GPA
 

My daughter will be going thru rush this fall and she is very concerned about keeping up her grades. If she asked a member what the house grade point was, would she automatically be labled a nerd and dropped?

From my experience, if the house's GPA is good, then they will probably mention it somewhere in their recruitment parties, literature, websites. Does the school's site have a Greek Affairs page? Sometimes the GPA is listed there.

At my school, which is an exception to almost every rule about everything, we didn't discuss GPA--because, simply, our sororities' national grade cut-offs were lower than the point at which a student would be expelled for bad grades. I have no idea what our house GPA was--we had people from the easiest and hardest concentrations, and we didn't calculate GPA anyway.

Re: GPA
 

Usually what I have found is that Sorority averages tend to be far more clustered than fraternities, plus rarely do you see sororities dominate a campus in grades year after year after year like you see with the guys. Since they are closer in GPA, you are unlikely to find a house that is going to lable anyone a nerd for asking. Is it possible, yeah, but I don't think anyone is goign to think negatively of her for wanting to get good grades. Remember many GLO's were founded on principles of academic acheivement, so if they are living there values, the chapter should be trying to provide a positive academic environment.

If you or you daughter is worried about asking a house about their GPA, it would probably be a good question to ask her Rho Chi (recruitment counselor). Other indications of how much emphasis a chapter places on grades would be to look at their facilities, a nice study room with high speed internet access and newer computers is pretty good evidence. Also asking about what the chapter member thinks of their test file system would be a round about way of getting an indication of academics. A disorganized or rarely updated test file system shows a lack of preparation/dedication of the scholarship chair which could be indicative of the houses academic standing.

Re: GPA
 

I'm not sure how sororities work on your campus and how image conscious they are. Maybe if the girls are there to look good and earn their Mrs. Degree then it wouldn't be a good idea to ask.

But I think in the end I'd want to represent myself in the best light and as truthfully as possible to be where I fit in and can have the opportunities to be happy and do well. If good grades are a concern for your daughter, she shouldn't shy away from that.

In addition to Betarulz's post, I'd say to ask if there are study hours and things like that. In my chapter, we have mandatory library hours. One of my favorite memories from our pledge program was watching one of the brothers study with his little. The little did not understand a book and even though the brother wasn't taking that class, took the time to read it and sit down with him to help him on his paper.

-Rudey

Our house had the top active member gpa for spring 03 and we are a house of architects engineers and scientists...at the same time I know people in our house who are holding down 4.0 and are the furthest from nerdy as possible.

Also i heard that rho chis changed to rho gams b/c of a conflict in names.

later