Quote:
Originally Posted by kddani
Well, the first and most important question- WHY do you want to join a sorority? What are you looking for in a group? Why now? Why didn't you join one in college? What kind of activities do you want to participate in? What kind of age groups do you want to interact with.
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There are several reasons I'm interested in joining a sorority at this time in my life. It's probably easier to explain if I start with my past history with GLOs.
When I was at Duke there were 10 NPC sororities on campus. During freshman year I seem to recall that most of the sororities invited me back for "Round 2" but I still ended up not receiving any bids that year.
I tried again sophomore year, fully aware that my chances would be much slimmer than before. I was quickly eliminated from 7 of the 10 sororities in after Round 1...and the remaining 3 did not offer me a bid. I really wanted to drop out of rush after the first round but my rush advisor told me that I might as well stick it out. In retrospect I should have listened to my gut, because it was pretty embarrassing to get rejected two years straight.
My best chance to join a sorority probably would have been junior year -- a new organization came to campus and began to recolonize that January. Unfortunately, I was studying abroad spring semester and missed out on the chance to be in the first pledge class. I think that GLO and I would have been a good fit, too.
By the time senior year rolled around, I gave no thought to even trying to pledge an existing sorority on campus -- what was the point, really? However, a group that had been at Duke up until a year or two before attempted a recolonization that Spring (in hindsight, it was WAY too soon) and myself, another senior gal and about 20 others started the process of becoming sisters. The recolonization was carried through until literally the day before we were to be pledged; the national organization decided not to proceed because (in their words) we didn't have enough women to make a go of it. When I look back, I think it was more the overall quality of the women they were leery of...as a group, appearance-wise, we were sort of a ragtag bunch. Perhaps I am making the situation into something more catty than it should be, but that's the only possible explanation I can come up with. It seems like 20 women should be enough to recolonize, am I right?
After the disappointment with this last GLO, the representatives from national told me and the other senior that they would be happy to give us alumni status (I assume this means AI). However, I contacted them several times after graduation and never received a reply. After that I forgot about sororities and got on with my adult life.
Skip ahead many years to my recent college reunion. I attended a party with two of my dear friends who were members of a now-defunct sorority at Duke. One of their sisters approached and said to all three of us, "Wow! XYZ (the sorority) had a great turnout this time! Aren't you all psyched?" She had NO recollection that I wasn't in their sorority! When I explained to her that I wasn't, she said that in her mind I'll always be an honorary member of XYZ because I hung out with so many people in the organization. I thought that was really sweet...and it got me thinking again about joining a sorority.
At this point in my life, with my child being a little older and more self-sufficient, I feel it's time for me to "get back out there", meet some new people and, most importantly, make myself useful in the community, Since for the past year I've been working part-time strictly from home, I don't get nearly as much "adult interaction" as I did when I was at an office. A few years back I was a member of another women's organization (non-Greek) that had some very worthwhile programs, it's just that none of them made enough of an impact on me to keep me interested in staying with the group. I made a couple of decent friendships there but, truth be told, in this group of about 125 women the average member age is between 55 and 60 and there are probably fewer than 10 that are under 45. Being a person who considers herself young at heart (and most people tell me I do look much younger than my actual age), I want to belong to a group that has a wider range of ages. I'm definitely not averse to associating with older women -- heck, one of my closest friends is in her mid-50s -- but I certainly don't want to be one of the youngest, either.
So that is my story. And to answer Susan's question, the NPC sorority that is of particular interest to me DOES have an alumni chapter in my area. If I decide to ultimately pursue AI I will likely only focus on that one organization...and if that doesn't work out I am more than willing to pursue membership in one of the non-collegiate groups such as ESA or Beta Sigma Phi.
Thank you all for your feedback. I really appreciate it!
dukemama
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