I'm pretty sure the age limit thing doesn't apply across the board...we've had 16 year olds go through.

At a campus like mine was, with deferred recruitment, this wouldn't have been a problem unless you skipped a grade or two. I suppose if this happened in a school with competitive recruitment, your age status would be taken into account during recruitment if you were to rush later.

It's entirely possible that whichever Rho Pi told me about the age restrictions at the time (she said that you had to be a legal adult for liability reasons and so your parents didn't have to sign off on everything) was giving me bad information, and that the greek life office just wanted PNMs birthdays to know who was underage so they could be prepared to be in contact with their legal guardians if they were to join a chapter. I just took her word for it because it seemed to make sense, and it actually kind of still does if you think about it...I'd think it'd be a pain in the ass to have to get all those parent signatures on insurance forms for greek week, softball tournaments, parties, etc. for an minor member. I would also think there would be special risk managment issues for minors. But I know it happens in chapters all over the place, so I'm sure it works out just fine.

That said, I don't think we had anyone under 18 go through recruitment in the years I was there, so it wasn't ever a problem from what I can recall.

Either way, the greek life office (and later my chapter, as we filled out the new member paperwork) definitely had my birthdate on file, and I had to verify my birthday with legal ID.

I was 16, but I did have to have my parents sign the financial statements.

It's interesting to see this discussion about NMs being minors.

I know that it was definitely a different kind of time when our organizations were founded, but I recall reading somewhere that several our Founders were teenagers themselves when they established our organizations.

It's interesting to read stuff about how the age at which people were regarded as essentially adult or mature has changed over time.

The founders were amazing and it's hard to imagine very many groups of undergraduate woman today who would be able to do something similar today, at least in part because of additional red tape everywhere.

This is kind of a different issue from the legal idea of being under 18, but I think about how much additional concerns were introduced with the drinking age became 21. It happened before I was in college, so I didn't witness the change first hand, but it would seem like going from almost everyone in the group being legally adult for all purposes to the idea that some people are minors in some areas was probably weird too.

We have to do the same thing.

That makes sense. I just wouldn't want to hurt anyone who was 17 as a freshman in the fall (or younger).

Esp because right before they were considered legally adult for it and all of a sudden they weren't...

I guess there could be as far as signing contracts and such, but I would think that would apply across the board (i.e. campus housing). It's probably an issue that is going to come up more if we see more kids who have been homeschooled and able to graduate early entering college at earlier ages.

My sister and I both entered college at 16. During rush, no one even asked my age.

No one asked me either, until I actually pledged. Then, my parents had to sign on the financial statements and such. I can remember a "how old are you?!" moment all too well!!

I'm the Greek Advisor at my University and we had this happen about eight years ago. When the girl that had initiated two sororities had asked her about it, she did confess, and voluntarily gave up her membership in her new sorority. We never really got to find out what would have happened because it didn't get that far.

After that happened, word got around, and the women were suggesting what you had in your post.

The issue is, anything that is in a student file is subject to privacy issues, so even as the Greek Advisor, and as a member of an NPC Sorority, I can't disclose to students anything that is in their file to Greek Organizations.

We had to do the same thing with GPA. Years ago, we used to give the Greek Organizations a list of grades of grades at the end of every term, we can't do that anymore. If the sorority has a GPA minimum, all we can verify is that they meet their minimum, but can't say an individual student has a 3.4 intead of the 4.0 they put on their application, when their minimum might be a 3.0. I've seen it, and I can't say anything about it. I can, however, say something to the student, but I can't force them to be truthful.

Just keep in mind, that it's not limited to transfer students. Many freshman have flunked out of another college and start again at another school as a "freshman". If they are not receiving financial aid, there is no way to catch it.

When the drinking age changed to 21, people who were already "legal" under the old law were grandfathered in. So, they didn't lose a privilege that they already had.

I was very young at the time, but I had several cousins who were right around the age of 18. About half of them "made the cut" age wise. I remember vividly one of my cousins being so upset because the law changed a week before his birthday...if it had changed a week later, he would have been grandfathered in also. Instead, he had to wait until 21 to be legal.

Would you be permitted to answer a question like "was so and so ever a member of an NPC group?" Simply a yes or no, not even which one?

Can students sign a waiver for certain items? (I believe this must happen at some colleges because they generate GPAs and comparative lists for NPC groups which are availabe on the Greek Life page.)

We went around and around with this issue a long time ago. Our recruitment registration forms have a statement, evaluated by our campus Registrar (who is also our FERPA Compliance officer), that basically states the PNM verifies the information is true and correct, and that she authorizes release of the information included on her registration form to the Student Life office, Panhellenic, and the chapters that belong to it. My office (Student Life) then reviews GPAs, past pledging/initiation data we have on file, and verifies if it's true or not. The PNMs are made aware of this entire process from the start, so we rarely get misinformation from them.

Regarding puddintane's concern about the grade report, I'm willing to share how we work our grade report process if you want to PM me. Again, it's approved by our campus Registrar and FERPA compliance officer as well.