Classification v. "Years Left"
 

I have been thinking about this for a while, but I haven’t wanted to potentially hijack someone else's thread.

I’m not sure how much a chapter will consider that a PNM has more years left prior to graduation than her classification indicates. I know that I don't take it into account and, without going into MS, I have never experienced it being offered as a reason to give more consideration to a PNM.

Of course, it never hurts to let members know. However, I don’t want PNMs to think that simply by saying, “I know I’m technically a sophomore (or junior, or senior), but since I transferred (or changed my major, or planned poorly, or whatever) I have four (or however many) years left” that they will be on equal footing with a PNM who is actually in that younger class. On the other hand, I also don’t want upperclass(wo)men to be paranoid about their chances of membership. It depends on the campus, the chapter, and the individual PNM.

I’m a recruitment advisor at a somewhat competitive, “southernish” school. It is merely my experience that fifth year members are often inactive or on alumna status, regardless of what year they became new members. Further, I would say that a good number of our “problems” come from members who were not freshmen when they became new members. Naturally, I also have examples of upperclass(wo)men joining and becoming exemplary members.

I would like to end by saying this is purely my experience. I’m sure that many Greekchatters may disagree with me and offer numerous examples of Susie Sophomore, Jennifer Junior, or even Sally Senior joining the most elite and prestigious chapter at LSU, Ole Miss, or UGA.

It’s just my opinion and I wanted to put it out there.

At my chapter it makes no difference if a PNM plans on being in school longer than her classification says. We do not take that into consideration during Recruitment. Why? Because our GLO's policy is regardless of the classification (Fr, Soph, Jr, Sr) when a member joins, after her 4th (senior) year in school she is considered an alum. A member may submit a written request for 5th year active status.

Over the years I've heard tons of PNMs and actives say they plan on being 5th year members. They probably have every intention of doing so at that particular point in time too. Yet in my 13 years of advising I've never had an official request. Again, why? Because typically when the time comes all they want to do is graduate, prepare for LSATs/MCATs/etc, look for a job, get into a grad school program, etc. They are happy not to have the obligations (time and money) of being an active sorority member any more.

Then again please keep in mind Bama has an upperclassmen quota. But before that came into place, it still wasn't taken into consideration for the same reasons stated above.

I've always wondered...what is the justification behind cutting girls based on classes? In my experience, the only issues came when a junior rushed and the only person who took her as a little was a sophomore, so the little graduated before the big. Still, not that big of a deal. Is there any justification behind only taking freshmen?

Juniors won't be dues paying members for as long as a freshman. Due to their class schedules being more demanding they're generally less involved as a junior and senior than they would have been as a freshman and sophomore. As they're only a member for two years they'll have less of a chance to serve the chapter in a leadership role. They're used to not having to answer to a chapter full of women regarding their behavior so they tend to be more resistent to the millions of rules that sorority members agree to abide by.

Those are just off the top of my head.

Offering a different perspective based on my school:

I swear, I honestly am not a big fan of freshman. At my school I'd say about 2/6 chapters had amazing retention. The rest usually were around total give or take 20 members while I was there. Many freshmen came in, had no idea about greek life, did whatever/managed two years (on average), and burned out. (Some disappeared as soon as initiation was done!) I think with older women, they think about it more and are willing to commit to it if they're putting themselves through recruitment. It's b/c they thought about it long and hard first about what they were doing. (That or they depledged and rushed again and the 2nd time and they did "better" and were very willing to commit). But once again, this was at my particular school.
(Three of my five littles and myself weren't freshmen and I must admit, we did/are doing quite well! :))

ETA: And regarding the "rules" and not wanting to deal with them...Oh boy! I can't tell you how many times I thought "I'm too old for this!" But I decided that I wanted to do it, and I had made my bed, so I sure did my best to lay in it with a smile on my face!

This is also a long term numbers and financial aspect to it. Here's what I mean, at Fantasy U quota is the same every year and there's 100% retention.

ABC chapter pledges quota of all freshmen in the fall every year. Therefore they lose the same amount of seniors every year after graduation as they pledge in the following recruitment.

DEF chapter also pledges quota every fall, but they have a mix of years in their class. After time some classes (year in school-wise) get larger than others. You can end up having more graduating seniors than next recruitment's quota. Then chapter total decreases which means less collected in dues, and/or budget cuts, and/or COR (time, effort and expense there too).

I think i've mentioned this before in another thread where a PNM said she was a sophomore/junior but had X more number of years left.

I come from a very small Greek system, and while I can't speak for what happens during recruitment, we have accepted sophomores, juniors and seniors.

BUT, my executive office does take into account what year you started school. So even if you are a junior but still have 5 years of school left, that DOES NOT mean you'll have 5 years in the sorority. To our executive office, you are a junior---which means you'll get 2 years out of the sorority (your junior year and your senior year). If you are lucky, you might get a 5th year.

I'm not sure if that is the same with the other 25 NPC organizations, but I think the PNMs need to be clear on that. They think that they can be an active member for as long as they are an undergrad, and many times it doesn't work that way.

But, what if you're a transfer student and it's your first year at this school? For instance, I'm rushing as a junior transfer at a university next year, but I've been in community college for more than two years (changing majors kills). I'm assuming you mean the year you started at the university because otherwise, girls in my situation would only get one year (or none) if it's going by the year you started college in general.

My understanding would be that they are counting full-term semesters of undergraduate work, regardless of the institution at which that work is performed. However, to the best of my knowledge, going alum as a fifth year is an option in my org, not the rule - my little sis did a five year master's program, and chose to go alum the fifth year because of the work load, but was given the option.

As far as HQ is concerned, it's not an option. :)

I'll have to check with my school (UCF) about this and see if it works the same way. I'll have 7 full-term semesters of undergraduate work already when I transfer, so I don't think I'll even bother rushing if that's the case. I don't think chapters will be very eager to give a girl a bid who can only be a member for a year at most and it doesn't seem worth it to me.

Did this change recently? My chapter had a member who stayed active during her 5th year (graduated in 2006). She even lived in the house.

It's not supposed to be an option to go alum early. :) A collegiate is a collegiate until she leaves school. :D

eta: I just double checked the NPH and apparently there is an exception for the situation that SigKapSweetie described. I know that in 2000 they had changed it to pretty much only married members can petition to go alum early. What's listed now is reasonable though. :D

From what I understand, my organization counts from when you first enter "college" (whether it be a CC, JC, University or whatever). Just because you transfer doesn't mean you can start all over again. A few of my sisters have been transfers from community colleges, and they were considered Juniors. So they got their junior year & senior year in the sorority. And a few did become 5th years.


If you really want to be in a sorority, you should still go through recruitment. Remember, your sorority experience doesn't end in college.

I was in your situation SunnyFL, I was a "junior" (depending on how you look at it) and rushed. I was only able to get one complete year as an active collegiate and as much as I wish I could get more, I wouldn't change the experience for the world.

*nod* we had members do both and I graduated several years after 2000. And I know that if it wasn't your fifth year, you either had to no longer be a full-time student or be getting married. However the fifth year nursing student who was doing primarily clinicals also got an early alum because she requested it, and another fifth year student stayed active.

Seriously, it all depends on your major and if you have lots of prerequisites you have to take. My junior year was DEFNITELY harder than my senior year (which included cake classes like Intro to Education and Piano Class I). Sometimes people take the harder classes in the summer to get them out of the way.

The only major I can think of where you are definitely going to be occupied for some time and not able to participate a lot is education, when you're student teaching - and most groups do have a "professional status" classification for that (and if they don't, they should).

If a woman says she'll be active her fifth year - believe her - rather than just assuming that she'll bail because she's older. This is why I don't like programs that focus on "senior retention" - just the existence of such a thing is essentially telling women that most seniors don't stay active (i.e. if you do, you'll be a weirdo) and that freshmen are the only members worth rushing.

I wanted to pop in and say that I completely agree with you, 33girl. It feels as if thought they expect seniors to be busy and not want to go to chapter, events, etc. I know that my last two quarters at school, I had so much more time due to fluff classes. I wish chapters (and I saw this at all chapters at my school) would do senior retention activities because honestly, it felt like sometimes they were just waiting for us to be done and the only activities that were scheduled, etc, were ones geared toward the freshman.

Seniors want to be active too! Just in different ways than our freshmen sisters.

Alpha Gam is piloting a new program directed toward keeping seniors involved and beginning to expose them to life as an alumna to work on encouraging lifelong active membership. I'm very hopeful that it will make a big difference. We've got to recognize that the needs of our seniors are different than the needs of our freshmen and start addressing those differences. We're looking at the collegiate experience in stages: Alpha: New member program, Gamma: Middle years and Delta: Senior year, with different programs and activities geared toward each. Alpha and Delta will be rolled out soon and Gamma is still being developed.

This is the kind of thing that I would love for NPC sororities to do if they don't do them already. I think it would really help with alumnae wanting to participate once they are done with college (and not solely in assisting the collegiate chapters). It leads to not thinking "I was" a XYZ and thinking "I am and always will be" an XYZ. But these activities are different and need to be tailored.

But if you really DO have a problem with senior retention, shouldn't you work to address it? It seems a bit silly to ignore the problem so that you don't tell women something that is actually true. They aren't stupid, and the juniors would figure out that the seniors start disappearing without a program. With a program you might actually fix the problem.

If YOUR CHAPTER has a problem with senior retention, you should definitely address it with in-chapter programming.

But I don't think it should be a national initiative as for some chapters it is a complete non-issue. It's like forcing every chapter to have a committee in charge of hiring house staff when a lot of chapters don't have a house and have no prospects of one.

I just don't think every aspect of chapter programming has to come from your nationals. Create a program on your own, get nationals to approve it, and then offer it to other chapters IF they need help on that issue - not automatically assuming that all chapters come out of the same cookie cutter and will all have the same problems.

Ah, I did not get that from your original comment. I think it's a good thing to have a program available from HQs but not to require it if it isn't needed at a particular chapter. Then again, I've not seen such that sort of requirement from our HQ, their programs are either optional or geared very generally to they are applicable to all like NM programs and such.

No matter how great an I/nat'l programming is, it's a catch-22 on making it mandatory or voluntary. If it's mandatory there will always be chapters/members that really don't need it and then get resentful that they have to incorporate it into their schedule. If it's optional, there will be those who really do need it but since it's voluntary they don't use it because they already feel they are over-programming/over-scheduling their members.