low admission rates in both early and regular admission cycles.

Whether or not applying early increases your chances of admission may be left entirely to speculation, but it’s certainly nice to know your top-choice school’s decision earlier in the year. Dartmouth’s Dean of Admissions offered some insight about why a student might not apply ED.

“I think it’s a lack of readiness to apply early — some of that is lack of preparation in terms of schools and counselors helping students to begin to think about the college admissions process in a more timely fashion,” she said. “I think if you haven’t, for instance, gotten the majority of your standardized testing done by the end of your junior year, it’s tough to get an early decision application out the door.”