Pledged (not initiated) into 1 NPC sorority in college, alumnae initiated elsewhere

[CutiePie2000]

Hello GCers,
As you all know, as you know, some women pursue AI, for the reasons that some women may not have had the opportunity to go Greek in college, perhaps due to family resistance, no Greek system at their college or perhaps a rush that did not work out; the reasons may be as numerous as they are varied. I just wanted to gauge people's reactions for a, ahem, "hypothetical" situation.

I know someone who was in Sorority A (pledged, but never initiated). She was active in her chapter for about a year and a half without being initiated, the reason being grades and then later on, money. (Believe me, she did want to be initiated into "full fledged membership status"). Even after she left her chapter and eventually school, she was thoroughly involved, still helping the chapter with rush and in other supportive ways. Some time ago, she realized that it had always bothered her that she had never been initiated into "full membership" with Sorority A, and she began to explore the Alumnae Initiation process with Sorority A. She wrote some emails and they received a fruitful response; she met with one of Sorority A's Alumnae Chapters in her city for a luncheon. The Alumnae group told her after the luncheon that they would sponsor her, and that she should give them a couple of weeks to dig up the paperwork and fill it out. She was told they'd call with any questions they had when they were filling out the forms. Overall, she felt very positive about it and that it went very well. Then, 6 months passed and the woman heard nothing, all the while she was contacting the local alumnae chapter periodically to follow up with the matter. After six months of emailing the President of the Alumnae Chapter to follow up on the President's pledge to sponsor her (with no response back), she finally did get a response-- the Local Alumnae Chapter had changed their mind, the Alumnae President advised her that the Alumnae Chapter had chosen not to sponsor her for membership, despite her having been a pledge of Sorority A in the past (albeit a different collegiate chapter). The President's reason was that the Alumnae Chapter felt that they could not see sharing their sisterhood with her, nor did they feel that she would be able to share in their bonds of sisterhood, because she had not shared their collegiate experience with them. (I wanted to clarify that the President was initiated at a different chapter in the state, from the woman in question.) The woman, wanting further explanation and clarification on the policy for alumnae initiates, contacted the National Headquarters. Nationals did reply to her, and explained that in their sorority, Alumnae Initiation is extremely rare, and that if a woman is pledged but not initiated during her college years, it is extremely difficult to be initiated into that sorority after college. The chapter sisters of the woman rallied and tried to get another city alumnae group to sponsor the woman for alumnae initiation, but the general sentiment expressed by Nationals was one of "if one of our city alumnae groups does not see you as being fit for membership, then we stand by them." (this is in spite of the 15 letters of recommendation that she had). Therefore, this woman was not able to be alumna initiated into Sorority A, the group that she had been a pledge of while in college.

I am pleased to say that this has turned out to be a happy ending for her. Despite this disappointment, she still wanted to be in GLO, and friends of hers in Sorority B wanted her, and thus she started the process once again, but this time with Sorority B. After the process taking about a year and a half from start to finish, she has now been initiated into Sorority B, and is very happy there. However, some of her friends and acquaintances still think of her as a member of Sorority A (which I suppose she was, albeit a "pledge"). I would not refer to her as a "perp", because she had every intention of alumnae initiating with Sorority A. However, once she received the notice that her petition for sponsorship to membership had been rejected by Sorority A, she was devastated, but acknowledged this & immediately stopped making any overt affiliation with Sorority A. She then regrouped and started the ball rolling with Sorority B.

So, my question is, given these circumstances, how forgiving would you be to know this person and then discover out that she is not an initiated member of Sorority A? (I would like to add that she loves her Sorority A chapter sisters dearly, along with those Sorority A Women that she had gotten to know from other chapters in her city and does not harbour ill will towards them). More so, the reason for this post is that she just wants to know that it is safe for her to be "true" to everyone and tell those people who know her what happened. So, my question is, do you think it would be safe for her to "come out" (not sure if that's the right word, hee hee!) and would you, yourself, be understanding of someone in this situation?