If you are in a chapter and think/know that a rushee is very young, I would be very careful to make sure she is mature enough to handle the massive load of responsibilities and change she has in front of her. If you know the rushee, I would suggest she spend some quality time with herself considering this topic for herself. She may be completely stoked to jump right into college life, but it is a lot of change very fast. That's not to say she can't handle it, just that she should consider what all this is going to mean before she potentially damages her reputation when more than likely she could wait a year and pledge as a sophomore when she understands what it takes to live in a dorm, attend classes without Mom waking you up, doing homework without being nagged to, eat on schedule and heathfully, dating without chaperones (or Mom watching the clock), etc. If she can do it, then great, why not!

My cousin was 17 when she accepted her bid to Delta Zeta 4 years ago. Her 18th birthday was only a few weeks after recruitment, but I vaguely recall that her mother had to sign some of the early paperwork. Housing was also not an option at her university. But, that was 4 years ago and I've slept since then, so I may be wrong.

How is that any different when someone is 17 or 18? If a woman skipped ahead when she was young, she has been with an older peer group her entire life, and has been coping with an increasing level of responsibility in her life every year. There's not some magical difference when you have a 18th birthday that suddenly makes you an adult.

This isn't to say I wasn't an immature asshole at 16, but rather that maturity is not strictly correlated with age. Ask any straight woman in her 20's who's trying to find a husband.

I'm sorry - this made me LOL!

Age isn't necessarily tied to maturity, but it helps. A person would argue the same thing with 17 and 18 year olds but that's why rush is thorough, or should be anyway. And that lack of maturity is why some girls get into lots of trouble in their freshman year. Presumably if a girl is sharp enough to be starting college at 16 she's got a grasp of all this, but I still contend that you should be more aware of a heightened need for social guidance.

And we all know that 25 in boy years is about 15 in girl years. ;)

I just think that you need to balance the potential immaturity with the fact that most of these women are extremely bright and may contribute to the chapter in a lot of other ways. You don't get to college at 16 by being average (is my bias showing yet???).

I'll agree with that. My husband was in med school at 17. Was he the most mature thing in the world? No, but he was far more mature than any other 17 year old you could conjure. I was 17 when I pledged AOII...now this was 19 years ago in August, but my parents did not have to sign anything for me. They didn't have to sign for my sister, either, who pledged at 17.

holy crap

^^^ I believe there were a couple fraternity men who would have had the same thought, had they known....

When I say the pledge director and her asst. were shocked, I'm saying that you could practically see the wheels turning as they recollected all the mixers, fraternity parties, etc. she'd been to all semester. They were very concerned.

I have always wondered whether she is our youngest initiate.

Thanks for the discussion. There are some schools (well, at least one) that mandate a minimum age for living on campus/in the dorms, and I am aware that the same cutoff could extend to Greek housing.

Regardless of minimum age requirements, even for the most mature students, 16 is quite young to take on living away/alone, and taking a full course load, and possibly working, and pledging. The difference between 16 and 17 or between 17 and 18 isn't always that big, but the difference between 16 and 18 can be.

Thanks again! You've brought up some great points that I can pass on to the interested party.

Re the 14 year old: I take it that it wasn't obvious physically that she was 14? I doubt any guys would have been in trouble though, as they could argue that her not disclosing her age to y'all amounted to fraud. (Not that I think that, but that's probably where a lawyer would go.)

She looked like a regular freshman...not 14. I don't think anything went far enough to involve The Law, but I do recall her making her out with a guy at a Lambda Chi Alpha party shortly before initiation, and that visual was the first thing that popped into my mind when she revealed her age.

It's been several decades since my time, but surely we put our month/date and YEAR of birth on rush registration forms and sorority forms.

I'm wondering if anyone really pays attention to the birthdate on a recruitment form.

They didn't pay attention to mine - both houses where I preffed were unsure if I could receive a bid, due to my age. I got "the call" to see if my parents would sign for me to accept a bid!