graduate students rushing
 

I'm new to the formal rush thing and I was recently told that we will be having a couple of graduate students coming through rush. Can anyone share their experiences or some advice about how to handle this??? Thanks.

Check with your national rules. Most NPC groups only allow undergraduate women to join an undergraduate chapter.

Out of curiousity.....what NPC sororities allow their chapters to take on graduate students as members? I thought this might have been an umbrella NPC rule, but was not sure......

I think Phi Sigma Sigma will take grad students as members of an undergrad chapter.

I don't know of anyone else.

aedea - you are an ASA also right? I think we allow grad students to stay active if they are already sisters but I don't know about them pledging as grad students. Check with your district recruitment team leader (if you have been assigned one).

However, I can't understand why the school would allow them to go through rush if none of the groups were allowed to give them a bid. There has to be someone other than Phi Sigma Sigma that allows it.

Collegiate Chapters
 

Phi Sigma Sigma does accept Graduate Students as Collegiate members of their chapters. (I became a founding sister of my chapter as a 32 year old grad student.) If you notice I used the term Collegiate, Phi Sigma Sigma now uses that term instead of undergraduate. It goes back to our core value of inclusiveness and Phi Sigma Sigma realizing that they were missing out on wonderful women just because they were grad students.

Most campus are moving away from the stereotypical go to college at 18 for 4 years, graduate and get a job. My campus is actually becoming more of the norm. Our student population is predominantly women, transfer students, average age is around 28, and a commuter campus. We also have a LOT of Graduate students as we have one of the best ranked Teacher Education Programs in the state. As the demographics of colleges change so should the sororities or they may not be able to survive.

My advice is to really consider the women as potential sisters. Dont discount them just because they may be older or grads. One of the big questions I got was would I have time to be involved in the sorority since I'm a grad student and studies take up a lot of time. Yes, I do have the time (I was President last year). As a grad student I have learned to prioritize my time, as most grad students do. If the women are going through recruitment then they probably realize how much time will be required and have still decided to make sorority one of their priorities.

Let us know how things go with the grad students. I am also curious as to what other NPC's accept grads. I can't believe Phi Sigma Sigma is the only one.

A question...

Polly PNM has graduated from Enormous State University with a degree in psychology. After a year or so, she realizes that you can't get a job with a BA in psych and grad school is not for her. She goes back to Enormous State to get a BS in computer science. Since she is enrolled as an undergrad, taking undergraduate classes, and will be there for three or four years, could she join a sorority?

Probably - she should check with the individual sorority to find out how she would be viewed. My take is that if she is technically a freshman on paper, it would work. If the University considers her a graduate student studying for an additional BS/BA degree, the sorority probably would think that as well. It just depends.