why do pledge classes get smaller as the years go by?
 

sorry im new here and dont really know where this question belongs. i'm thinking of rushing a sorority here in the next month when i start school (but my question isn't about recruitment) and was curious about something i noticed.

i have a couple friends who are in different sororities and they always posts pictures of their pledge class every year they go back to school for recruitment. they're both seniors this year and when i've looked at all their pictures since freshman year i noticed that both of their pledge classes are considerably smaller. freshman year it looked like about 40 girls, sophomore year seemed about 25-30, junior year 15 or so, and this year her pledge class seems to have shrunk to about 8-10.

is this normal??? what happend to those other 30 girls who were so excited to be your 'sister' when they joined? you expect people to drop out and stuff but i've read all this stuff about how sorority girls graduate at a higher rate and stay in college longer because they had that support system but then why do pledge classes get smaller? like do that many girls really get kicked out or just drop out because they don't like it? sorry if this is a dumb question i really don't know too much about sorority stuff yet i'm trying to learn. thanks!

Life happens. It's as simple as that.

Girls study abroad. They transfer schools. They drop out of school. They don't make grades so they can't attend events. They get married. They get pregnant. They take on heavy academic loads. Or they simply mature and decide that sorority life as a collegian isn't a priority anymore. The list goes on. Still, even if this seems like the norm in your friends' chapters, it's not always like this everywhere. But chapters do lose members over time.

Being a sorority is much more than a few years in college. It extends way past graduation day.

It's not a dumb question...it's actually a valid observation. But don't think about it too much while you're getting ready for recruitment. Now that you're here, be sure to check out the recruitment threads when you can!

Best of luck with rush.

Yeah, what she said. ^^^

And this not only happens in sororities, but happens in fraternities.. In big schools, small schools, large chapters, smaller chapters, etc.

It's just a part of Greek life. Some chapters have higher retention rates than others, of course, but you'd be hard pressed to find a chapter where the Senior pledge class was 100% in tact.

Also, not every pledge class is 100% freshmen. If you have sophomores in the pledge class, they [probably] will have already graduated when the rest are seniors.

Another unfortunate reality to keep in mind especially in this lousy economy, being active in a sorority or fraternity costs money. Financial circumstances can change. Scholarships can be lost, expected grants/loans don't come through, a parent loses a job, a grandparent becomes ill, etc. It's not the member's choice to not be active, they simply can no longer afford it. Those lost members are the ones who truly break my heart. :(

One other thing, sometimes members are unable to be there when the picture is taken.

A good friend of mine - who was president of her chapter - missed her "pledge class" picture her junior and senior years. Aa well as the chapter picture for the yearbook. (Taken at the same time.) Both years she had an academic conflict that she could not get out of at all. The photographer was on a tight schedule and had other chapters to shoot so it could not be rescheduled. As it turned out, she wasn't the only one who missed. There were two other officers - one was in the same university class as my friend - that also missed due to classes.

The other thing is that any group of that many people is going to have small divisions or cliques. Certainly some of these "mini pledge classes" will be more involved in the house, other groups are very close, but as a group drift away from the house.

My pledge class had 24 guys, and by the time we were seniors there were only about 12 of us that were very involved in the house. There was a smaller group of about 4 guys who were all roommates together but would skip chapter, only go to the biggest parties, and were otherwise pretty absent. A 2 other guys had grade issues, one guy transferred, and 2 guys drifted away on their own, 1 guy was a sophomore pledge and graduated, and 2 other guys were around, but were also doing their own things.

The other thing is that some people end up being better friends with members in older and/or younger classes, to the extent that they might sacrifice their friendships with the people in their pledge class. If they are particularly close with an older class, then as seniors, they might feel a little lost...

If you could look at entire classes at a college or university, you'd find the same is true - freshmen are the biggest class, with seniors the smallest (and graduate students even fewer).

My chapter has only about 10 seniors. They call themselves "small but mighty."

At my school, certain majors like nursing, pharmacy and physical therapy do their last year or two at the med school, which is about 40 minutes away. We lost a lot of girls to that.

We had a few would-be juniors drop because house corp did not grant them live-out status.

Other common factors would be burnout or some kind of drama or scandal within the house.

A chapter on its way up would be changing a great deal. Perhaps that chapter wasn't as good at recruiting three years ago as it is now. Or perhaps the older girls are not interested in being part of the chapter's new dynamics.


Also, seniors get tired of the obligations. Sororities dictate their members' time, and by age 21 or 22, many women are just sick of it.

At Freshman Orientation, we were told that only 25% of those enrolling as freshman tend to graduate.

That statistic also held true to my pledge class. As said before, life happens.

I've noticed many freshmen tend to be interested in the social events, and equate socials with brotherhood (or sisterhood in your case). We lost 50% of our membership in the first semester as a colony when the organization realized things cost money, required commitment. Some members thought fraternity membership entitled them to free beer and to sleep around with every guy's girlfriend. But obviously that's not true.

If you wonder why freshmen drop out, also consider that many people go into university on the urging of their parents, but six months after being away from home, they start to realize instead of paying 20k a year to be somewhere nice, they could be making 30 bucks an hour on an oil rig or as a dental assistant. They start thinking "well, maybe somewhere profitable will be satisfied with a high school diploma", or they realize, "the extra 500 bucks a month I'd earn with a degree just isn't worth not working for 4 years" (although it usually is significantly worth it, especially if you go into graduate studies).

And some people just like to smoke, play cards and drink. My dad had single semester of university and dropped out for that exact reason. Wasn't burnout, and he could have done the work, but he just preferred to be a trust fund baby.

It also depends on campus culture. At one school I know well, it's seen as uncool to be involved with a sorority as a junior or senior. Even the houses that have great cachet for freshman girls are considered beneath a senior's time. At other schools, 4 years of membership is the norm.
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As was touched on before, some pledge classes are pretty diverse in it's class/grade makeup. At my school, a significant number of junior transfer students always came through recruitment. Sophomores were not uncommon either.

Attrition is always a factor as well. I don't know about other schools, but it seems like at mine, it wasn't uncommon for a chapter to lose 3-6% of it's returning membership over the summer, just because. Money, time committments, hating Recruitment. There are a LOT of obligations associated with Greek Life - not everyone is cut out to be a 4-year superstar.

May great answers here, but we are finding that while enrollement is increasing so is the number of Men/Women are rushing.

While it may depend on the school, it still is.:)

Is economics a big part of it, yes it is!

But the decission still has to be made of what can be affored and what can be developed after Graduation.


All I know is the Friendship I have made over a 40 + year associations and what we as Alumns can do for our members called networking!:)

My university has a 94% 5 year graduation rate so few girls drop out because they are no longer in school. A few drop out because of the cost but what I have noticed is that by the time they are seniors many of them loose interest in sorority life. They are tied up in grad school admissions or the job market and sorority is not a priority.