The Sigma AEPi house
 

Big Sisters- On Sorority Life they have a really nice house- Is that what other pledge houses r like and also are sorority houses really nice and big- A while ago i heardsum one say that there are up to 60 girls in their sorority so are sorority houses huge places like on TV and movies? Your little sister

To me, a 'house' is not a roof and a bunch of walls with a 'Gone with the Wind' decor....rather it's the brother/sisterhood that you have on a local and inter/national level!

If I'm not mistaken, NPC sororities do not have pledge houses. As stated in another thread, the pledge house was an idea created by the producers of "Sorority Life".

My chapter doesn't have a gigantic mansion that we can call home, but that doesn't mean we lack the sisterhood that housed chapters have. ;)

lil sis,

it basically all depends on what school you go to. my current school only has fraternity houses. and those are just regular houses. at my last school though, there were basically two types of houses provided by the school for both sororities and fraternities. old georgian style houses or converted dorms buildings. it depended on which one you had as to how many people were in the house. i think that the largest held 'bout 40 brothers or sisters. you can check out the site if you want. i think you can even take a video tour of the houses.



bgsu greek site

marissa

our houses were reserved for 12 sisters only and they were on campus in the greek courts. all the fraternities and sororities have the same exact house (with minor details changed sometimes, like linoleum floors vs. hard wood). Our house has to be filled, but with 100+ sisters its not usually a problem, plus sophmores have to live on campus, so they usually are in competition for houses.
noone on our campus has a "pledge house", and i believe they are purely ficticous for any NPC sorority.

there's no such thing as a pledge house in the real world
 

"Pledge houses" don't exist anywhere except in MTV's version of reality. How nice and big sorority houses are depends on the school. At my school, the sorority houses are very nice (cost $4 million each) and each has room for 20 members to live there (that's 20 out of about 120 per sorority). Officers live in the house, but most other girls do not. At other schools, many more girls live in the house. Keep in mind, the Sigma's sorority house on the MTV show was no doubt "fixed up" by MTV before filming started. Yes, it looks really nice, but once again it's not reality. Most sorority houses are very nice but in a more traditional, less MTV style.

A good article on the whole ting
 

like squirelly girl said, it depends on where you go to school. Big 12 and SEC schools tend to have huge, pretty houses. at smaller universities, the size/quality really varies. when you apply, visit the school's campus and check things out for yourself.

That totally sucks that MTV created the whole pledge house deal. They'd think ppl would use this show to understand sororities better but they're just confusing ppl. If i never talked to any of you i would prolly go off to college and ask, "so when do i move in the pledge house?". I love my MTV but i have to say this- Don't fuck with my head. Your fool mouthed lil greek sister

I wish MTV-style pledge houses existed in the real world-but, unfortunately they don't. At my school, we didn't even have sorority houses (blue laws :rolleyes: ). I know at TCU-where Mr.ChiOJenn went to school-all the greeks lived in dorms-seperate dorms away from the rest of campus. Except for the Sigma Nu's who actually had their own house.

You have to be kidding me right? Do you honestly believe anyone has houses like that? Even the most of the wealthiest sororities (the ones with the high dues and big, beautiful houses) don't have houses that look like that with a pool and everything. MTV gave them that so they could shoot the show in style. Our house is really small. Only about 14 girls out of the 50 in the chapter can live in it. But it is very nice and cozy and I got the chance to live there this year. Obviously, we would love it if MTV made us a house like that for free but for now we are very happy with our nice house and our thankful we actually have one (a lot of greeks don't). Plus, our dues and rent aren't very expensive at all which is also a plus!

I look at Sigma's house and I felt a twinge of jealousy, it's so nice. Then I see the pledge house and I begin to turn green, but then I realize I would have missed out on that "freshman dorm experience" that we should have. The first year without ANY rules. I needed that. Yet now that I live in the house, I cannot imagine anything else. Our house is old. Very old. Built in the early 1900's and has always been home to 52 KD's every year. so to me, that makes it incredibly special. No we don't have air conditioning, it is heated by radiators and we only have 9 parking spots but it's home. It's homey and it's old (many think it's haunted) and it's the most comfortable house I have ever lived in. That is the only way I would ever want it.;)

Just because a sorority has a nice big cushy house doesn't mean we're paying an arm and a leg for it. The rent for living in my house is less than half of what I paid for a nice but ordinary apartment this past year. I think it even costs less or about the same as it would to live in a dorm on my campus.

Anyway, a pledge house is such a bad idea. The new members are supposed to bond with the sisters and with the rest of their pledge sisters, not play games with the house rules and wage war against your own pledge sisters and soon-to-be sisters. But what do we expect? MTV is not out to promote sisterhood, it's out to promote higher ratings...

Well ROWDYsister, at my college the bigger and better the house the more dues you pay. So naturally I assumed thats the way it goes. I mean if you see a nice house you just think it is going to cost more than the other smaller houses. Plus maybe rent isn't bad but dues sky rocket. And in the north east, where I go to school, rent and property are expensive. I am sure thats why west coast schools always seem to have nicer houses than the northeast schools do.

lucky
 

Watching MTV's Sorority Life makes me sick. I get envious just passing greek houses on other campuses, and they don't even compare to MTV's revision. At least you all have houses. I'm at SFSU and we're not allowed to have greek houses. Be thankful for what you have!

:)

So true. The only big school's greek housing I've seen is UNL's and they have some huge and awesome looking houses. The pictures I've seen of MU's are really nice too. And I'm sure other big schools, especially schools in the south have really nice houses too.

However, at my school sororites don't have houses, we have a dorm where all the sororites have a floor. It all stems from back in the day when there was a law that if 6 women or more lived in a house it was considered a whorehouse. However supposedly that law has been removed and we're waiting until everyone has enough money to build hoses before anyone starts. For fraternities on my campus it really varies. There are two really nice new (in the last 3 years) "palaces", one new normal sized house, one big house that's a historical landmark, an old hotel, and then the rest are average sized older houses.

Well, most of the time a smaller house like that is not in the budget. But in some chapters have had a small house in the past and managed to hold onto the old house and build a much larger, more effective house behind it. That way, they have a living space that they use and a "party" house where they can have socials and meetings and large gatherings of people without it disturbing where people live. Very expensive but I think worth it. Also, I am sure that Associate members would probably spend a lot fo time there is they felt connected.

The thing I noticed right off was that the pledge house there looked so much nicer than the active house. Usually it'd be the other way around!?

Makes sense now.

Thanks

This whole TV show really makes me angry. Out of college for two years now, I was really looking forward to this show, thinking it would bring back the amazing memories I have of my time in college and in my sorority. Instead, the inconsistencies are just driving me nuts! There are SO many differences between the way this 3-year-old local sorority runs their recruitment NM Education program, and the way things are regulated for NPC sororities. I was also upset with their selection process, and now I read that MTV actively recruited girls to rush this sorority? I seriously hope that this doesn't negatively affect the Greek system, by turning girls away from even rushing, or by attracting girls for the wrong reasons (i.e. a swanky pledge house and pool, etc.)

Oh, and I just have to put in my two cents about the discussion over the size of chapter houses. I too have noticed a wide gap in chapter houses on different campuses, just through visiting friends, etc. But really I think there are a lot of factors which determine the size and overall attractiveness of a sorority house. First, the campus you are on, and what is available for use (is there housing provided by the college/university or do houses have to be located off campus?). On my campus, the houses were all right off campus, in beautiful old homes that were once owned by families, and were not affiliated with the school. Also, who owns the house could play a factor as well. My chapter house was/is easily one of the most amazing at our school, but the dues were not too terribly high to "live in" because we had a strong house corp. who outright owned the house. Also you have to figure that the cost of insurance, property taxes, etc. will vary according to state. If a chapter is financially stable, as well, and does not have a lot of debts, then dues are also a little more realistic. At least that's what I've noticed from my own experience!

Okay, sorry, I'm rambling. It's Friday morning, and I am running slow w/o my coffee!

Well ROWDYsister, at my college the bigger and better the house the more dues you pay. So
naturally I assumed thats the way it goes. I mean if you see a nice house you just think it is
going to cost more than the other smaller houses. Plus maybe rent isn't bad but dues sky
rocket. And in the north east, where I go to school, rent and property are expensive. I am
sure thats why west coast schools always seem to have nicer houses than the northeast
schools do.


UF has some pretty big houses (they all look like mansions to me) but almost all on University owned property from what I understand the ones that are have like 99 year leases. I know this holds true for most of the fraternities but not sure about the sororities. So that's why they have big houses not because property is cheap, beacause I promise you that if you were to try to buy the property they are located on you'd pay 10 times what the property is worth because it is either on or so close to campus. :)

That first part was supposed to be a quote....oops