Two Secret Societies

This past weekend I spent several hours listening to the motivating and congratulatory speeches at my brother's graduation from the University of Madison Wisconsin. The speeches were well done but it was hard to stop from zoning out--that is until I heard a phrase that we had been discussing in my American Studies class. One professor who happened to be an alumni told the class that graduating from the University of Wisconsin Madison and becoming an alumni is like "joining a secret society". While the professor did not say anything more on the matter of "secret societies", I could not help but draw some parallels to the Great Gatsby. 

One of the characters, Daisy Buchanan is and has been in the top tier of the upperclass for her whole life. When she is talking with her cousin, Nick, who is upperclass but not to the extent she is, she "asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society" (17). As a class, we came to the conclusion that this secret society consists of old money, people who come from generations of wealth. The secret society in the Great Gatsby is one that Gatsby himself is never able to become a part of no matter how many parties he threw, how much money he earned and money he spent, or how well he dressed--he was never able to quite find his way in. 

Gatsby's failure of attempting to make it into the secret society is evidence that this secret society and the Wisconsin Alumni secret society are two different ones. Even though Gatsby attended Oxford, he could not join yet all you need to do to become apart of the Wisconsin society is to graduate from the school. Although the eliteness between the two societies differ, they also share much in common. The most obvious aspect in the two is money. To be in the old money secret society, you must come from generations of wealth. To join the Wisconsin society, you need the money to pay for four years of tuition. The Wisconsin Alumni secret society also accepts people who don't come from money by granting scholarships where as old money cannot be given and cannot be earned. 

It is clear that the two societies, Wisconsin Alumni and Old Money are two distinct societies but where do they cross? Is the Wisconsin Alumni secret society strictly Wisconsin or is it a college graduate secret society?