Minimum Age for Membership?
 

Delta Gamma recently updated their website and in it, they had some "Fun Facts".
One fun fact which caught my eye was this:

The minutes of September 1879 from the mother chapter proposed a house fee of 35¢, and an initiation fee of 50¢, and a rule that no one under thirteen years of age should be admitted to the club. (Note: In the early days, Delta Gamma was first called Delta Gamma Club, not Fraternity. That changed later.)

I should also clarify that Delta Gamma was not founded at a university...rather, it founded at what was then, a prepatory school for girls (my 3 Founders were teenagers).
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And now my question...does your org have a minimum age on record for membership?
I know that the reality is that there are some smart cookies out there who skipped a grade or two, and could feasibly be a freshman at age 16?

If you had a someone who was much younger than the "typical collegian"....how young do you think is too young?
15? 14? 13?

Does your National have any hard and fast rules on this?

I know a girl in my pledge class was 17 during rush and she was 16 when she first arrived at college. I can see how it might be a problem if someone is significantly younger though. How would you deal with exchanges and formals where alcohol is present? There would be a risk involved!

Jess

in my fraternity, all you are required is a certain gpa and to be a full-time student. If you can do that and be 12, technically there is nothing wrong, but let's get real, would someone like that make it through rush. Plus, who'd want the responsibility for having such a young member?

- RUgreek

Well, in most modern fraternity's you have to be a college student to rush, so technically you can be 16 or 33 and still rush. But with the delta gamma thing, that was a long time ago and membership's have changed drastically. I do know that in the late 1800's Pi Kappa Alpha had initiated non college students and even women. It wasnt untill a convention that the rule was passed that only college men could join PiKA.

FarmHouse
 

FarmHouse Fraternity was a club before it was a fraternity.

You don't have to be a farmer to join, or have anything to do with agriculture.

Alpha Theta Chi does not have an age requirement. The youngest age to pledge our organization is 17.

In my pledge class we had three 17 year olds!!

At my school you have to be at least in your second semester of your freshman year to pledge. You can go through rush anytime, though.

I was 17 when I started college and joined my sorority. I hadn't skipped any grades - I was just one of the youngest in my class. Nobody said anything to me about age restrictions. AEPhi does have some documents that new members must sign, that have to be cosigned by a parent if you're under 18, but that's it.

At my school I know of some girls that were 17 and joined some houses, we have had some ourselves. But we always have to have emailed permission to participate in somethings to our province director because they are minors and can't sign the forms themselves. One girl got hurt playing some sports and we had to take her to the hospital. That was a mess!!! HAHA!

According to ZTA's national constitution and bylaws, a new member must be at least 16 years of age to be initiated. I think they did that b/c we were founded at a teaching college where most of the students were teenage girls. The average age of our founders was 16. But since I've been at school, I don't think we've had anyone younger than 18.

I was just 17 when I pledged in 1970. My high school was closed and many of us graduated in 3 years instead of 4. There were 6 of us from my high school who went through rush, all of us pledged. I don't remember anyone saying anything about our ages even though it was common knowledge.

I was 17 when I pledged Delta Zeta, and no one ever made any type of comment about it. I signed all DZ agreements that required a signature, and my parents were never asked to co-sign for anything.

i was 17 as well!! i never had to have anyone cosign anything though... :) i turned 18 during the process..

I've seen a ton of rush applications and I haven't seen any that ask the girls' ages or birthdates...I assume the Greeks wouldn't know your age unless you told them.

I was 16 when I started college and the only way anyone knew was that I looked about 12!!:rolleyes:

I was 17 when I went through recruitment and pledged, too (in 1993). I turned 18 in February of my freshman year (3 months after I initiated). It never caused any problems whatsoever. My parents didn't have to sign anything to give permission either... was treated just as the others in my new member group, and my age was never brought up or made a big deal out of.