Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership

papers.ssrn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 132 posts

Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership

#41

Post by agjacobson »

1. Frats select for lower overall academic ability. Few physics, biochem, ee majors. This bleeds over into their easier major. 2. Frats select for larger physical stature and attractiveness. This deselects for academic performance and strongly selects for business success. 3. Most importantly, there is little artistic, creative, or purely intellectual emphasis here. If a young person is dedicated to "going for the money" at an early age, the results are not surprising.

These advantages, while enduring, are likely to reduce with time, in my opinion.

Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership

#44

Post by aqsalose »

baron816 wrote: post #29

Dear 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 lea…

Problem is that the useful societal networks as described by e.g. the other comment below [0] are naturally scarce resources.

A fraternity (and the associated wider friends-of-friends social network) that consists of dozens or even hundreds of people doing favors to each other over the non-frat people, that's still manageable and self-sustainable. However, the world has billions of people. A network of million already is useless, and would leave the market open for another exclusive social club.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15316723

Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership

#45

Post by dragonwriter »

It's kind of junk, because it doesn't include and control for variables like pre-collegiate socioeconomic status which is well-known to contribute to both likelihood of joining a fraternity and income potential.

As a result, while it shows a correlation, it provides very little basis to reject that the correlation is due to a common cause rather than frat membership causing the income result.

Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership

#46

Post by [deleted] »

uptownfunk wrote: post #33

Wish I had joined a frat in Uni.. What no one told me in Uni is that: + You're either tech or not tech, and not tech is not sexy in the valley + You need experience, no one cares about all the extra coursework you do, experience is king + Don't wear a suit to an interview in the valley, ever. + Your connections are invaluable, form lasting relationships, it's one of those weird things where not studying pays off, a l…

[deleted]

Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership

#47

Post by [deleted] »

baron816 wrote: post #29

Dear 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 lea…

[deleted]

Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership

#49

Post by ComradeTaco »

danjoc wrote: post #26

All 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.

Some of the frats at my alma mater charge $5k a year. I would imagine being able to pay 20k or more might self select to some already well-off kids.

Re: Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership

#50

Post by notadoc »

lotyrin wrote: post #10
sbge wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

err, what?

What evidence do you have that a category "Alpha" exists and can be used to make generalized statements about behavior?

Presumably they are referencing the animal kingdom.
Post reply on HN