My not-so-perfect rush story

[tld221]

Originally Posted by LOVEinZTA

The next night I put on a cute little black halter, some jeans, and boots (I mean it is Texas after all) and went over to one of the other girls' apartments. We had a fun time getting to know each other. We piled way too many people into the back of a cab and headed to the restaurant/ comedy club downtown. When we got there we tried to be social with everyone but some of the girls were completely unresponsive. So we got a table for ourselves and Tasha and another sister I'll call Elisa came by and sat with us. Candice came by and said she was glad we all came and that we should try to meet some more of the girls so I tried to introduce myself to someone and they responded with "yeah, I met you yesterday, remember?" I felt bad for forgetting so quickly and sat back down.

Things went on like that for most of the night and we got to know each other better instead of getting to know the chapter members. After an hour or so Elisa asked if we all wanted to go back to her apartment for a little while. We headed back there and met her two roommates who were also sisters, Bonnie and Stephanie. Both were very sweet and we had a good time getting to know each other until about 2:30 AM when we decided it was probably a good idea for everyone to get some sleep since recruitment started the next day!

I wasn't allowed to be very hands on in recruitment since non-affiliated members don't have chapter voting priviledges yet, but I did get a good view of how things worked and all of the "behind-the-scenes" stuff. After recruitment was over we were to come to weekly meetings until the chapter voted on us. If we were voted in then we became full active members of the chapter again and if not we would become alums. Candice had us stand up and introduce ourselves at every meeting, made posters of us that she put up in the room, and was very proactive in getting us involved.

Eek! almost done at work, more in a bit.

WOW that's crazy! could they really not vote someone into the chapter? I can't see sisters/sorors NOT wanting to vote a fellow member in!

Or, does it get into an issue of quota numbers?

[UGAalum94]

No. Affiliates aren't considered for the numbers stuff at all, as far as I know, so it's not even that they "count" against you numerically.

I find this weird too; I'd like to think if you are good enough for the national organization, you're good enough to affiliate (if you are member in good standing and are of good character), but I can remember discussing in another thread that groups have really different policies from group to group and from chapter to chapter.

One chapter of one GLO that we talked about won't take any affiliates at all.

[MaggieXi]

We had an AZD who transferred to Elon from another chapter and she blantantly told us that part of the reason she had transferred was because she hated her sorority and didn't want to have anything to do with us. We tried to get her to come to some events and at least give our chapter a try and she absolutely refused.

Later, we had a sister go to a conference and met a sister from the girl's initiation chapter and they had no idea that she hated the chapter because she had been very involved and they couldn't think of a reason for any falling out.

It was a little strange. Just thought I would share.

[AU_ZTA86]

I haven't read the affiliation thread mentioned above but the entire topic can get very UGLY very quickly so it's best to be avoided. LoveinZTAs story is fine though b/c it's her experience, not a general statement.

[adpiucf]

Originally Posted by tld221

WOW that's crazy! could they really not vote someone into the chapter? I can't see sisters/sorors NOT wanting to vote a fellow member in!

Yes, and it happens frequently. A woman who fit into a chapter of XYZ at one school may have been an ABC if she'd rushed at another school.

And if it was generally accepted that you could join at one school and auto-transfer your membership just by enrolling in another, you would have tons of women joining at one school so they could be a member at a more competitive chapter elsewhere-- thus changing the dynamic of said competitive chapter and making the original chapter a revolving door with zero consistency.

[tld221]

Originally Posted by adpiucf

Yes, and it happens frequently. A woman who fit into a chapter of XYZ at one school may have been an ABC if she'd rushed at another school.

And if it was generally accepted that you could join at one school and auto-transfer your membership just by enrolling in another, you would have tons of women joining at one school so they could be a member at a more competitive chapter elsewhere-- thus changing the dynamic of said competitive chapter and making the original chapter a revolving door with zero consistency.

of all the transfers that happen from school A to B each year, there are a smaller subset of women who are sorority members, and an even smaller set of those who would want to affiliate. i cant imagine that year to year, chapter A would get SO many transfers from schools B, C, and D that it would change the "chapter dynamic" each year. after all, recruitment happens every year, thus changing the dynamic as people graduate out and are initiated in.

[FSUZeta]

[QUOTE=tld221;1492062] i cant imagine that year to year, chapter A would get SO many transfers from schools B, C, and D that it would change the "chapter dynamic" each year. QUOTE]

but it truly can. i have heard of women who wanted the prestige of being in ghi sorority because that sorority had great chapters in that particular state. savvy pnms who know that recruitment at the state universities is ultra competitive, and the ghi chapters are hard to get into, will go to schools with less competitive recruitments and less prestigious chapters of ghi sorority and pledge with the full intent of transferring so that they can affiliate at the prestige university chapter.

it's not so much that it hurts the chapter that the girl wants to affiliate with as it hurts the smaller, less prestigious chapter who just lost a member that they really couldn't afford to lose numbers wise. it might create a problem where the less prestigious chapter has to constantly participate in informal recruitment to replace the transferring members.

transferring students in no way affect the numbers of the chapter they are coming into, except that they raise the membership by "x". a chapter can be 50 members over campus total and they are still allowed to accept transfer sisters.

and as to voting on whether to allow sisters to affiliate or not, i would imagine that most sisters who seek to affiliate and are members in good standing would be invited to do so. i don't think it is right to force a chapter to accept someone anymore that i think that a member who transfers should be forced to affiliate.

[UGAalum94]

I have no doubt that some folks would really go to one campus to pledge and then transfer, but my guess is that the campuses that they would pledge at have that problem generally. They'd lose members to the big state U every year whether the girls did it deliberately or not.

For example, UGA has gotten kind of freakishly hard to get into compared to how it was when I went there. Other than Georgia Tech* and Georgia Southern where people go and plan to stay, most other four year schools in Georgia have a pretty big group of students start one place and go elsewhere.

If anything, it seems to me, having girls who joined a less prestigious group because they planned to transfer would help the chapters on the first campus rather than hurt them because they might attract more girls based on the GLOs overall reputation. (Now if your rate of girls transferring was a lot higher than that of other groups, FSUZeta is obviously completely right, but it doesn't seem to be that big a problem that I know of, but of course every situation is a little different.)

*Tech is equally hard or harder to get into. It always used to be harder, but I think since Tech applicants are more self-screening they don't have to reject as many these days.

And I'm certainly not trying to say that everyone applies to UGA and when they don't get in, they start somewhere else. The majority of kids pick their schools based on where they actually want to be, and there are plenty of good schools. But I suspect the retention rate of students at four years other than Tech, UGA, and Georgia Southern is lower to start with, so the affiliation policies aren't as likely to cripple groups as it might initially seem. Florida may be a whole 'nother story.

[adpiucf]

I know plenty of people who don't get into UF/UCF/FSU on the first go round and transfer "up" after a year or two... others may transfer "down" depending on circumstances (majors, environment, etc).

As for Greek transfers... I can't speak for other chapters, but we got a few petitions each fall and spring.

[LOVEinZTA]

Just a few points to make before I write up some more