After being initiated, transfering and joining another soro
 

Is it possible for a girl who joined and was initiated in a sorority transfer schools and join another one? Even if this girl disaffiliated? How would the girls know? Does NPC have a full list of names? Could this actually work?

I know this girl who just transferred in as a sophomore to a very small school. She is having trouble meeting people and her sorority she had joined at her old school is not there. She had received on invitation to COB (continuous open bidding). Does she have a chance to join this other sorority?

No.

Not unless she pledged a local or the group who COBed her was a local.

how would they find out or know that she was initiaited in another sorority?

There is no master directory, however because of the nature of Greek Life, she would eventually be caught and lose her membership from both sororities (i think) Most of the time, the girl can't keep her mouth shut. The rest of the time, someone always knows someone from other campuses. (And facebook's a bitch)

Yes facebook, myspace, and "Jewish" geography. Even if you aren't Jewish.

Do explain. I haven't heard that term

Sometimes girls can "slip through the cracks" (reference my post from a few weeks ago in the "weird rush stories" thread for an example) and will try to rush at a new school after initiating into one sorority.

However, most (if not all) schools will transfer a woman's Greek history to her new school as part of her general transcript. This information is then passed along to that school's Greek Life office and she will not be allowed to sign up for recruitment or COB...or if she tried, she'd be quickly released from the process once they looked through her file. In order to join a sorority, you have to give information like your SSN, and you can quickly and easily be matched to another NPC group.

And let's hypothetically say that a woman was able to go through recruitment and join a sorority as a new member. The second she was "found out" (which would happen eventually) she would be unceremoniously booted and people would probably be pretty angry at her. It would probably be a humiliating experience for the PNM, but really, anyone who has been initiated into one NPC group should know better.

Everyone knows someone through someone. Kind of like 6 degrees of separation for the Chosen People. "Oh hi Brooke Levenson, I'm Samantha Katz, we met at Claire Hoffman's Bat Mitzvah. Oh I remember Claire, she went to Hebrew school at Park Avenue Synagogue with my cousin Laura. I went there! I know Laura. She dated my neighbor Isaac, etc."

How small is the very small school? Has she attempted to get involved in anything else of an extracurricular nature?

Tee hee.

My mom is only 2 Degrees removed from anyone. But us Italians are almost as close knit ;) We even get the mom/grandmother guilt!

Basically "this girl" (which sounds an awful lot like "my friend has a problem") will get caught. There are other things out there besides a sorority, and if you.. er.. she really bonds with a group of girls in a sorority I would expect you could help out at their philanthropy events and come to some sisterhood things with your friends. But that's AFTER she a) makes friends with the girls and b) has other activities.

Why, bless your heart, you aren't implying that your "friend" would be deceitful, are you? I do declare that no proper young lady would behave in such a fashion.

Amen. And I can't imagine someone doing such a thing and then not opening up to her new sisters and letting something slip, at some point, at which time memberships in both organizations would be cancelled and the chapter would be divided-- surely no sane person would want to LIE and cause such a RIFT?

Really? I can't imagine my school's registrar office bothering to note my extracurriculars on my transcript...well, in fact I know they didn't, because I've seen my transcript. Is this really common?

hijack/

That is hysterical... and the more funny b/c I can imagine several members of my family saying it. :D

/hijack

Hmmmm... well that's just what my school does, and that's how another school found out (albeit after the fact) that one crazy PNM was indeed initiated into an NPC sorority at the school she transferred from. Someone just missed her record of membership in her file when they were registering her for formal recruitment. I don't actually think it's written on the transcript proper, but a part of the general transfer packet of materials sent from one school to another (along with health records, discipline records, etc.)

Maybe it's more common at smaller schools... I dunno.

I also know my formal recruitment application had a place for me to sign that I had never been initiated as a member of another NPC and a place to give my SSN#, so I figured there was some sort of background check. Maybe some places do check up on it and some others don't.

Maybe she could be a recruitment counselor!
 

If she still wants to be involved in the Greek Community at her new school, maybe she could get in contact with the Panhellenic Association and be a Rho Chi/Rho Gamma/Gamma Chi/Pi Chi/Sigma Rho Chi/whatever this school calls it. She'd be able to meet women in other chapters and she'd be the ultimate in being unbiased for the PNMs because her sorority does not have a chapter there. If she joined an NPC sorority, then that would be the most involved she could be in the Greek Community. If she joined a local at her old school, then she is allowed to go through recruitment.

If she (or any young woman for that matter) was involved with a Beta Sigma Phi chapter on a college campus, which identifies and operates much like an active GL group on campus, she could seek membership in an NPC org.--pretty much the same as a local -OR- on the flip side, if she was in an NPC she could check out BSP, ESA or any of the other orgs discussed in the "joining a sorority" after college thread...perhaps there would be a fit for her there.

Alumnae Panhellenic may be an option for her too, if there is one, considering she left her former chapter in good standing.

Hope she can find a fit. And there of couse is nothing wrong with looking into membership in non-lettered campus clubs, organizations, etc., where friends can be made too!

I can't imagine switching schools and wanting to get involved with any sorority other than Kappa - not after I've been through the initiation and ritual - maybe it doesn't mean as much to some people as it does to me - but I didn't say "I'm going to be a Kappa for the next short part of my life, then maybe I'll be a Zeta for a while... oooh, and DeeZee sounds cool..."

you'd be surprised how many girls don't know that once you're initiated into an NPC group you can't join any others. i've had a couple girls telling me that after they transferred to another school they were going to rush, not because they were trying to be sneaky, but because they simply didn't know.

i think a lot of girls/chapters just think that it pertains to that campus, and that if you go to another school without your sorority then it's ok to join another.

:eek: Sounds like someone in membership education was dropping the ball!

May I ask a question regarding Sorority practice in such a situation? On the Fraternity side we have the same or at least similar rules about not joining a national if you have been initiated into another national. (I understand that there are some very rare exceptions in one or two fraternities, but those are irrelevant here). Anyway, when I was an undergrad we had a transfer student who had been to high school with a couple of our guys. He had been initiated into a national that had no chapter on our campus. Since he got along well with all of us we invited him to hang with us (wearing his pin, letters, etc). He was not a member but was considered more than a visitor, not a brother but sort of a cousin. He participated in everything except closed chapter business/ritual and that sort of thing. He contributed prorata for any social events and always pulled his own weight in any activity he could join in with us. We had an informal composit photo showing the brothers and one "cousin". We thought of him as "one of the extended family".
Would an arrangement something like that be possible in the case you all are discussing?

Potentially. It depends on the rules for social activities which tend to be stricter for NPC than for fraternities. Hanging out at sisterhood or philanthropy events or even just at the house wouldn't be uncommon, IF she's good friends with the sisters. Clearly ritual would be out. But that's not the sort of arrangement that you can ask for as the person from the outside.

I think this used to be much more common for sororities, but now that the risk management rules are so much stricter, I don't think it happens as often. Not only that, if you have a campus with not the best Panhellenic regulations, another sorority could get wind of it and possibly use it as a rush infraction (even though the girl in question can't join). "Closed parties" (aka mixers) are much more closed than they used to be.

Thanks for the info. The case I spoke of was unique in my house during my undergrad time, but it worked out well. We would have bid this guy if he had been eligible and as it turned out he was a very good non-member member. We had some guys who used to hang with us fairly regularly, but it was a much looser and much more informal arrangement than with our "cousin".
I understand that years ago there used to be a fairly common practice of inviting people in that sort of situation to become SA's or Social Affiliates where they were sort of cousins to the chapter. I think that has mostly died out as an official program but I think it has merit since there seem to be rather a lot of people stuck in the same situation. Much more undergraduate mobility perhaps?
As to the person in question, since she is an initiated member of XYZ couldn't she check out the orgs on her new campus, see if and where she seemed to fit, and if she found a really comfortable fit ask if she might (as a member of XYZ) be accepted as a "cousin", with the appropriate limitations, of course?
That way she would retain her XYZ identity, share close friendship with her ABC cousins, and have the chance to pull her own weight by actively helping out in all appropriate areas?

I think it's still an awkward question. But it's not impossible. Also, risk management rules are still strict enough to cause issues. But I don't know that there aren't NPC sororities that allow honorary/associate members either.

Thanks for the update on current limitations. It has been a few years since undergrad so I am not really current in my info. Would it still be a problem if her "special status" was officially disclosed to the Greek Life office and any other appropriate group? In our case, we notified the Dean of Students, whose office supervised Greek orgs, to see if there was any difficulty. We were advised that he was covered by our umbrella insurance policy and they had no heartburn about it. He then volunteered to kick in for his share of the premium since he spent a lot of time with us. A happy result all around.

It's not so much the Greek life offices - it's the sororities' national offices and the way insurance policies are worded. They would probably be more likely to not budge than the school.

There's been mention on here of a "displaced Greeks" sort of group, but I forget where it was & I'm too lazy to search.

I will definitely have to check my manual but I feel like AEPhi might have (or at least use to have) some social member status which is rarely if ever used. If I remember correctly i think it was meant for unaffilated women that lived in houses because the chapter didn't have enough sisters to fill the house. I guess the idea was if you live in the house we might as well invite you some of our non-ritual events.

but i'm not just talking about one chapter or one school, i've heard of this a lot actually. i think panhellenic needs to make note of this more.

I love it! I always heard basically the same thing as "Everybody knows Somebody who knows Somebody who knows the President." Now I have another way to say it!

But as to the original question, I do know of two cases where it has happened, but both times, it was someone who would now be at least 65-70 years old. And, sooner or later, someone's going to notice that you have two different sorority magazines at your house...

If your school allows that, consider yourself lucky. At my school, a group of us AGDs & Phi Mus & Sigma Kappas 2 years ago tried to be Rho Gammas, and the school's Greek advisor had said that Panhellenic recruitment rules doesn't allow girls from nonexistent sororities (neither of us 3 organizations have ever been at our new school) to be Rho Gammas.

wow, I can understand what she meant, but what an unnecessarily harsh way to put it!! :eek: Not only that, I'm not altogether sure that she's right.

I'm sure the UCF Greeks can chime in here and know the Greek Life advisor personally, but I find it hard to believe that an advisor would use the term "nonexistant sororities." Sororities not represented on campus maybe, but definitely not a "you can't be a Rho Gamma because your sorority's nonexistant."

Summer breeze...makes me feel fiiiiiiine.

Since I don't get many chances to be the token Knight, I'll chime in to say that it sounds implausible.

Oh ok. :)

Floating with the jasmine in my miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnndddddddddd.

They play that song EVERYDAY on the station at work. Everytime it makes me think of Dazed & Confused.:p

I only made this suggestion because I remember reading in another thread (which I convieniently can't find) that a Tri Delta transferred to Elon (this was before they colonized Tri Delta at Elon) and the Panhellenic Association let her be a Rho Chi. Maybe rules have changed since then, maybe they are only campus rules, or maybe Elon violated a rule.

I'd like to know the reasoning behind not allowing women who have transferred to a campus without their sorority to be Rho Gammas (or perhaps PHA officers), because it seems to me that it would be a good way to stay involved in the Greek community and these women would be much more likely to be unbiased.

At the same time, how would you know that these women would even be qualified to be Rho Gammas? How many recruitments have they participated in? Have they served as an officer to their chapter or to PHC?

While it would be a great way for them to stay involved, if they already have a group of women from represented sororities -- who are familiar with the campus Greek environment -- who want to be Rho Gammas, I think the opportunity should be given to them first and that they be given first consideration.