what pledge pin is this?
 

It's shaped like this:
http://www3.telus.net/greek/betathetapipledge.jpg

but has a different symbol on it...

something like a fancy lower case "h" with a slash through the top of the h...

i've seen 2 people wearing them... one wouldnt tell me what it was, the other said it was APO (but i looked up their pledge pin and it didn't look like the one pictured)


just curious... (if it helps, ive seen both a girl and a guy wearing this pin)

Looks like a Beta Theta Pi pledge pin to me.

the picture i posted is Beta's pledge pin. The one I'm confused about is the same shape, but has a different symbol instead of the 3 stars.

Maybe . . . and I'm just saying maybe . . . it's the pledge pin of the co-ed professional chemistry fraternity Alpha Chi Sigma. The symbol on the pin that you described as a fancy lower-case "h" with a slash through the top is indeed on the Alpha Chi Sigma pledge pin. The shape is what throws me a little. Yes, the Alpha Chi Sigma pledge pin has curved "indented" sides ) ( but the top and bottom are a little different from the Beta pledge pin. The top has just two slanted sides that come to a point and the bottom is the same thing, only reversed, of course:
top /\ and bottom \/.
I searched a few of their chapter web sites in hopes of seeing a pic of their pledge pin, but no luck. Probably a pic is out there but it may take actual ability to find it :) .
Good luck in making a 100% accurate ID !

Okay, I checked ariesrising's excellent Greek Information Pages, and found the symbol you describe on the Phi Sigma Kappa (IFC) pledge pin, but not the shape. The shape is shared by Beta Theta Pi and Pi Kappa Theta.

The Greek Information Pages

It sounds like the Alpha Chi Sigma pledge pin to me. The shape is different, however, as exlurker explained, the shape is slightly different.

If you do a google image search for "Alpha Chi Sigma" pledge pin you can find a cached image that has since been deleted, but it's still in google's cache.

yeah, that's definitely it! Thanks! My only question is, why would they be so secretive about it? Most academic based fraternities/honoraries are pretty open...

It just seems odd that my friend R couldn't tell me what it was and made it sound like he was joining "the Skulls" and my friend S just looked me in the eye and told me it was the pin for APO.

In-ter-es-ting..

Thanks though... it made me really curious

Yes, the pin you saw was for Alpha Chi Sigma. It could be that the person that mislead you may not want someone to know that they are pledging a professional fraternity. How are professional orgs embraced at your school?

Professional organizations aren't considered the same as social organizations (people don't really wear letters often, etc) but I have a lot of friends in Delta Sigma Pi (the Business fraternity) and it is well-respected and people are very open about it. Maybe the fact that this is chemistry-associated?

I don't think they are embarrassed to be pledging this organization. I guess they have a very strict pledge process? (I find it odd that they would have to wear pledge pins but then not be able to say what organization they are pledging -- if they REALLY wanted to keep it secret they should not have pins...)

It could be that different professional orgs have different ways of doing things. Some have a ritual that is held to the same esteem as social GLOs as well as a pretty selective bidding/pledging process, and others may not (i.e. may not have a ritual or may "bid" people who meet all requirements like GPA, etc.)

Maybe that particular organization is just super secretive about their stuff? :confused:

Being a member of Alpha Chi Sigma I know some chapters are more secretive than others about their pledge process. Mine was pretty open. I am wondering if they thought you may be asking what the pin meant and in that case the meaning is not revealed untill initiation. Don't know though.

We were fairly open about who was pledging and such. But each chapter has their own traditions.

I ended up talking to the friend who wouldn't tell me and asking if it was Alpha Chi Sigma... he admitted that it was, but said they weren't allowed to tell anyone and that he would immediately be depledged if anyone found out i knew or that he acknowledged that I was right. I guess my school's chapter IS very secretive.

Still.. it's hard to hide the fact that you are pledging an organization if you are forced to wear your pledge pin every day..

... that's just one of the things that makes all our organizations unique :)

Wow, that is very weird...I pledged Alpha Chi Sigma at Beta chapter (Univ. of Minnesota) and we're very open...Its very interesting that this chapter is so secretive...

Re: what pledge pin is this?
 

Its definetly NOT an APO Pledge Pin. Our pin has our letters on it, and is similiar to our Service Pin (which is similiar to our badge). Some people on Ebay misidentify the "P" on our pledge pin as Rho. :)