One thing to keep in mind is that not all the Nerds were the stereotypical intellectual tech-type geeks (although several of them, including the two main characters: Louis and Gilbert, along with Poindexter were this type to the extreme.)
What they all were was misfits - which is why they all ended up (at first bunking in the gym) together:
They were the rejects and outcasts who did not fit in with cool society thus they were rejected by all the fraternities.
In addition to the bespectacled "geeks" you had
Booger (no great intellect, crass, slovenly and gross, but still kind of cool in his own right, but such an individualist that the only place he fit in was with Nerds); there was
Wormser (outcast because he was smart beyond his age group and somewhat of a "geek");
Lamar (rejected apparently for being gay), and
Takashi (who it seems didn't fit in simply for being an Asian foreign exchange student).
There were more unnamed Nerds, some of whom just seemed a little too weird or unique or who dressed too funny to be accepted by the cool fraternity society.
This movie may be special to me because when it came out I was in my second year of college and was an outcast myself (although I wouldn't become bespectacled until about a decade later!)
As said, I loved the first movie but never saw any of the sequels. I may keep it that way as I hear they only went downhill into the realm of awful - loosing all the uniqueness, quirkiness and charm of the first movie.
On another personal note: the movie took on something of a significance during the 2010 suicide scandal case at my Alma mater: Rutgers University due to its scenes where the Nerds hook up spy cameras in the girl's sorority. Although the movie was a comedy, it contained antics that were very similar to those that revolved around a student secretly filming his roommate with a webcam in a college dorm, then outing the roommate's private life on social media, after which the young man that was filmed killed himself while the roommate who planted the camera underwent a serious court case with a conviction, minor jail time, community service and fines.
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