Dartmouth Sororities Made Easy
Two anonymous Dartmouth alums write in this week with a brilliant guide to the Hanover Greek scene. Don’t go to Dartmouth? Read anyway, out of respect to the men and women whom history alleges invented beer pong. Yesterday: Fraternities.
Sororities
- Kappa: Dartmouth Kappas, for the most part, fit the national rep: popular, obviously pretty (a fine distinction between genuinely pretty), and dominantly blonde. Trademarks include: runny nostrils, visible ribs, and overblown sense of self-worth (one Kappa was quoted in the Dartmouth last year saying, “I’m so glad I’m a Kappa, because it’s like being permanently in style.”) Nevertheless, Kappas are the social queens of campus. A contingent of NYC private school types usually fronts each class; that these girls are the more bearable of the lot says bundles about the relative merit of everyone else. Fun fact: Despite its hot-girl, “We eat carrots and date Heorots!” status, Kappa actually has the largest underground lesbian community of the sororities. The women’s soccer and hockey teams both have locks on the rush process, and so the girl-on-girl action quietly filters through year after year. Makes for a dynamic bus ride come formal time.
- Tri Delt: Tri harder. Every once in a while, a decent, socially adjusted girl slips through the ranks and ends up having to suffer the indignity of being associated with a bunch of cookie-cutters (literally and figuratively). But for the most part, Tri Delt is a personality graveyard. Most recently, Tri Delt was the subject of a campus-wide scandal after pledges were forced to perform faux stripteases on a bunch of Theta Delts. “At Tridelt we wear pearls/ribbons/Reeboks…we sometimes ‘do lunch.’ We’re seriously awesome,” notes a recent recruitment letter without a shred of irony. The walking embodiment of Jane Magazine, if it suffered from Down Syndrome.
- KDE: Party girls without any of the trendy Kappa coke cachet. KDEs equate female empowerment with trying to drink and cavort like a bunch of frat boys, despite the fact that no one takes them seriously. Sisters here have mastered the fine art of talking shit behind one another’s backs while pretending everything’s all peachy face-to-face. (At least the animosity is out in the open in Kappa.) Perhaps the most irritating sorority, if for no other reason than you can’t attend a party without seeing a bunch of KDEs trying to suck the remaining foam out of a tapped keg like thristy dogs lapping at a dripping faucet.
- Sigma Delt: Deferred KDEs. Lots and lots of lesbians dressed up as “rowers” and “rugby players” and “swimmers.” Have an activist, feminista vibe going on, which, when combined with the drunk girl-on-girl vibe, makes for a lively house right in the middle of Hanover Town proper. The fun comes during rush, when innocent non-lesbian females are recruited in droves. Somehow, despite the overabundance of short hair and the palpable exuberance of having a new crop of girls in the room, no underclassman ever seems to pick up on the joke, unless she is already on Team Lesbian, in which case she’s going to join the house anyway. Not that any recruit ever has a problem with it, but the “Holy shit, I thought they were just good FRIENDS” bit is truly entertaining.
- Alpha Xi: Discarded Tri Delts. Fun fact: they live in the former Beta fraternity house, which stopped being the Beta House when closed-circuit cameras (affectionately known as Beta-vision) used for broadcasting sexual exploits were discovered. This has absolutely nothing to do with Alpha Xi, but bears mentioning.
- Theta: A total mystery. Out on the scene as often as Pynchon and Salinger. Rumored to be kinda weird and slutty, though, which isn’t an altogether bad reputation.
- Alpha Phi: Brand spankin’ new, which means if you end up a sister here, you’d have been better off not rushing in the first place.
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October 12th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
This, sir/madame, is spot-on. Well done.
October 12th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
So, this was written by a Kappa, no? As an addendum: Kappas are alomst universally despised. Bulimic coked-up trust-fund whores whose misadventures with roller-rink hazing spark, for some unknown reason, a call (by the solipsist Kappas on the Panhellenic Council, natch) to kind of revamp the whole rush system on account of their force-feeding their pledges hard liquor while they drive them. A solid bunch of tip-top women. May their divorced New York lawyer parents beat them with wire coat hangers.
On the other hand, a few Tri-Delts can be vacuous, but clearly their is some vendetta going on here. The “character” of their house is something like “nice, pretty girls who bake.”
Theta, unattractive.
Alpha Phi, some of the easiest girls on campus.
October 12th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
pretty acurrate, except for tridelt. they have a pretty good rep on campus, maybe thats a more recent development though.
October 12th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
Since when are coked-up trust-fund whores a bad thing?
October 12th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
agreed with these comments. pretty spot on except for the tridelt part. seriously, who wrote this? im a freshman and i have heard all of this stuff multiple times before except for the tridelt stuff
and theta…yeah. id have so second chugo there
October 12th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
id say the good looking girls on campus are distributed about 40% kappa, 35% kde, 25% tridelt. beyond those three, its pretty grim
October 12th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
dear kappa who wrote this:
why are you so bitter? is it the whole “screw a kappa, marry a delta” thing? yes, that might get under my skin too…
cupcake?
October 12th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
yeah, love how this chick (assuming we’re dealing with an innie, not an outie) writes that the kappa trademark is an overblown sense of self-worth, and in the very next sentence claims that kappas are “nevertheless” the social queens of campus. we should add to the kappa trademarks that they’re terrible spotters of irony.
and ease up on the tri delts. they be baking cookies like whoa
October 12th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
What about the co-ed houses like Tabard, Phi Tau, and Alpha Theta? I feel left out.
October 12th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
one might also add to the kappa qualities embezzlers of cancer patients charity funds to throw their annual coke-fueled formal
and i agree, ease up on the tridelts. while not the hottest shit on campus, they are one of the more respectable houses to be associated with
October 12th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
This is great.
-Nobody joins the co-ed houses. Stop asking to be publicly torn up.
-Tri Delts bake, dont do coke, and like guys. Except for the “don’t do coke” part, its hard to find a chink in the ole ddd armor.
-This is pretty clearly a kkg author. If it were a KDE author (and come on people, like you’d respect someone from anywhere else), she’d mention Derby and how they throw the ragiest ragers.
October 12th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
wow. tridelt got lambasted. i had no idea that kappa hated tridelt so much. on the plus side, its nice to know sororitiy girls really are that bitchy.
October 12th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
seriously? theta’s reputation “not that bad?” while tridelt is an embarassment?” ummm, what campus are you on?
October 12th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
go fuck yourself
October 12th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
it’s just KDE and KKG after that everyone just goes somwhere because they couldn’t get into those two
October 12th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Please, if you had actually bothered to read the rush letter, you would not have failed to notice the complete irony of the “reboks/pearls etc.” comment. At leat the deltas are cool enough to poke some fun at their so called national ‘reputation’
October 12th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
You guys are all pathetic… you obviously have no sense of Dartmouth pride if you feel the need to rip up this campus the way you have done.
October 12th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
i’d take a tridelt over a kappa any day.
October 12th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
this was written by a sigma delt. nice try
October 12th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
ouch
this is some pretty hurtful stuff here ivygate. really ups the ante from your usual snark factor.
October 12th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Oh honestly, it’s funny. Laugh. Everyone was blasted pretty badly. Let’s stop having a “you hurt my house the most” party.
and btw - liking girls is not a “chink” in the armor. so screw u, homophobe (prolly a tri-delt).
Zunt
October 12th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
seriously. and there are plenty of straight girls in sd. we just like to play bra pong and streak our formals. swing by the basement this wknd and check us out. ;-P
October 12th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
i think that it is entirely inappropriate to write such hurtful descriptions of these organizations. especially since this writer sounds like a cynical lesbian
October 12th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
As an Alpha Phi…
October 12th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
KDEs dont take themselves seriously either-a major advantage over DDD-and big oversight on the seriously slutty (straight) minority in SD (Bra pong chick did a good job calling it out though)
October 12th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
People need to chill out. this was hysterical, and pretty damn accurate.
oh yeah, and it was written by an AD and a Sig Delt, so all you Kappa hypothesizers are wrong
October 12th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
Thank you! I’ve not read something so funny and accurate in quite a while. Granted, Thetas are uglier than advertised in this article but, then again, so are 90% of the girls at Dartmouth. Go Big Green!
October 12th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
Yeah, Thetas are *by far* the ugliest house, as they’re filled with fatties that only gain weight with age. There are one or two exceptions, but they’ll hang out elsewhere and come out embarassed at formals. Ha! But yep, the ugly Thetas are usually outrageous sluts. I’ve had positive experiences with girls from most of the other houses…
October 13th, 2006 at 12:18 am
what about the coeds??????
October 13th, 2006 at 9:54 am
Dear God, calm down. Each house on this campus has its own stereotypes which many fit into but every house has its randos too. Who the hell cares if one house has lesbians and the other has the underground lesbians and hazes their pledges irresponsibly. Each house on this campus has its character and should be respected. Next time make fun of the houses without dividing them.
KDE does need to get off their high horse. Whether or not their deferred KDE’s, at least the Sigma Delt parties allow everyone to dress up and have fun, as opposed to an elistist no ’10s and only members dress in tackies and alienate the other party goers event.
October 13th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
KKG and KDEs are slutty, have a handful of hot girls that seem to overshadow the grim majority. katcha katcha ghonnerrea says it all.
AZDs and Tridelts are the cute, nice girls. they’re more bring home to your parents-style girls, thoguh some are vapid without the ‘hotness’ of kappa/kde
SD- butch
APhi- the girls who were dinged by the other sororites- for a reason- started their own.
Theta- the drippings at the bottom of the barrel
October 13th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
AZDs are huge sluts, and generally very awkward. KKG, KDE, DDD, and SD are really the only 4 sororities people want to join.
October 13th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
AZDs are huge sluts, and generally very awkward. KKG, KDE, DDD, and SD are really the only 4 sororities people want to join.
October 13th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
I agree with Sister Ralphina that everyone needs to chill (and that SD parties are way better than KDE ones). After 4 years at Dartmouth and spending plenty of time in 5 of the 6 houses (because my team had quite a few girls in each house), I feel like most of the descriptions were right on. BUT everyone has and is entitled to their own opinions. I understand that there is and always has been a hierarchy of both the frats and sororities; however, I had no intention of joining such houses just to be one of the popular kids. I joined my sorority because I felt like the girls were amazing and I would have long-lasting friendships with them. I don’t know who Rhonda Jones is, but you might be a bit on the older side of the alums. AZDs used to have a reputation of being sluts, but that has rightly faded. Ohsix was right - tridelts and azds are the girl-next-door type, the girls a boy would be happy to bring home to their parents.
I’ve had a blast many a times at both Kappa and Sigma Delt. KDEs individually are cool for the most part, but put a bunch together and it’s just like a frat. And don’t be so hard on Theta - there are a few gems in that house. Reputations change with each class and no two classes within each house are exactly the same either. In ten years, these houses will be completely different. Maybe Theta will be where all the pretty girls go…
October 14th, 2006 at 10:10 am
AS IF one more incarnation of these stereotypes needs to be posted. oh well…
– national houses –
it may cost more to join, and you may have to perform some ceremony involving Klan-esque robes and candles and vows of chastity and shit, but dammit, you won’t be buying beer for outisders or countenancing any “open parties.” so there is more of an exclusivity vibe. earned, or no? you decide.
KKG
a lot of kkgs are little tinsley mortimerettes (as described), and this is their dominant rep on campus. but cornering the market on eating disorders can be a double-edged sword: you get a lot of athletic girls, meaning many of their slow-witted bulldyke teammate, too. Post-college, KKG will spend a yr blowing blow in mykonos or marbella, then work for her older sister’s event-planning business in soho. she’ll get fat as she ages. they all do.
DDD
did I say “cornering the market,” above? Haha, oops.Tridelts are generally considered one of the more attractive houses. BUT, it’s in more of a bland midwestern kindergarten-teacher way than a shiny unattainable bergdorf blonde kind of way. pearls and bows and virgins and bulimia. I’m not even going to say “sluts.” every house has sluts. if every murray-hill-residing, strategy-consulting dartmouth alum got together and employed all their mad econometric skillz in effort to estimate which house was sluttiest, i seriously doubt they’d produce a solid answer.
after graduation, tridelt will get married, stat.
AZD
a pearl- and bow-adorned bulimic virgin who’s not blonde an from ohio, but brunette and from Westchester (like 75% of the fucking dartmouth campus is anyways). AZD wanted to be either a kappas or tridelt, but there was some underlying damage that prevented her. this means that if you see a caucasian AZD who is hot and/or rich, beware because she is a fucking psychopath. girls may alternativevl join AZD because they’ve misinterpreted as “AZN” – a forgivable error, really. if you like the whole geisha teahouse vibe, this is your mecca. well by dartmouth standards, at least.
After she graduates, AZD will go to law school. then she will marry a fellow scarsdale jew and they will consult the list of upwardly mobile baby names, published in freakonomics last yr, as they prepare to crap out their firstborn.
–local houses—
girls who are unpretentious and/or unashamed of their alcoholism. networking and snobbery tend to be lessor factors into the decision to join a local house because, outside dartmouth, your affiliation will be meaningless.
KDE
you know how some misguided douches think it’s a good idea to drop their parents’ $ on leotards, legwarmers, and cavorting around brooklyn?
KDE is like this, but dartmouth is pretty far from williamsburg and so…yeah. KDE’s facecbook photo gallery features a couple of family sailing excursions off nantucket, but also proudly memorializes the numerous occasions on which KDE got dressed up in a hot-pink bathing suit, cowboy hat, feather boa and riding chaps and unabashedly showcased her beer gut before toppling off a keg. KDE is also better about “diversity” than most houses (with the caveat that asians don’t count as diverse, an they’re all at AZD anyways).
After college, KDE will work at a consulting firm in San Franciso and go kayaking or rock-climbing a lot.
SD
The women’s LAX team members who didn’t go to kappa ended up here. several sport actual facial hair. that said, there is a growing contingent of SDs who basically resemble the old KDE stereotype (i.e., are hotter/cooler than most local-house girls). Ditto what the OP said about activism, feminism, yada yada.
After majoring in something like ENVS or [whatever gut-major is attracting athletes these days], SD will work for an organic free-trade coffee company or, alternatively, become that creepy middle school gym teacher who always seemed to stare at girls’ breasts in the locker room.
EKT
Rejected from SD or AZD due to personality defect or obesity (respectively), EKT used to* contain a somewhat-tragic combo of genuinely nice girls who just weren’t “good at rush,” along with…well, the bottom of the barrel. You know: that girl who falsely accused your entire freshman hallway of date rape, grossed out a succession of roomates with her beloved pet tarantula, and believes with blind, Waco, TX-esque zeal that buying a size 29 will transform her into a size 29. (and we’re talking size 29, here, not 26). some exhibit that downright-baffling pride about their ugly/outcast status that’s usually only seen on late-night spiketv dating shows.
EKT may go to grad school, or work at a pro-life think tank. She will marry a bizarre home-schooled Lord of the Rings reenactor, and their children will perpetuate the tragedy.
*Now that there is a new sorority, Alpha Phi, all bets are off. I’d speculate the dregs would go (as some post above me pointed out) to the new house.
October 15th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
The fact that so many people have wasted so much f-ing time slandering each other on this pathetic website is rather unsettling. The fraternity/sorority system here seems to bring out a lot of latent ugliness in people. I have never been able to understand it, and this is certainly not the first time I have been happy that I chose to never take part in it.
October 15th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
I am utterly astounded at how juvenile everyone on this site is being. The descriptions here were obviously meant to be humorous stereotypical portrayals of the Dartmouth Greek scene, and not honest biopics of the nuances of the Dartmouth social scene. I feel sorry for those of you who are truly upset by the portrayal of your respective house… I am sure that your members have a great personalities or something. Why don’t we all spend a little less time crying over inconsequential bullshit and take internet humor for what it is? Anyway, you aren’t invited to my birthday party, so nanny nanny boo boo.
Zunt.
October 16th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
how do so many fucking ignorant people get into this place?
October 16th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
yes they are stereotypes. yes, they are hurtful. yes, it is funny. and if you dont like it, dont “waste your time” reading it. I don’t have much to add to the above discussion on sororities. I just wonder how different they would be if the rush process were more like that of the fraternities (i guess i shouldn’t ask if it can get any worse). Speaking of which, I would like to read some rants about fraternities. For example, is AD still full of “high school losers trying to recreate themselves through Animal House?” Also, i would like to know to what extent the gestapo administration is attempting to change the Dartmouth social scene “as we know it” by replacing toga parties with Diversity Dance-a-thons at Collis.
- Carlos Beltran
October 16th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Alpha Phi participated in rush this past fall. And just so we clear the air, grls preffed Alpha Phi over Kappa, Kde and Tri-Delt so obviously no one knows what they are talking about. Alpha Phi dinged a lot of people and were selective, for the record, and from what I know there are definitely some of the hottest, least bitchy girls on campus in the sorority.
October 17th, 2006 at 8:38 am
Um. This last comment is retarded. Nobody wanted to be an Alpha Phi unless they realized that they had no chance at Kappa, KDE or DDD. But, uh, thanks for setting the “record” straight.
October 17th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
these are all obvious exaggerations and not EVERYONE in these sororities are like the description, but you have to admit that it’s sorta hilarious. I mean i obvs disagree w/ some of the comments but that doesn’t mean i’m going to bitch about it.
and to those of you asking about the coeds, i mean there really is only one coed worth mentioning…
zunt!
October 17th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Zunt is right. yay for co-eds.
October 17th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
you know there are people in the world that don’t want to be kappas or kdes…
October 18th, 2006 at 9:18 am
DOES THIS MESSAGE BOARD CHANNEL MIDDLE SCHOOL FOR ANYONE ELSE? you’re all awful.
October 18th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Now THIS is funny. The bitchiness going on these message boards is only confirming what was obviously intended as jest.
October 29th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
Dartmotuh girls=ugly fat pigs with no personality
October 29th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
you guys are all dumb fucks. get a life.
October 29th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
agreed. ur all a bunch of queers
October 29th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Don’t knock Alpha Phi just because its new. Several 09s choose the house over the so called “best houses,” KKG and KDE.
You also shouldn’t judge the 09 pledge class with the original members…very different sets of girls.
In my experience - they’re a fun house, not “dregs” as others have speculated
and yeah, house bashing is elementary.
November 13th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Hahaha,I’m in the theta kappa chapter of AZD. Let me start off by saying this was some of the funniest shit I ever read. By the looks of this the Dartmouth chapter of AZD does not have the greatest rep. Here at SUNY Albany, I’m the only asian (I’m only half) in the entire sorority and we have only one burnette who loves jews. If you ever need a new outlook on AZD please come visit us…hahaha. TFJ!
May 18th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
i think you forgot to mention in the tri-delt section that those pledges were forced to strip for theta delts by a group of theta delts, not tridelt sisters. get your facts straight before you attempt to drag peoples names and reputations through the mud. trying to turn an incident of victimization into a sensational zing-line in your blog is just poor journalism, even by blog standard.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:42 am
Stop perpetuating stereotypes and get to know some of the members of each of these houses. They are ALL fucking phenomenal women.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:42 am
Dartmouth08 - cursing isn’t ladylike.
Which sorority has the field hockey/lacrosse bitches? Those are usually the hottest.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Why can’t we all just be nice to each other?
Speaking as someone who preffed over KKG, and also speaking as someone who has gone through house deliberationss, I can say that the truth behind the “ugly girl at Theta” stereotype comes from the fact that we don’t select our members based on what they look like. I’m not sure about the other houses, but I think it is the same for Sigma Delt and AZD and maybe even Tridelt. I believe KDE is getting better about this, but only recently. Kappa, I have no idea.
And why are people so preoccupied with which house is more “marriageable” anyway? Just join a house and have fun where you are! Dartmouth guys need a few years out college to grow up and become acceptable anyway. During college, they’re drunk,irresponsible, overcompensating former nerds who don’t know what a clitoris is.