A transformative experience at the intersection of learning and living
The best of Cornell — for four years, for life
Live. Learn. Lead.
You’ve arrived at Cornell! What is the complete experience you want for your years on the Hill? To challenge yourself academically and intellectually? To be discover a community of diverse, interesting, passionate friends? To explore new ideas, cultures, and notions about your place in the world? To create memories and connections that last a lifetime?
You can find all this in Cornell’s remarkable fraternities. Scroll down to explore what fraternity life has to offer you.
Find your Home on the Hill
What and Why?
What is a fraternity? It’s not a house or a crest, not a pin or a grip.
A fraternity is perpetual friendships, a bond of brotherhood extended to new generations every year. The fraternity experience has been at the core of Cornell student life since its very first year. Learn more about fraternities, their history, and their promise.
Leaders and Learners
Fraternities offer students what they most want and most need: the support and community of honest friendships, a connection to a larger story, a place to call home, and the opportunity for personal, academic, and career growth and development. Read more about the benefits of fraternity membership at Cornell University.
Explore the Chapters
With thirty chapters, Cornell has one of the largest and most diverse fraternity systems in North America. Each chapter offers a unique balance of residential, scholastic, and service opportunities to its members. There is a place in fraternity life for Cornell students of every interest, background, and personality.
“The best substitute possible for the family relation.”
— Andrew Dickson White, first president of Cornell
“It reduced the 20,000 Cornell community to a manageable 90. And the 1,200 of us total, drawn from across 70 years of Cornell classes, live, work and communicate with each other, every day still.”
— Dan Meyer ’87, former director for whistle-blowing and transparency,
U.S. Department of Defense
“An escape from the monotony, dreariness, and unpleasantness of the collegiate regimen.”
— Frederick Rudolph, educational historian
“There still is something to be said for the idea of friendship for its own sake, and for offering young men a sense of home and the mutual responsibility that goes with it. In packs, young men can be dangerous, and certainly self-destructive. And yet they also can learn how to fashion a useful and generous community.”
— Howard Fineman, NBC News and Huffington Post
“The biggest and most overwhelmingly positive force in my life for those four years, and the lessons I took from it were every bit as valuable as anything I learned in a classroom. You go to class to study English or finance, but you go to college to study life, to continue becoming who you are.”
— Steve Roney in The Atlantic
Students. Common Bonds.
Students are drawn to fraternities for a variety of reasons. Fraternities provide a stable small residential experience rarely found elsewhere on a college campus. University residences are large and most offerings require students to move on after one or maybe two years. In addition to the rewards of a high quality, multi-year “home on the hill,“ fraternities offer the benefit of a cohort of fellow students and close friends from across academic years who provide academic, career and personal advice, counsel and mentoring.
As a new student at Cornell, joining a fraternity can provide a sense of belonging and community rarely found in classes, a campus organization, or a sports team. A fraternity can introduce you to a spectrum of ideas, perspectives, and personalities – among people from who you can learn from and learn about – and in the process, learn about yourself, your potential, and your place.
Alumni. Uncommon Lives.
The beauty of a Cornell education is that it’s really inexpensive.
Yes. You pay a lot for four years, but you get the next sixty for free. The fraternity’s most profound benefit may be the connections, support, and friendships launched early in your collegiate life, nurtured over the course of your academic journey, and sustained over a lifetime.
Because we see role models in those who have come before us, we quickly comprehend that a rich and worthwhile life is about success in career and industry, service to community and society, and happiness among family and friends.
All students can earn a world-class education during their Ithaca days. The lucky ones gain understanding, confidence, and insights into a successful and meaningful life.
Chapters. Uncommon Living.
The average college student is a nomad, moving from dorm room to dorm room to apartment over the course of their collegiate experience. In contrast, imagine having a place at Cornell you call “home” – a place that provides a sense of security and stability, comfort and camaraderie – a base from where who can explore Cornell to its fullest, knowing that you return each day and each year to your “place on the hill.”
While some claim that joining a fraternity removes a student from the mainstream of campus life, we believe – we know – that the opposite is true. For generations, members of Cornell fraternities have fully embraced and fully enjoyed all that Cornell has to offer exploring new ideas and interests, serving as leaders in clubs and organizations, and demonstrating service to others on campus and in the community.
Thanks to the generosity and devotion of alumni, private philanthropy can ensure that the quality of the facilities and the quality of this residential experience meet high standards. Majestic dining rooms and public rooms, intimate libraries, guest suites, and recreational space facilitate a variety of memorable experiences and meaningful interactions.
But it’s often the impromptu 2 AM discussions on the third-floor landing or the lingering post-dinner debates where real connection and real learning takes place.
And if you can take a moment to imagine your return to campus in 5, 15 or 50 years, the place you yearn to revisit is not likely to be your first-year dorm or a lecture hall. It will be the place your spent the best moments of your years at Cornell.