Exception To The "One Year" Rule?
 

Yesterday, my friend (who belongs to another sorority on the same campus as mine) and I were talking about our pledging experiences, and she mentioned that as a freshman she had accepted a bid from a different sorority than the one she's a member of now, but had depledged because she didn't feel at home there. When I asked her about her experience with formal rush the second time around, she told me that she had joined the sorority she's in now as a sophomore through COB because she wasn't allowed to go through formal recruitment the next year, as she had witnessed a "ritual activity" with the first sorority and therefore had to wait. Now, I always heard that once you accept a bid, you are bound to that sorority for one year and one year only, regardless of when you depledge, which would have made her eligible for rush the following fall (we only do recruitment once a year, in August), right? She was never initiated into the first sorority, obviously, so I think someone misinformed her. Am I wrong? It really doesn't matter, since she loves her sorority, but just for my own information...has anybody heard of this?

Let's set up a timeline -

August 2000 - she receives bid from first sorority, starts pledging, depledges

August 2001 - she's told she can't do formal

January 2002 - she receives bid from second sorority through COB.

If that's what happened, this is wrong. She should have been able to go through formal or receive a bid through some other means (i.e. open bid parties after formal rush) in August 2001.

Witnessing "ritual activity" (unless of course, it was initiation and they initiated her) has nothing to do with anything.

The only exceptions to the "one year rule" shorten the time, not lengthen it. If a woman receives a bid in the fall and the chapter either closes while she is still a pledge or she transfers while she is still a pledge, she may pledge another NPC as soon as possible.

The one-year rule is from the day you pledge, not the day you depledge.

If she got her original bid via formal recruitment during her freshman year, then she should have been allowed to go through FR during her sophomore year. Bid day might have happened to fall a day or two before the full calendar year was completed, but for pity's sake, we're talking about a DAY. It's not like she was unhappy with her first sorority and dropped and immediately signed with another sorority.

However, if she got her original bid via COB some time after FR was completed, then she should have had to sit out FR during her sophomore year and not rush until after the full year had elapsed.

That's what I thought. She got her first bid in August of her freshman year, and depledged sometime that fall (probably before October or November, since that's when most sororities start initiating new members), but said someone told her that she could not go through formal rush again the next August. She said it was because she had seen a "ritual activity"--which I'm sure was just the sorority's new member ceremony, since she said it was the day she got her bid--so she waited until groups started COBing her sophomore year. See, I thought there was something a little wrong about that.