My pledge class had 7 members.
One deferred initiation until the following term, but is still active.
One transfered.
One did not return to university for second year.
One took a term off, but is now active again.
Thus out of 7 pledged:
4 of us are still active.

Oh wow...let me think. 18 pledged ADPi on Bid Day 1996....and in the end there were 6.

1 dropped out on Bid Day
11 dropped out or were kicked out for various reasons...mainly because of grades and other standards issues.

So in the end there were 6 of us...I love them all dearly...they know it is for a lifetime...not just 4 years.

That's the way it was for me...by the time I graduated, there were less than 10 seniors graduating with me. The older a member got, usually the less you'd see her around. My sisters thought I was strange because I was still doing stuff with my sorority when I was a senior...I think they both went alum early. However, my chapter was different from most in that we started as a colony and we COB'd a lot in the beginning, so most of the pledge classes we took while I was active had a mix of freshmen, sophomores, and some juniors. We even took a senior once who had a couple more years to go. So the group of seniors that I graduated with were from a number of different pledge classes...I think only 2 or 3 of them were from my own pledge class.

Yes, we talk, educated and try to impress upon new members that joining a GLO is a lifetime experience and that they are expected to be members of the collegiate chapter during their entire undergraduate career. As many of you have stated and as research has shown, an undergraduate in their senior year has different needs. They've reached a point in their lives that learning financial planning is NOT how to pay tuition, rent and dues... it's looking at investments, mortgages, paying back those student loans. Keeping those women active in your chapter as mentors, leaders-by-example (if not in elected positions) may take rethinking our position on attendance of mandatory events, including educational programs.

Pi Beta Phi has restructured our senior transitional program to make it more appealing to those women and hopefully more meaningful. If we still provide something of value, something unique, perhaps we won't see the seniors all disappear by December.

Interesting thread!

In my local, all 7 founding members remained active through graduation. I pledged with 4 other women; one disappeared when we became a colony of AEPhi but the rest of us remained active through graduation.

Since we became a chapter of AEPhi, I don't believe anyone has ever depledged. I can think of only a handful of women who deaffiliated. Most of those were due to a reorganization that happened the year after I went alum (i.e. women resigning in protest). So we had, and still have, a pretty high retention rate through the collegiate years.

Some other chapters at my school have poorer retention rates. My freshman year, XYZ took quota of 32; 16 were still active at graduation. :(

Wow...I've never heard of that many girls dropping out! Up until this year, pledge classes were around 55, and we still have around 45 seniors. In my pledge class we had 2 deactivate and 1 transfer, but everyone else is still active...

Just to ditto Ms. Gunther, Pi Phi has some great new programming for seniors designed to combat just this problem, and I've found it to be highly effective so far in my term as President, especially compared to the programming I was implementing before as Membership Chair.

In response to the question in general, deactivating is huge at W&L. Lots and lots of women leave after their sophomore year--usually, I think, to disillusionment with rush and the whole Greek system. I think GLOs are so "hyped" here that people enter with rose-colored glasses. I think the fraternities tend to have fewer deactivations than the sororites, and the sororities can vary. Almost all the groups lose at least one girl every year. I have a friend in a group who is very strong on our campus and she said that 25% of her pledge class had already left (this friend is a junior like me). My own pledge class has had like 2 transfers, 1 deactivation, and 1 person take collegiate alumna status. I'd say these numbers are about average--but some groups have many more. Honestly I think a lot of women get turned off to the cutthroat nature of rush here--many women come here without much knowledge of GLOs (myself included) and do it because it's the thing to do, unprepared for the reality of rush from the other side. But that's just W&L, I think.

As a senior Pi Phi I just wanted to mention how great this new program is. It has bonded my senior class even more, and it has given us a chance to talk to alums in our area.

I know I plan on becoming an active alum as soon as I graduate. I never intend to be one of those four year members. :)

My school in general is different anyway as people don't generally come in as a freshman with the idea of going greek we take a lot of transfer juniors and sophomores so pledge classes contain a lot of people... becuase of this though we have a lot of turn around also.. (with sisters leaving after only two year if they started as a junior) People also transfer a lot... EVEN so three of the ladies I pledged with are still around (although one had a hiatus at JC to up her GPA) but I am the only one who has graduated.... but we genreally initiate all of our women every semester... ( at least the two and a half years I was active we never had a new member drop) but then after that is when we start losing them if we're going to... transferring, disaffiliation etc.. but I'd say we keep about 90% of freshman who join until they are seniors... :D
I don't know... but it seems to me at schools where being greek is THE thing to do/be that if you don't you feel like an outcast so of course you're going to do it even if you don't really care to make the committment... so of course a lot of the members aren't going to stick around if they just joined out of social pressure really instead of genuine interest in belonging to the greek community.

My new member class had 12 girls accept bids, one of them depledged, so 11 were initiated. Of those 11, 8 graduated, 1 dropped out of the university (she may have transferred, but I think she took at least a semester off...), and 2 are on the 5 year program and awaiting graduation.

There were 7 girls in my pledge class. Six of us graduated and became alumnae and one went inactive the semester before she graduated.

My pledge class is still pretty active. There were 6 girls in my pledge class (including me) Only one of my pledge sisters deactivated. I left school for personal and medical reasons, but I still participate as an alum. another one of my pledge sisters just completed a semester abroad, and the other 3 are still very active. 2 of them will be graduating this year. The other has one more year.

I think it all depends on the person and how seriously they have taken their commitment.

This is obviously a bigger problem than some people realized, because like Pi Phi, Gamma Phi Beta is restructuring our membership education.

As is Kappa Delta. They have a new program in development specifically targetting seniors and then their transition into the alumnae world. I don't know much about it, it was unveiled this summer at convention, but they're definately doing it.

I think this hits the nail on the head. If being Greek is something that you can choose if you want but there is no pressure to do, it seems that only the people who really want to do it and be committed to it join. I'd rather have a chapter of 30 committed sisters who stick around for 4 years than a chapter of 150 where the membership is constantly changing because people keep quitting.