Thread: Raising Total
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Old 01-16-2003, 11:41 AM
Firehouse Firehouse is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 780
To: AOPIintheSky

Yes, you're right about the fraternities and their tunrover. In fact, even more fraternities have left than sororities. That's to be expected in the sort of 'wild west' arrangement the fraternities have. The fraternities do tend to come back and re-establish their chapters after the weather clears though.
At my alma mater, both the sorority and fraternity system is in splendid shape with bright futures. I was curious to hear that the freshman-pledge problem was a regional issue. I didn't know that, but you are absolutely right: here, if a young woman doesn't get in as a freshman, she'll never get into a high-status house. I wish just one sorority would specialize in junion transfer students. There are a great many outstanding women who would make terrific sorority members. They are never solicited.
Your signature indicates you are an AOPi. I was the AOPi Pledge Sweetheart when I was a fraternity pledge myself. But our AOPi chapter went under during the bad times in the early 1970s. They sold their beautiful house to a fraternity, and now I doubt that they'll ever re-establish themselves here.
I've been told that in life, whatever decision you make, you have to give up something in order to get something else. The sororities get stability and strength across the system, and give up chances for expansion and, as you say, whomever is close to the bottom automatically takes the place of the one that just left.
Fraternities get freedom to grow and experiment, and to be as large or as small as they want. Sometimes, that results in chaos, and so we give up the system-wide strength and stability that make sororities so consistently solid.
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