vandy columnist abuses statistics to impugn greek academics

A singularly blinkered take on statistics and greeks comes out of Vanderbilt University. Op-ed contributor Matt Popkin has been forced to admit begrudgingly that the all-greek GPA is superior to the unaffiliated population. ("Somehow during the height of pledging," he writes, presumably without sarcasm, "which as we all know consists of nothing more than study hall and games of freeze tag on Alumni Lawn, the Greeks still beat the rest of us undergraduate students.") He wants to know how such a travesty of the natural order could have occurred, and he has an answer. Be still my heart.

The intrepid Mr Popkin has taken to heart Twain's admotion as to the close relationship between lies, damned lies, and statistics, and says that somehow statistical methodology is at fault. You see, those manipulative greeks have conspired with the university to require a 2.3 GPA (a.k.a C+ average) to join or maintain membership in a fraternity. So all the otherwise worthy D-average students are relegated to the general population, thus skewing the greek average up and the unaffiliated down. "This restriction," he triumphantly concludes in a flurry of allusive bravado, "skews the statistic in the same way that making all basketball players under 5-foot-6-inches play on the same team would influence the game’s rebound margin."

Quite true, Mr Popkin, quite true. But what would also be true is that the team of shorties would be a lot worse at rebounding. All he seems to have proven is that greek societies have membership standards that emphasize academics. Accordingly, its members are, on average, more talented academically, since the D-students are not eligible for memnbership. Is Mr Popkin against emphasis on scholastic achievement?

His problem seems to be in the nature of post hoc ergo propter hoc: the suggestion that fraternities actively cultivate academics rather than self-selecting those who have demonstrated themselves to be talented. True, simply ensuring one's membership is academically-oriented does not mean the fraternity is improving any given member's GPA. But one has to think that being surrounded by more scholastically-minded individuals is more likely to engender excellence than marinating with the D-students ineligible for membership. To rejoin Mr Popkins' earlier simile, a midget little person joining an NBA practice team may not get much better at rebounding, but he's sure to learn better techniques practicing with elite players than the D-squad.

The Vanderbilt Hustler