Sorority Involvment...sorry it's long!

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Originally Posted by MissKP

Hi all...I don't know if there is a similar post to this one but I was hoping to get some advice in my situation. At my university I am at currently, there are no greek organizations whatsoever, otherwise I'd be involved, but I graduate this year and am going to graduate school for 2 years at a new school about 30 minutes away and they have a few sororities...(alpha chi omega, delta gamma, and pi beta phi). So my question is...being that i'll be a graduate student and married at the time (i'm getting married in june) is there any way for me to be involved in a sorority? I am obviously not interested in the traditional freshman rush experience and living in the house because I obviously missed that time period but am really looking for a way to be connected to my new university and thought this would be a good way...but not sure if it's possible. thanks

Before you rush, I think you should wait a semester or two and see the kind of time commitment your graduate program requires of you. My married friends in PhD/Masters/Professional programs barely have time for their husbands, let alone a sorority. Your NM period may require a time committment of anywhere from 5-15 hours a week, when you count studying for NM exams, meetings, sisterhood activities, NM bonding, philanthropy etc.

A sorority is going to want to be sure you can devote all the time that's required to your NM period -- and many sorority functions are on "undergraduate" time schedules (e.g. mid-afternoon, early evening) that may conflict with your graduate schedule. If you get a sense of what your program is like and you find that you can devote this extra time to a sorority, then I say go for it. Be realistic about your options given your campus culture (on some campuses, sophomores have a hard time receiving bids to say nothing of a graduate student!) if you do rush and best of luck.

ETA: And I definitely encourage looking into a non-collegiate sorority. These may be better tailored to your lifestyle in terms of scheduling and requirements.