I'm not trying to say that what you do is wrong, and I'm really sorry if I come off as condescending toward the NPC groups - I'm not trying to! I'm just not very familiar with NPC groups and the way that they operate, and am trying to understand that better. I definitely know that my org doesn't not have the best or the only right way of doing things - heck, I don't think half of us know what we're doing, we're just trying to find out ;p

I think the confusion for me was just over the word "jersey" - for me, I think that jersey maybe has different implications than maybe it does for others of you. So I think that may be where the confusion comes in. I mean, it's a shirt, yes, but it's your most important letter shirt, and while you can have others in other colors, you have that one that is the jersey, it is official, and it is typically your first set of letters. If that makes sense ...

Again, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone!

HEFFA PLEASE! That's a little misleading, don't you think?

We have OPA shirts in a variety of colors and things (some of them very cute :) ), it's just the jerseys that there are standards for - every sister has the same. Before my time they had pledge class info on them, but I guess that got too expensive :( I luv my polka dot OPA bag - I'm really not anti-variety, I swear!

I didn't know that Chi had families too - Nu got the idea from Omicron (at Auburn). I used to be a Theta Frog - but our chapter grew, and I got bumped into the new family, so now I'm a Xi Tiger.

That's what I was trying to say - I think the confusion was over our different meanings attached to the word "jersey". We (I'm speaking for my chapter here, I don't know about all the other OPA chapters) wouldn't typically wear our jerseys for sports, we'd have other matching shirts for that.

my sorority does that. Every one initiated from 1989 on is one of 5 trees. Each tree has several branches, and those branches have things like " family letters", a pattern of letters typically given as a first set (my line has a hawaiian print, another has an ivy print, another one has sunflowers, another is ladybugs...) others have traditions (one has a tradition of giving gifts late!) and specific items that get handed down only through the tree and not to other members (specific cat gifts, specific frames/cups, etc).

Maybe because there is another sorority with the same colors that's been there longer than Tri-Delta has and they don't want to wear the same colors? There are like 4 NPC sororities with silver/blue/gold combos.

We never had these "official jersey" things - I think it must be a southern thing. When you needed to wear letters to Greek Week or whatever, you just wore some form of letters. Some of our girls HATED red - if we would have told them they had to buy a red sweatshirt they would have had a fit.

As far as para and stuff, I don't know that "stricter" is the word.

I think the whole thing is - there are fewer NPHC groups, so each will be more (for lack of a better word) proprietary about the things that are theirs. For example, it wouldn't do for me to get all upset about a DZ wearing a red and white shirt, because Chi Omega's colors are also red and white (well, cardinal and straw) and AOII's color is cardinal. Plus there are other groups that have red as one of their colors, and a buttload of other groups that have white as one of their colors. I don't have a special "claim" on red or white within my conference. Does that make sense?

Yes, this is what I meant. Thanks HC!!:)

Re: Re: Re: National "Personality"
 

See, this is what I was trying to say. Where there are NPHC orgs on a campus, the NPHC on the campus does not set a total or quota that each group 'should' meet.

I probably said NPC groups are 'obsessed' with quota / total because a small percentage of the recruitment / rush threads are 'Hey, lets post each chapter's quota and what total was on the campus.' I'm only getting this info from GC posts. I think it is great that each group is able to achieve that campus goal. I did not mean to imply that reaching for quota / total is negative.

Bottom line, I agree with MTSUGirl. Trying to compare NPHC to NPC to NIC/IFC is like comparing apples to oranges to grapes. Obviously there are things that work for each group for different reasons. And, I like and appreciate the differences.

Yeah, ours were navy shirts with pale pink letters. I don't know of many sororities who actually had jerseys in their official colors.

The school I go to now takes it a step further. Their letter totes, which for us were the same colors for everyone in each pledge class, are all different. It's wild. You can walk down through campus and see dozens of different colors and patterns on bags with the same sorority letters.

Come to think of it, the jerseys we got when I was a pledge were in our official colors. They were white shirts with pink and green letters. I think they might've decided to switch 'cause the white was hard to keep clean, and no one wanted a green or pink shirt. :p

This thread got kind of off track onto colors and para and whatnot - which is all really interesting, but I'm still confused about the core part of my initial question (probably because I had a hard time wording it well, lol). The NPHC groups seem to have more distinct national identities. The other groups, as one poster put it (I'm sorry, I can't seem to find the post again, and I'm paraphrasing here) seem like essentially all the same thing just with slightly different rituals and colors, and there's a lot of variety from school to school. Are there national identities for the NPC sororities that I just don't see, not being part of those groups, or is it something that is just not seen as really desirable with NPC?

This is probably coming off sounding condescending again ... I am really not trying to be, I just don't know how better to phrase what I'm trying to ask.

Yes. For colors wrt the NPHC, maybe it is because there are fewer orgs that the NPC and NIC, but I tend to see an org's colors as an integral part of the organization, just as the shield/crest, motto, and pledge. Could I wear a pink and green SGR shirt. Sure I could, especially if I bought it :p , but would I? No. While the colors pink and green are very nice, when it comes to my greek letters I'll choose my own colors, or a color combo that is not crimson/creme, blue/white, pink/green. Why? Because I respect the other org's colors.

I think you're right. I honestly don't see an across-the-board "personality," for lack of a better word, for each NPC group. One of the cool things is that personality really does vary from chapter to chapter. I have heard of some sororities as being classified as "southern" and "northern," but that's about as far as it goes. NPHC groups, on the other hand, each seem to have something they're known for as a whole group, although I don't know about individual differences between chapters. That's just my point of view as a member of an NPC sorority, so I may be a little off.

I think everyone has answered your original question to the best of his / her ability. I get the feeling you are fishing for a specific answer. What do you want to hear? Do you want someone to come on here and say 'Yeah, those NPCs just don't have it together like the NPHC's.' What type of judgement are you trying to achieve?

Maybe you need to try to understand why you see what you see. Are you looking at NPHCs harder? Do you have some issue with NPCs?

I don't think you are going to get the answer you are looking for because I don't know of many people, at least on GC, who are a member of both an NPHC org and a NPC org, who could give you the answers that you are looking for. I can only give an answer from a NPHC perspective. An NPCer can give her answer from her perspective, and both answers may still not give you the answer you are looking for. Again, you are trying to compare two (2) different systems.