Relevant Magazine just ran an article on the social Greek system (as opposed to the honors Greek system) — Sororities and Fraternities: Take Em or Leave Em?.
The Greek system isn’t very popular here at Stanford, but if you’re considering it you might want to read the article. It comes at the Greeks from a fairly positive perspective: Fraternity and sorority life has a rather notorious reputation and history on many college campuses, some good, most bad. They are reputations driven by the horror of tragic headlines and the laughable pranks of John Belushi in Animal House. In fact, Greek life is often a tale of two lifestyles: one acceptable and one tragically degenerative.
P.S. Be sure to check out the readers’ comments at the bottom of the article–they’re really interesting!