I was initiated into a local. We had a surprise initiation. It wasn't fun at all because we had NO idea how long we would be pledging - we were also the first pledge class so that made it even more interesting. I think actually that all the groups on campus has surprise initiation (or at least didn't let anyone outside the groups know when initiations were going to be!) Keep in mind this was the early 90s and there were no NPC groups and only 1 national sorority.
We also only went 6 weeks, but as the first pledge class there really wasn't too much history to learn and we were also meeting EVERY day for probably a total of 50 hours per week (seriously!) Mind you, about 15 of that was mandatory study hours. I also think that we were initiated after 6 weeks only because other fraternities and sororities were initiating at that time as well (and we were almost hte last bunch to initiate). We definitely bonded as a pledge class, though!
Sarah
Delta Kappa Phi '94
Alpha Omcron Pi '00
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