 MIT has an active Greek and co @-@ op housing system , including thirty @-@ six fraternities , sororities , and independent living groups ( FSILGs ) . As of 2015 , 98 % of all undergraduates lived in MIT @-@ affiliated housing ; 54 % of the men participated in fraternities and 20 % of the women were involved in sororities . Most FSILGs are located across the river in Back Bay near where MIT was founded , and there is also a cluster of fraternities on MIT 's West Campus that face the Charles River Basin . After the 1997 alcohol @-@ related death of Scott Krueger , a new pledge at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity , MIT required all freshmen to live in the dormitory system starting in 2002 . Because FSILGs had previously housed as many as 300 freshmen off @-@ campus , the new policy could not be implemented until Simmons Hall opened in that year . 
