GLOs a 4-year commitment?

[carnation]

Today at church, I was talking with a senior who's a Greek at one of Georgia's universities. I asked her how many of her original pledge class were still in her sorority. To my shock, she said 8 of 55. She said that there wasn't any mass desistering or anything--a few transferred, a few dropped out of college, but most just drifted away.

I was shocked because this student is in an extremely strong group on a very Greek campus. Her friend assured me that it's not just the first girl's group--that her group (also strong) has 9 left of 55.

I come from large SEC schools where it's such a big deal to get into most groups that you don't just blow it off or quit paying your dues or decide that 5 hours a month of service are too much. If you stay in school, you stay Greek and most pledge classes graduate relatively intact.

What's the norm at your school?

[MTSUGURL]

I don't know how many girls I've met here on campus that say, "Oh, I'm not a XYZ anymore... I got tired of it." At which point I want to slap them. I can understand the ones that tranfer, get married, or have to drop out because of various reasons such as money etc. The ones that I don't get are the ones that simply get bored with it. I've always gotten the impression that it's a commitment that you keep through school and after.

[ZTAngel]

At my school, it was normal to see relatively small senior classes. It wasn't just my chapter; it was this way with every fraternity or sorority on my campus. My pledge class had 64 girls; at graduation, we had 14. Well, 22 is probably a more accurate number since we had a bunch of girls graduate a year to a semester early. Believe it or not, having 22 women left from the original pledge class was actually considered good. Many of the chapters on our campus were left with maybe 9 seniors.
There are a few girls that transfer to another school but I think that many just do not want to try and hang around for 4 years. They get into a serious relationship and no longer have time to devote to the sorority, their classes become too hard, or they just become disenchanted by the whole sorority/fraternity thing. As we all know, there comes a time in everyone's collegiate GLO career where we just become annoyed with our chapter and some of the things that are going on. I guess many people would rather give up than try to make the situation better.

[Xylochick216]

At my school women stay active all 4 years. It's typical to have a few resign from their chapters, but definitely nowhere near the number you guys are talking about! I think we have 55 seniors this year graduating out of about 60-65 that started, which is good considering we were just chartered 2 1/2 years ago!

[nauadpi]

At my school many of the classes are much smaller by the end. Our greek system isn't very large though, in turn new member classes only start out as 10 to 20 members. The other factor is we have many women transfer to other schools. Also I know we have many women who join who aren't freshman, which in turn has them graduating at different times. Also we have women who graduate both early or late. From my alpha class we had 2 of us graduate in under 4 years. One who got into a grad program that let her finish her undergrad at the same time, in turn having her leave early. We also had one woman who had transfered from a community college who graduated from our school in under 4 years. My class had very few that left just to leave the chapter. More than not it was because they were graduating at other times or transfering. There have also been some that have had to leave for financial reasons. In state tuition at my school isn't much but many students are paying that out of pocket and realize that they don't end up having the money to pay for sorority functions and what not also.

[AlphaSigOU]

Out of eight in my pledge class that accepted bids 20 years ago, four depledged during our pledge period, four of us were initiates; I am the only one who's active in the Fraternity as an alumnus - lost touch with the rest of my pledge brothers.

It's not unusual for people to drop out of active status, even though there is no inactive status in the Fraternity, nor can one resign from membership. Some don't quite place the 'commitment to the fraternity for life' as strongly as others do.

[ThetaPrincess24]

Originally posted by MTSUGURL
I don't know how many girls I've met here on campus that say, "Oh, I'm not a XYZ anymore... I got tired of it." At which point I want to slap them. I can understand the ones that tranfer, get married, or have to drop out because of various reasons such as money etc. The ones that I don't get are the ones that simply get bored with it. I've always gotten the impression that it's a commitment that you keep through school and after.

That's how it's SUPPOSED to be. You get out of it what you put into it...........oh the stories I could tell on this topic :P My opinion is that if one is bored with it, most likely they arent putting that much into it to not be bored. As most of us will agree, there are so many things one can do and get involved in with being greek, that if you allow yourself to do those things, there shouldnt be time for bordom. The frustrations that come with being in a group are so worth it if kept at it. Positive things often come from those experiences.

Most of the girls in my pledge class are still active. A few have flunked out, one got married, one quit, and three have transferred. I pledged as a Junior so I was the first one to graduate out of my class.

[IvySpice]

In my observation this seems to be the norm for sororities at the U. of Pennsylvania. Pledge classes of 50 or more sometimes lead to senior classes of 20 or even 10...and it certainly isn't because students are dropping out or failing. On that campus, it's cool to rush as a freshman, but it's viewed as kind of lame if you still take it seriously by senior year. The campus culture assumes that as a senior, you'll be out in the city on your own, thinking about grad school, etc., and you're basically supposed to be above all of that Greek-system nonsense. (Needless to say, this attitude isn't universal, but it's fairly prevalent.)

[starang21]

wow...this is such a foreign concept to me.

[33girl]

This is another reason that I am the big deferred rush cheerleader that I am. You just get completely burned out by senior year, and if you've rushed before classes and before you have any other friends, it's hard to find somewhere to go to take the pressure off when you need to.

And I'm sure that the group carnation's speaking of was ecstatic when they got that quota of 55. Too bad they could not look further ahead than bid day. (This isn't singling that group out, all groups do that to a point.)

I've said it before, we need to get our minds off quota and onto retention.

[hannahgirl]

Most women at Akron stay in their chapters for all 4 years (sometimes longer). We have the women that drop out here and there and the transfers and so on, but nothing of my knowledge of it being that extreme. Now if you were to ask me how many women were left from my pledge class (Fall 99) during my last year (2003), I was the only one out of 16. Some women transferred, some were sophomores when they pledged and graduated a year and a half before me, and the women who should've went alum along with me decided to go alum a year before me because of upcoming graduations. I allowed myself to stay longer than them by not going to summer school because I wanted to run for office again since I was on Panhellenic the year before. In a way it was nice being the only one because everyone looked up to you as the example and knew that if they had a question they could come to you, but it was also disappointing because it would've been nice to have someone going along side of me. But hey.....it did prove to be pretty nice that we only lost 2 members from graduation in one semester instead of a whole class of women.....

[ISUKappa]

My pledge class started out at about 23-24, one dropped during pledging and about 7-8 depledged some time in those four years. I think we had about 15 seniors by the time I graduated, which is about average. Not all of them stayed super involved (there was a core of about 7 who moved out and we rarely heard from the last semester) but they still considered themselves a part of our chapter.

We had recruitment right away in the fall, before classes started. In the pledge classes below mine, the numbers were about the same.

[carnation]

I'm wondering if this could be related to the fact that most sororities initiate their NMs after 6-8 weeks these days. When that's done, a new member can be slated and become an officer during her freshman year whereas back when you had to wait for grades to be initiated, you couldn't be an officer until the last half of your sophomore year. If you're an officer during your first 2 years, maybe that doesn't leave you much to look forward to the last year and a half.

I don't know--I'm just looking for answers.

[preciousjeni]

Originally posted by starang21
wow...this is such a foreign concept to me.

I think the difference is that with NPHC and other cultural-interest Greeks, the idea that we are in for life in so drilled into us that either you remain active or consider yourself invisible. We don't have the option of not being in our respective organizations, because regardless of the amount of energy we are able to put forth, we will always be considered a member. It is a lifetime commitment that we aren't allowed to take lightly.

[Rudey]

Originally posted by preciousjeni
I think the difference is that with NPHC and other cultural-interest Greeks, the idea that we are in for life in so drilled into us that either you remain active or consider yourself invisible. We don't have the option of not being in our respective organizations, because regardless of the amount of energy we are able to put forth, we will always be considered a member. It is a lifetime commitment that we aren't allowed to take lightly.

That really made no sense. There are those in your org that chose not to be involved later on too I'm sure. Furthermore, when you're org is a fraction of the size of other orgs, then you will also have less people being uninvolved.

-Rudey