Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why claim "Alpha" exist? Before getting too up in arms it's probably worthwhile to see what the actual paper claims.
err, what?
[deleted]
Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
21–30 of 132 posts
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#22From personal experience, joining a fraternity definitely affected my grades negatively. I ended up graduating with around a 3.1 after a few rough semesters far below that. Having said that, the connections I made have been absolutely invaluable and I'd attribute all of the success I've had in my career to either my work experience as a student or the relationships I made in the frat.
Hell, I wasn't even in a frat, but my success since college had little to do with GPA ( I think GPA alone is just a very poor predictor of success. There are a ton of other, much more important factors.
Oh absolutely. Having older members come back after graduation to tell everyone how true this is didn't help, we all knew practically from the get go that we needed to focus on things like internships and leadership experience rather than class.
EDIT: "didn't help" might actually be "helped immensely", ha
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#23New metric: SPA = "Social Point Average" or NPA = "Network(ing) Point Average"?
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
err, what?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_(ethology)#Controversy "Researcher L. David Mech, one of the primary creators of the Alpha male hypothesis for wolves, later found additional evidence that the concept of an Alpha male may have been an erroneous interpretation of incomplete data and formally disavowed this terminology in 1999. He explained that it was heavily based on the behavior of captive packs consisting of unr…
My kid likes the show "Adam Ruins Everything," which is a myth debunking show. He went over the same things you just stated. The concept of "Alpha male" was all hype that just stuck.
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
err, what?
He's disputing the belief that there is such a thing as an "alpha" male type, outside and beyond the circular definition that anyone who is a "winner" in life is an alpha male; I suspect the belief that this is real is (rightly or wrongly) so thoroughly embedded that people don't notice themselves believing in it without having checked the evidence.
Myers-Briggs is total BS as well.
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#26All the frat guys I ever knew had well off parents. They were going to make more than everyone else due to that alone. Of course, being surrounded by privilege, parties, and sorority girls eager to score a rich boy hurt their grades. That doesn't really matter though. They graduated. Some even took an extra year or two to do that. It didn't matter. They did fine. Being a prince has advantages.
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#27Or Alpha males have greater tendency to join frats and to progress into leadership and push for greater pay... Why claim causal link here?
i knew plenty of non-alpha types in frats. lots of fairly nerdy guys, in fact. it's more about coming from a wealthy family that recognizes the value in such things.
very few people played a college-level sport and were in frats, for example.
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#28Unless you're already about to fail, few, if any, employers will care about your GPA, and joining a large network of college graduates who share camaraderie can't hurt when it comes to finding well paying positions and moving up in organizations
> few, if any, employers will care about your GPA
"Elite" careers care a lot about GPA.
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#29Dear Silicon Valley,
Please start something (company or otherwise) that will make it easy for adults (young and old) to become part of a large, real world social network. One which will help them form good career connections, as well as platonic and romantic relationships. Fraternities create their own unique culture (traditions, handshakes, songs, idioms, etc) to tie people together, so keep that in mind. Please leave hazing out of it too.
Kindly,
Baron
Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
#30Or Alpha males have greater tendency to join frats and to progress into leadership and push for greater pay... Why claim causal link here?
From the paper: > In this paper, we identify the causal effect of fraternity membership on college grades and future income levels by exploiting time variation in the college’s social and residential environment. We use the presence of theme houses and non-Greek social houses and the presence of female students on campus, all of which may affect students’ choices bout whether to join a Greek organization, as instrume…
They claim they identify causality but I don't see how that's possible based on what's written here. The presence (or lack thereof) of frats is going to change the applicant pool to begin with. And once they are present, there are going to be differences between who applies to be in a frat and who doesn't.