What if the live-out question is tempered with "because my major is international business and I plan to spend my senior year abroad" or something of the like? And how do you find that out, outside of rush? Is there info on the chapters' websites?

I mean, with some majors, you are going to be not living on campus for a while. That doesn't mean you don't love your sorority.

Since rush is in January, I guess you could figure that out during fall semester. And I would say (again, I didn't go to IU) that tempering it with something similar might be different than if you are asked "do you have any questions" and you say "what's your live out policy?".

I was in a sorority at IU. If someone asked me about the "live-out policy," it would have been a total turn-off during recruitment. I would be thinking--"You aren't even a house yet, and you are wondering about how to move out? Seriously?"

33 Girl, I didn't know of any house at IU (at least when I was going there) that would make a girl deactivate in order to spend a semester (or even a school year) abroad.

I can't think of a situation in which it would be a good idea for a PNM to ask the "live-out" question regardless of the context. There are too many girls going through recruitment who would give anything for the opportunity to live-in until they graduate.

My second least-favorite question was "What fraternities do you have parties with?"

I never said any of them would. I was asking if that would be an appropriate reason to ask about the live-out policy.

What if a girl's an RA and she has to live in a dorm? Does she have to forget about Greek life?

I looked at the info on the website and it says that the costs etc will be explained at the Greek Opportunities for Women thing - do they talk about living out? I mean the site shows the costs for each group, but several sororities do not include a live-out cost – I would kind of assume that means you are not allowed to live out if you join one of those groups. Is that assumption clarified during the registration period?

My point was that there would be no reason to have to ask.

Interestingly enough, this never came up in the entire 3 years that I participated in recruitment as an active. And there was never a sister who thought about being an RA. It wasn't a part of the culture, I guess.

My perception when I was in school was that people became RAs for the free rent. Now that I am a part of a university community as a professor, I see that many students become RAs for the leadership opportunity. I would hope that a woman who wanted to be an RA wouldn't have to forget about greek life.

My sorority was very supportive of extracurriculars, so I was surprised to learn that there were other houses that were not very understanding of outside obligations that meant missing chapter meetings etc.

I don't know what they talk about at the meetings you mentioned. I don't remember even going to them (but it was 20 years ago that I rushed--wow, is that really possible?). The funny thing is that when I went to my sorority's website, I can tell that nothing has changed. The pictures of life in the house don't look any different than they did when we were there!

Hi everyone!

Just skimming online and came across this message board. Man this reading tonight brings back old times. I went to IU and graduated in 97 and I pledged ADPi and had a great time. Of course, I have been learning over the past few years that the house has had difficulty with fullfilling membership. When I was there, we had just built the new big house a few years prior and really were at a great position. We would get 35-40 pledges for the time I was there. Living in the 5 way was the best time!

IU rush is hard and mentally draining and honestly would never want to go through that again :) Even being on the flip side and doing the parties, staying up late discussing rushees etc..

Wish everyone the best next week.

I've never heard of a house punishing someone for studying abroad. There's no good way about asking the live-out question, so I'd avoid it all together. I've never heard of anyone being an RA, but one of my sisters was a living community leader and moved out of the house and onto the dorm floor she was leading.

I'm going to put my 2 cents in here :-)

The live out policy might be an issue for some PNMs because I think (I'm not sure) that KAO has to have a few girls live out of the house each semester. When I was at IU years ago it was a brand new policy that every Theta member had to live out one semester during her time at IU. A group of girls collectively rented a place and then the next group would take over the lease the following semester. It was a ton of fun from what I could see. Quite a few girls chose to go abroad during their semester out of the house. They would all meet up in different locations to travel...I met up with 3 of them at the end of the semester one year and we went all over Europe. I was also fun. Could some PNMs just not want to be forced to live out????

I had a PNM going through rush this year tell me the policy was still true...but she could be confused.

I'm not at IU but my chapter's house board recently proposed not giving girls a point if they study abroad. That could possibly hurt the chances of a girl living out their senior year. Although, I'm not sure if other chapters or GLOs have a similar policy or not.

The thing that's different though is at IU they don't have a regular quota, they are only allowed to take as many girls as they have empty spaces in the physical house. So living in/out is a big deal.

Seems like these are kind of similar. A member may be allowed to "live out" a semester. Now where they elect to do so - be it studying abroad before their senior year or in an apartment in Bloomington their senior year - is their choice.