[astroAPhi]

Well, the Alpha Phi new member period is supposed to be around 6 weeks, with 8 weeks being the absolute maximum. In the past, we'd always had the girls wait 8 weeks because they never felt like they were ready.

In the Spring of my sophomore year, we gave a bid to a girl who was pinned and initiated 3 weeks later. Alpha Phi requires that a new member have a minimum of 6 hours of fraternity education before initiation. She was willing to put in the extra time so that she could be initiated that semester, and caught up on all the time. This past fall we did the same for another girl. It can work. Both girls were happily accepted into their pledge classes.

However, doing more than one initiation/semester would be really rough. By the time we were able to get around to our 2nd initiation, it would either be Thanksgiving or right around the middle of April, when seniors are scrambling to get everything done. That, and the fact that I'm pretty sure that we're only allowed to do one initiation/semester makes that almost impossible.

Honestly, I think keeping numbers up has to do with 2 things: Rush skills, and general interest in Greek life. It's a lot easier to keep numbers up when you have people wanting to Rush or at least investigate GLOs before they even get to school.