[CatStarESP4]

Originally posted by sugar and spice
I'm glad you reposted this even though it did get deleted because I want to know what other people think.

On one hand, it bothers me that sororities are so image-conscious. When I'm deciding who to be friends with, I don't give a damn if they're sleeping with half the campus (unless it's endangering their health), what their grades are or what they look like. What I care about is that they're fun to be around, easy to talk to and that I can depend on them when I need them. I wish this is what sororities could be about. Unfortunately the formal rush process doesn't allow for that. We had a speaker recently that told us that in all likelihood, the formal rush process will come crashing down in the next ten to twenty years, to be replaced with a more COB-oriented process. COB allows you to go after the girls you already know and love instead of forcing you to choose from whatever group of girls shows up for formal rush.

On the other hand, sororities claim to represent the cream of the crop of college women, and for that to be true we do have to have some sort of standard for membership. But I don't think that positive peer pressure doesn't work. I have a sister who had a 2.3 before she pledged, and now because of the study hours and the expectations she knows she's supposed to live up to, she got a 3.2 last semester. Most of my sisters' GPAs went up after they joined the sorority. Why? At least in part because of the "positive peer pressure."

I know a girl who, in middle school, was into drugs and was generally looked at as kind of "trashy." In high school she turned herself around. She graduated with a 4.0, had big roles in a couple of school plays, did two varsity sports and one JV, and was involved in several other extracurricular activities. She no longer did drugs and was well-liked. Many people see college as a chance to reinvent themselves in a similar way, and I think it's unfortunate that many girls who may have been in the process of turning over a new leaf are cut from a sorority simply because their "reputation" proceeds them (a girl from the sorority went to the same high school, etc.).

Well said, sugar and spice!