Dispelling Some Hopkins Myths

[snopes]

Sometimes a story is just so good that it no longer matters whether it's true or not. Generally, I don't think veracity should stand in the way of a story of real quality, but once people start treating these entertaining tales as factual explanations, we have a problem on our hands. Here at Hopkins, there are a number of commonplace stories I hear constantly that just aren't true. Let's go over a few.

http://media.www.jhunewsletter.com/m...-2788101.shtml

[Mateus]

And a snopes spotting, too!

You've probably heard that here are no sorority houses at Hopkins because of some obscure Baltimore or Maryland law that forbids more than six women living in the same house.... In 2003, the editors of http://www.snopes.com looked nationally and failed to find any such law

[Just Jocko]

Oh yeah, the sorority one just will not die!! It is sort of surpising, though, that there are very few, if any, sorority houses on campuses here in MD. But there weren't any at Penn State when I was there either -- what they did instead was set aside all or part of a dorm floor, the sisters roomed together and had a room set aside for their exclusive use for meetings, parties, get togethers, etc. I'm guessing that colleges in MD do the same thing. I'm also guessing that this was probably set up originally as a safety issue. But in a way, the girls got a better deal out of it -- they got their meals paid for, didn't have to hire someone to cook or clean for them (frats either did it themselves or hired help), didn't have house ownership/maintenance issues, etc. (Frat houses are usually privately owned by the frat, not by the college).

He also forgot some of the other rumors, though -- why Johns Hopkins was named Johns, why his statue faces the way it does, various ghosts, etc., etc., etc. But I suspect every large cvollege with any history at all has such rumors.