[FuzzieAlum]

I agree - up to a point. Imagine if a chapter only gave bids to seniors. After a year or two, everyone would graduate one spring and how would they rush next fall?

Now obviously that is an extreme case. But for some chapters, rushing only freshmen is a matter of practical economics.

Let's say ceiling is 100, and just about every chapter on campus is close to that. A chapter just has to take in 25 new members once a year to be at ceiling. Generally speaking, quota will be around 25 or a bit higher - if it gets a lot higher total will be raised or another chapter brought on.

What happens if you give bids to only seniors? You'd have to give out 100 bids a year. Basically, the older your new members are, the more often you have to rush to replace them to stay at ceiling. But you can't take much more than quota through formal. That means you have to do COB. But if no one else is doing COB, people say, "Oh, they must be in trouble." Paradoxically they are in trouble, PR-wise, if they don't do COB, since they are the "small chapter."

You could say, "So?" But if the chapter has a house, they may need to keep it almost full in order to pay for it - unless they just want to rush based on income, which I think we can agree is a bad idea.

So on certain campuses, if the standard is to just bid freshmen, and a chapter can maintain their size by doing so, the system practically forces them to bid only freshmen. That's certainly not the case anywhere, but it is some places. To someone in a system like that, rushing as a senior is unheard of.

Now that still doesn't excuse that person for thinking "a year isn't worth it," but in fact the majority of alums are not involved. They stay friends with a few sisters, but that's it. They don't use their sorority to meet new people in new cities, they don't contribute monetarily or in volunteer time, and to them their sorority is "just a college thing."

It's kind of like saying, "People under 21 shouldn't drink." It may be true, but it doesn't stop the majority of college students from drinking, even people who generally consider themselves law-abiding. Just because a sorority says their duty is to be involved for life doesn't mean most sisters really believe it or live it. It's one of those cases where ideals clash with reality. Most of the alums you see here on GC are obviously exceptions.

But most people are only in it for college, and if you think sorority life is a college thing, saying, "One year isn't much," does make sense.