High School GLO's

[theta sig agd]

Okay...

If you read the greek life threads you may have already read my idea. I wanted to post it here too so I can get my sister's view.

I have wanted to create a high school sorority for a while now and I have decided to try and start one.

I feel this would only help greek oraginzations. The reason I have been thinking of this is because a fellow sister from my chapter was in one and she told me horrid stories about the hazing that occured because there was no direction. In most cases these are school sponsored events with the parents cheering and helping!

This is one reason greeks have a bad name. Girls see this as ok behavior from this type of exposure and then carry it over to there college years or think there is nothing wrong when the group they pledge hazes them.

This sister almost didnt rush due to the way she was treated. She feared it would be the same way. I mean why not. This is all she had seen of GLO's. The only reason I feel she rushed was because she is a legacy.

So....., I wanted feedback from everyone here. I want this org. to have ritual and be unbiased with sisterhood that shows the good side of greek life!

What do you think?

[SquirrelGal1]

I came from a high school that had a "sorority" and it was the worst experience for those involved. I understand your concept but I think it would be very hard to control due to the age of the girls involved. It would be a lot of work as well. I am not sure what your plans are but I would be really worried about the whole situation. Sorry, I wish I could have positive thoughts on this subject but due to the maturity of the girls, you could be setting it up for major problems. Again, those of us that had them on our campuses had some bad experiences that tampered all our thoughts of the Greek system.
I think a better way to give these girls a better impression of the Greek system is for us as adults to become involved in the community. Mentoring, etc. Kappa Delta has a great advantage as they work with the Girl Scouts of America. This is a great way to show the girls what we are really about.
Just my thoughts on the subject...

[theta sig agd]

Originally posted by SquirrelGal1
I think a better way to give these girls a better impression of the Greek system is for us as adults to become involved in the community. Mentoring, etc. Kappa Delta has a great advantage as they work with the Girl Scouts of America. This is a great way to show the girls what we are really about.
Just my thoughts on the subject... [/B]

I just wonder though....is that enough?? I will admit I never knew anything about how greeks really were until I went to college. I mean I was in girl scouts and no one ever came to work with us. I think most of the time college greeks are too busy to worry about high school girls. I always seemed we didnt think much about them until Rush came along.....????

All I know is the way it is now aint any good! I am willing to try to do something about the greek life image if I can.

However, You do bring up a good point that I hadn't thought about. Thank you for your post . I will factor that in!

[AlphaGam1019]

Originally posted by theta sig agd
The reason I have been thinking of this is because a fellow sister from my chapter was in one and she told me horrid stories about the hazing that occured because there was no direction. In most cases these are school sponsored events with the parents cheering and helping!

This sister almost didnt rush due to the way she was treated. She feared it would be the same way. I mean why not. This is all she had seen of GLO's. The only reason I feel she rushed was because she is a legacy.

lol Wendy, I know who you're talking about and have heard her tell the horror stories! I was so shocked at the crap she went through.

[GtownGirl98]

I've had many decussions with sisters who were in HS GLO's and I worked at a summer camp where one of the girls had her school yearbook with her. There were two full pages set aside for the GLO with the new girls dressed as mice looking like they had just finished the finally initation. I spoke with the girl about it and she told me that it was a tradition and that the community welcomed and supported it.

I think that we need to do something about the bad image that HS GLO's and National Honor Society's (yes that is right, hazing happens with Beta Clubs and NHS). Something that I have thought about is going to high schools and speaking with the senior class about college life. Explain rush, hazing, alcohol, and other issues that effect freshman college students, teachers need to be proud of their letters and wear them on free dress days or to out of school events.

That is my two cents. Coming from a position of never being hazed, I find it a fasinating. (please forgive the spelling mistakes, too lazy to get a dictionary tonight! )

[AGDLynn]

I don't know how things are in your town, but alumnae from several sororities have started a Panhellenic Council. We had an information seminar for h.s. seniors and their mothers. We had 2 alumnae and 3 collegiates to speak about what to expect from Recruitment and what they should be expected to deal with..like hazing.

Having a college in town would be terrific, but the nearest colleges are about 40 min-1 hour away.

This summer we are going to participate in Peachtree City's annual 4th of July parade with everyone wearing jerseys and handing out flyers.

Good luck in trying to start a h.s. GLO. There might already be organizations sort of like it already, like in my hometown, there are the Debutantes of Monroe (D.O.O.), Anchor Club (spin off of the Women's Pilot Club).You may be getting the same girls so time-wise, might be a problem for participation.

I don't know the legalities, but you may have to have it approved by the School Board??

[hawaiiagd]

I'm all for starting recruitment at the high school level too, but have to agree with some of the other posts. The maturity of girls in that age group could create some serious problems for you. Without constant supervision, I don't think it'd be impossible, but it certainly could be pretty difficult.

The Hawaii Alumnae Panhellenic attempts to catch graduating high school seniors through their scholarship program. We award scholarships to Hawaii's high school seniors attending colleges that have NPC sororities on their campuses. We don't require them to pledge or even go through recruitment, but we want to ensure they have the opportunity... so the school has to have at least one NPC sorority on its campus for the girl to qualify. We set up an information booth at the annual College and Career Fair to distribute brochures and flyers about going greek, and we send information packets to the high school counselors. The applicants are then invited to attend an interview, where we first show a couple of videos about greek life. We then give an orientation about what greek life is NOT. Finally, we set the girls up in small groups, and the interviewers rotate among the groups to find out more about the girls and answer questions. While only two to four will receive a scholarship, they all walk away with a better picture of what sororities have to offer... and if any of the applicants choose to pledge, they just need to let us know and we'll pay a portion of their initiation fee.

I've always wanted to get together a group of collegians from UH and some younger alumnae from the Panhellenic group to hold information sessions at the high schools throughout the year.

There are lots of ways to get the word out to our graduating seniors.... the trick is to find easy yet effective ways to do it

Loyally,
Mai Ly

[theta sig agd]

Wow! hawaiiagd. That sounds very involved. I wish we had that kind of info at my high school! I may need to talk to you more about that once I get settled in from moving.

[FuzzieAlum]

It would be nice to expose more high schoolers to Greek life! I went to high school in southern Oregon, and practically NOBODY from my school went Greek. I joined AXD, a friend of mine went Chi Omega, another gal went Tri-Delt, and two guys that I know of went Greek. That was it, in a class of about 400. Now admittedly only about three schools in Oregon have Greek life (OSU, U of O and Willamette), so there just aren't many local Greeks to encourage the youth to start thinking about them.

The problem you'd run into I think would be that it's schools like that that would benefit most - but you wouldn't have a critical mass of Greek adults to start and run such a group.

[LeslieAGD]

Perhaps another suggestion would be to have a "College Activities Fair" at high schools. When I was in HS, we had a job fair where people in different careers would come in and talk about their job for like 20 minutes and then you would swap rooms and go to the career. This could be done with speakers from college groups such as Greek Life, Athletics, Student Government, LGBT groups, Performing Arts, etc. It would be a way to expose students without actually trying to bring Greek orgs in.