[breathesgelatin]

Senusret, my impression is that most of the larger NPC sororities use the process that several people have described: a standard new member period (8 weeks, 10 weeks, whatever the organization prescribes or the campus allows) and then initiation/installation on the same day/evening. The new chapter will continue to be supported by a consultant for another year or two. This procedure is what is followed by my own org (Pi Beta Phi).

Of course, a potential problem would arise if in the first 8 weeks the colony was already experiencing major problems (de-pledging, numbers issues, or something). I'm not sure what sororities who follow this pattern (including mine) would do then - maybe go on and initiate and hold the charter for a while?

Some NPC sororities use the same method mentioned by the NIC fraternities so far on this board. I guess this is shown by Phine's post about AEPhi. They have initiation for the first member classes after the standard new member period, but do not necessarily receive their charter at the same time. They must wait until certain requirements are met or the "provisional" period expires (if it is a standard amount of time in that org). My sense is that the "provisional" period for NPC sororities who use this method is usually probably shorter than that for NIC fraternities. I think it's interesting in Phine's post that you can see the different NPC philosophies about chartering on the same campus.

(ETA: I believe that there are some NIC fraternities, particularly the ones with values-based 4 year membership programs that they're converting chapters to, which follow procedures closer to the ones I've described the majority of NPCs following - initiation and chartering after the standard new member period. I don't know enough about it to elaborate more.)

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if more NPC groups move to the first method over time (chapter chartering at initiation, unless there are already major issues apparent).

I think what you're really getting at here is are members initiated before chartering? My impression is that that's often the case for NIC as well as a few NPC sororities. In the rest of the NPC, initiation and chartering happen at the same time. I've never heard of a org revoking membership to individuals who were already initiated because a colony failed. In fact, as others have mentioned, more often those who graduated before the colony was initiated are offered opportunities to initiate later, as alums.

Now there may be some cases where a group realizes the failure to get an initial new member class is so complete that they just give up and the new members are just SOL. I'm thinking of a time on my campus in 1991. There was an NPC group that arrived to colonize and due to the procedures they used to get new members, they got a tiny pledge class. They quickly realized that it was a lost cause and got the heck out of dodge, I think within a matter of weeks/months. As in they colonized in January and they were gone by May, possibly before. As far as I know, the new members in that organization were never initiated whatsoever, although I have noticed that on the W&L alumni website, you can choose that org as a Greek affiliation. I have sometimes wondered if some of those women went on to join my chapter, which was colonized successfully in 1992, but I never thought to ask any of my chapter's founders...