[ASTalumna06]

I agree with what 33girl is saying. A lot of you are clutching your pearls, but you're doing it from huge houses on large campuses with competitive recruitments. You think that waiting a year and a half is detrimental to a girl ever joining a chapter, but think about this: What's the typical recruitment situation on your campus? I'm willing to bet that for the most part, girls clamor for spots in formal recruitment, some are dropped or drop out themselves, and those girls contemplate whether or not they should go through recruitment the following year. The girls who received bids and dropped have to wait a year. No harm, no foul. A year is a year.

Now put yourself on a smaller campus where no recs are required and COB is done on the regular. Recruitment events aren't about 15 minute conversations and bumping groups, but about lunches out and study groups and getting to know someone in "normal" situations. Potential members spend time with sisters and are essentially brought into the chapter in every way possible, except formally through a bid.

Then... they receive a formal invitation to join. They spend days, then weeks, with the chapter... And then they drop. Two months later, they're going through formal recruitment, joining another chapter.

Does that sound OK to you? Does that also have you clutching your pearls?