I have a former student at a CC considering rushing at Wisconsin and it's going to be interesting to see her experience. She has fabulous grades and is great, but if a chapter has to choose between her and an equally great freshman....

[QUOTE=BabyPiNK_FL;2060770]Do I wish I'd had more time with my chapter? Hell to the mutha****in' yes! BUT people will have regrets about various things all their lives. That doesn't mean it's not worth living.

I agree, and I didn't mean to imply that she felt like it wasn't worth living. Like you, she thinks that along with the cons, there have been some advantages to pledging as an upperclassmen (or sophomore precisely).

I just feel that AGDee had a point in saying that there are some disadvantages as well, depending on the girl, the chapter, and the school that an upperclass PNM might need to take into account. There are some things about the collegiate sorority experience that she thinks she missed out on and will miss out on, but she still feels like its been a great experience and totally worth it in the long run.

She's at a school in the northwest, so she knows zero about the SEC experience or what that tradition is like. All she has as a comparison are the freshman in her own pledge class at her pretty non-competitive school where upperclassmen PNM's aren't the norm - but they aren't an endangered species either. :)

Okay, not to sound like a computer idiot, but I am - how the freakin' a do you do the quote boxes? Thought I had it figured out, but yeah, clearly not.

I have a couple of rec girls who did dual enrollment their senior year and got enough hours through that to be sophomores, although they just graduated from high school 2 weeks ago. I'd love for them to be my sisters but fear that their sophomore status will hurt them. All I could do is write a strong rec highlighting their grades and dual enrollment and pray hard.

And that's why I love upperclassmen quotas.

If you're editing the quote box you need to put </quote> at the end except instead of < and > you need square brackets [,]

Ahh - yep, definately didn't do that. Thank you!

Yes. Everyone keeps saying SEC, but it's beyond that...most of the Big 10, if I'm not mistaken? At U of I, you can get a bid to a top house as a sophomore, but as a junior...not so much.

Will they be on campus for four years? This stuff is weird to me, because I came in with AP credit that made me a sophomore as far as the registrar was concerned, but I was definitely in a freshman rush group.

That's generally been my observations at both Minnesota and Wisconsin. I would think the other Big 10 schools are the same.

Lawyering and teaching at a CC.

Chapters that have huge expensive landlocked houses to maintain and fill have to have different selection criteria. You can be much more open minded when you are an unhoused chapter or one with a small house/lodge.

I concur. Being a sophomore will not place you at a huge disadvantage, but a junior is a totally different story. I'm not saying there is no chance, but it is much smaller and your choice of groups is likely more limited.

This is why my initial thinking was something along the lines of pledging women the semester before they transfer, and having them move in when they arrived in the fall.

I think this could work IF the CC was pretty much next door (like, literally the next building over) to the college/university.

If a lot of their pledging was "long distance" though - even if the "long" was only 10 miles or so - I think that would be a mess. We talk about how it's possible to join as a commuter, but you do have to make extra effort. This would (conceivably) be a whole class full of that.

There are also all different kinds of CCs. Some are mostly 18-19 year olds saving money or getting their grades up, some are mostly adults returning to school. If you open that door, you have to recognize that all kinds of people will come through it.

I have had one chapter in this region who had several women end up going part time at their University where the chapter was and part time at the community college nearby to save some money. This was a commuter school and 90% of them lived at home with parents. It raised questions whether they could be active members while doing this and, since they were still matriculating at the University and were carrying a full time load between the two, they stayed active in the chapter. It is one of those gray areas.

I see a difference between a first semester Junior and a first semester Senior who is actually graduating that year also. One has two years in the chapter, 1/4th of which is the new member term, one has a year, half of which is their new member term.

Also, if the Senior just changed majors and is going to be around for two more years, that's different too. Ultimately, it seems like it takes about a year to get acclimated to the whole sorority life thing and personally, I think I would feel like I was graduating just as I really understood what was going on.

I've definitely worked with chapters that had a lot of non-trads including married women and single moms. I just wonder how good of an experience a senior who is graduating that year will have. Sophs and Juniors going through recruitment are not unusual at most schools in Michigan, except perhaps Michigan and Michigan State. There are usually at least a couple chapters at each of those schools who would take a great Junior though.

I don't know for sure but it seems like most students are taking over 4 years to graduate. It's so wrong that PNMs could be penalized for excelling!