Why women go through rush today...

[33girl]

Originally posted by Seminole Pike:
[B]My observation has been that the sororities deliberately restrict their market in a way harmful to themselves. There are many junior transfer students who would make terrific members, but none of the good sororities will pledge them. They fill their pledge class with freshmen, and the juniors tend to not want to go through rush, not because they don't want in, but because they know the prestige houses won't pledge anthing but freshmen!

The talk about pledging non-traditional students concerns me. I am confident that any sorority trying to fill their ranks with non-traditional students will fail as an organization. There's not a thing wrong with pledging a non-traditional student, providing that student wants to fit into the traditional profile of the organization. [B]

I think you are kind of contradicting yourself with these 2 statements, but oh well...

It is primarily the schools with large numbers of rushees where so much emphasis is placed on freshman status. It's definitely not like that everywhere. Where I was in school EVERY sorority had junior pledges, and sometimes seniors, every semester. (In this day and age when it can take a while to get out of school, junior doesn't always mean 2 years to go anymore.) It's all about supply and demand. The more people rushing the pickier you can be. I don't agree with it either, but I've never had to fill a 70 person house either, so until I'm in those shoes I'm not going to judge.

I don't see anything wrong with non-trad students pledging. This covers a large range of people - everyone outside the 18-21 fulltime student. One of our sisters was 25 when she pledged and no one thought about it twice. She was just as involved as the actives who were 5-6 years younger than her - she just happened to get to that stage at a different time in life. I seriously doubt that a rash of 40 year old soccer moms is going to storm rush! It's about saying "this is not just for 18 year olds" since that is what some women think.