I appreciated your post a lot.

so I'm learning about these "cold dorms" and rooms with no beds in them, and really.... why on earth would anyone pay to live in a house with no lights or heat where you share a room with 40 people? You couldn't pay me enough to put myself through that, even at 18 years old.

Maybe it's the terminology but we call them sleeping porches. And since those are common in the south on farms and at cabins, it's a grea way to sleep. Nothing but sleep going on. All the chatter is elsewhere in the building. And they are also usually on the 3rd floor which makes them no so cold...esp if oyu have an electric blanket. Very cozy, very quiet.

Im cracking up. We had SO much fun in those dorms! They must be an old-house thing. The frat or sorority house uses maybe the whole top floor for bunk rooms. Ours were divided by temperature and then one for the seniors. Always quiet; always a place to go sleep whatever time of day. My sons also had them in their fraternity, at least as an option.

I didn't like them as much at my last reunion . . . apparently I snored so I wasn't too popular!

I'm not from IU, but we had sleeping porches in my house and I actually liked them? We had a few different sleeping porches to choose from - one was the traditional large room filled with bunk beds and open windows, and then we had a few smaller porches, one was for quiet/light sleepers, one was the rowdy porch, etc. The thing I really liked about them was it meant if you wanted to be loud at 3am on the 2nd floor, you never had to worry about waking up your roommate or the girls down the hall, and then the floor with the sleeping porches had 24 hour quiet hours.

Also, at least on my campus, the alternative in most of the other houses was this weird system where the juniors and seniors were the "room owners" who got to sleep in the room and decorate and then the sophomores would get a desk and a closet and still sleep on the sleeping porches. I still remember one house from rush where some of the sophomores had their closets in the hallway. So having everyone on the sleeping porches seemed better to me.

That said, I lived in for three years and by my senior year I was done. Two really would have been enough.

I still don't understand. Why on earth have a room if you don't sleep in it? How in the world do you sleep in an unheated room in Indiana or anywhere else that gets remotely cold in the winter? This sounds like... I don't know.... girl scout camp in the winter or something.

No lights + no heat = no friggin way.

In my chapter, the members were displeased if they got assigned to one of the two triples in the house, because there were too many people in the room... and those rooms were like 15' by 20'.

Everyone fought for the one tiny single... maybe we New Englanders are just more private people?

:confused:this whole idea makes me really confused as to why the unhoused chapters have a negative stigma... I can't fathom anyone wanting to live in a dark room without heat or lights when they could have their own room in an apartment:confused:

After reading every post in this thread I have three things that struck me
1) I want to thank the person that posted the more accurate statistics.
2) everyone understands that feelings were hurt and the system is broken, but when we resort to being nasty to one another it accomplishes nothing. I don't think anyone I've seen comment was in membership selection we have no idea what went on and/ or how hard it was for them to from 1600 to roughly 40 girls in three short meetings. Give the girls a break!
3) Finally, i could not disagree more about all the girls looking alike. I saw big and small, white and black, blonde brunette and red heads, and finally i saw girls that looked like they spend forever in front of a mirror and others that look like they just run a brush through their hair and go. The only thing I saw similar was hairstyle and age.

Congratulations to those that received a bid, and enjoy the cold air dorms they are the best!

LOL--you do not live in a dark room without heat or lights, but I can see where the description might convey that idea. Each live-in has an assigned room they call their own.The houses are absolutely gorgeous at IU. The "dorms" are for sleeping only, and in most cases one can choose to sleep in their room or the dorms. Sometimes roommates trade off. They have a desk, closets it is their room. And the dorms are not freezing, or even that cold. They are quiet, away from all the ruckus and very comfy. My daughter loves sleeping up there....

It's a pretty simple concept. The sorority houses with sleeping dorms also have bedroom type rooms with closets, desks, chairs, etc for use in studying, chatting, hanging out and "living". They are decorated and attractive. Sleeping dorms ONLY have beds and are only used when members are actually sleeping. They are typically quiet and kept dark 24/7 for catching naps and sleep. I would have loved that in the afternoon after an exam!

Not every legacy CHOOSES to join her mother's, or her biological sister's, sorority.

True Story: A member of PDQ* sorority (*all sorority names intentionally made up, for panhellenic reasons) had four daughters.

The first daughter went to her Mother's Alma Mater and chose to join RFC sorority, not her mother's.

Second daughter (legacy to PDQ and RFC) attended Indiana University and chose to join LPJ sorority with her best friend from high school, whose Mom was LPJ at a Southern University.

Third daughter (PDQ, RFC, and LPJ legacy) focused SOLELY on joining ITT sorority, but never became a sorority gal.

Fourth daughter also attended Indiana University, yet even as an RFC, PDQ, and LPJ legacy ended up choosing GR sorority.

P.S. this is NOT GC's Carnation Nation!

LOL! How many of Carnation's daughters have rushed to date? ... and none of them has joined Pi Phi! I can think of only one Carnation Nation daughter who joined a sorority where she was a legacy (two of her daughters joined Chi Omega).

As far as legacy policies go, legacies CAN be cut. For example, AEPhi considers the sister, daughter, or granddaughter of an AEPhi to be a legacy. A legacy going through FR must be invited back to the first invitational round as a courtesy to the AEPhi to whom she is related. A legacy who makes it to preference must be placed on the first bid list. But at any point after that first invitational round and before pref, she can be cut.

I agree with the first part. I'm not sure I see IU as an academic mecca. They really aren't very selective (accept 75% of applicants) and their middle 50 stats aren't that great.

LOL. Think about how nice it would be to have a dorm room, but know that when the others on the floor are loud and noisy, or if it is the middle of the afternoon and your roommate is listening to music and studying in your room, you would have a big large space where it was always dark and quiet and it is dedicated just to sleeping.

The thing I never understood about sleeping porches is how you manage to wake up when you're supposed to without waking up the whole porch.

I'm glad The Ohio State University finally stopped their "Quota is always 50" rule. Because there, at one point, quota was 50 no matter how many women went through.

Wow.. On a lighter note the train pic is funny! And I am so very thankful for an awesome SEC recruitment and sorority experience for my daughter after reading this thread. I had no idea. As a Mom, don't think I could have been as strong as some on here. The "competiveness" of the SEC looks like a cakewalk! My daughter loves living in the house and will do so her Senior year so that will have been 3 years but that house is so nice I don't blame her. I do hope it changes for IU. I'm sure some think their experience will be better but the odds don't seem as great at IU. If I had rushed here, I'd never have made it so congrats to those who did!