[FuzzieAlum]

Maybe there are bad situations, but a promise is a promise and an oath is an oath. If I make the mistake of swearing to something I change my mind about later, too bad for me. I don't want to have a sister who thinks so little of her oath she will break it. It's not like we keep it a secret that you join for life. And if you're being rushed by girls from another chapter, that should be evident up front, and it's hardly fair to be disappointed because the sisters in your chapter aren't like that. There is, after all, a reason for the pledge period, and a reason a girl who depledges can still join elsewhere.

If your new chapter won't accept you, you can go alum or disaffiliate entirely. A chapter that won't accept a sister from elsewhere isn't living up to its ideals, and if I knew my org was doing that, I would want to kick those girls' rears.

Certainly, there will be girls now and then who transfer and don't have their chapter on their new campus. But they knew what they were doing when they transferred. Maybe giving up active membership was a hard thing to do although other factors outweighed it, but she still had a choice.

The NPC and NPHC (and I think the NIC) all have unanimous agreements stating that no member group will pledge anyone who is a member of another group within that conference. Technically, that leaves open the loophole that I could quit AXD and try to join an NPHC sorority. But I don't know of many NPHC members who would approve of that.

Also, when I initiated, I promised never to join any other "general" Greek letter fraternity. This is an AXD promise, but I bet most other orgs have similar ones. We can argue all day about whether NPHC orgs are "social" or "service," but they definitely are "general" in the same way NPC groups are - they are not honorary or academic or exclusively service (in the way APhiO is).

Sororities are so serious about this that when the AES sororities merged into the NPC, girls who had perfectly legally joined one of each HAD to give up one of the memberships.

Now, locals are a little different story. This is partially because if you make the no-double-joining rule applied to them, no local sorority could ever join an existing national organization.

It has nothing to do with worrying about revealing rituals or sharing secrets. (I'd be more worried about a drunk sister telling her boyfriend.) It has to do with joining a sorority for life, for the right reasons, and for realizing the depth of your commitment. A lot of people join to make friends, but there is more to sorority life than that. If your choice of sorority didn't work out, well, if friendship is what you are looking for, presumably most Greek women have what it takes to make new ones.