Switching Fraternities

[TitaniumGene]

How are you going to say that I'm wrong and not offer your opinion or a valid source...

Anyways. I believe it would be helpful to cite regulations from national headquarters. SigEp National requires a formal letter from the previous organization. They leave the bidding up to their chapter.

SigEp's BMP even offers brothers the option to resign within a certain time period and get a refund.

[Psi U MC Vito]

Originally Posted by TitaniumGene

It all comes to how each chapter runs things. The right to manage memberships is left with each chapter.

Originally Posted by TitaniumGene

How are you going to say that I'm wrong and not offer your opinion or a valid source...

Anyways. I believe it would be helpful to cite regulations from national headquarters. SigEp National requires a formal letter from the previous organization. They leave the bidding up to their chapter.

SigEp's BMP even offers brothers the option to resign within a certain time period and get a refund.

So you are admitting you were wrong?

[TitaniumGene]

Originally Posted by Psi U MC Vito

So you are admitting you were wrong?

No. I am merely stating that my opinion was based on my observation at my school.

The BMP is showing to be more successful than any fraternity's pledge process. It educates brothers, not pledges, associate members, or whatever you want to call them.

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by TitaniumGene

No. I am merely stating that my opinion was based on my observation at my school.

The BMP is showing to be more successful than any fraternity's pledge process. It educates brothers, not pledges, associate members, or whatever you want to call them.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by TitaniumGene

No. I am merely stating that my opinion was based on my observation at my school.

Yet you stated it as fact, not opinion. And as Vito noted, you yourself contradicted your own opinion that "it all comes to how each chapter run things" by noting that your own fraternity has national requirements that must be satisfied before the chapter can even consider whether or not to accept as a member someone who already joined another fraternity. So it doesn't "all" come down to how the chapter runs things.

It may seem like people are picking nits with what you said, but when someone comes to GC with a question like this, accuracy is important.

The BMP is showing to be more successful than any fraternity's pledge process.

Again, just to be clear: your opinion, not objective fact.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by TitaniumGene

No. I am merely stating that my opinion was based on my observation at my school.

The BMP is showing to be more successful than any fraternity's pledge process. It educates brothers, not pledges, associate members, or whatever you want to call them.

"Successful" in what manner? Sorry but that's a really wide open for interpretation thing to say.

[TitaniumGene]

Success is difficult to measure, I admit. I am going to define "success" as creating a positive, lifelong bond between brothers. The success of BMP is that is creates strong lifelong bonds without a pledge process. I hope that's a little bit narrower.

@ Mysticat

I agree with everything you've said. However, the original poster didn't state which fraternity he came from or which one he wanted to switch into. Thus, I am unable to locate a specific list of membership requirements. As a result I am forced to give very general answers that are pretty much opinion/observation based.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by TitaniumGene

Success is difficult to measure, I admit. I am going to define "success" as creating a positive, lifelong bond between brothers. The success of BMP is that is creates strong lifelong bonds without a pledge process. I hope that's a little bit narrower.

Positive, lifelong bonds were beening created, outside SigEp and within SigEp, for well over 100 years before the BMP came along. Otherwise, all of our fraternities would have died long ago. The BMP itself is too young to really measure whether it creates stronger lifelong bonds.

The "pledge process" is not, in and of itself, positive or negative. How it is implimented can be. Many, many of us went through very positive "pledge processes" that created positive, lifelong bonds of loyalty and brotherhood/sisterhood.

I have nothing against the BMP at all. If it works for SigEp, who am I to argue? But I will argue with uninformed assertionis that it is "showing to be more successful than any other fraternities pledge process." Be content that it works for you and for your fraternity, and resist the urge to declare superiority over other ways of doing things.

@ Mysticat

I agree with everything you've said. However, the original poster didn't state which fraternity he came from or which one he wanted to switch into. Thus, I am unable to locate a specific list of membership requirements. As a result I am forced to give very general answers that are pretty much opinion/observation based.

Nobody "forced" you to give any answer -- the answer is all over this thread and others. The problem is not that your answer was general, it's that it was incomplete, because it doesn't "all" depend on how the chapter runs things. It depends on how the national organizations in question do things and how the chapter does things.

[APhiAnna]

To be honest? I've seen it happen three times...but the circumstances are a little different than what you are describing.

Situation #1: There was a transfer student from ABC University to XYZ. He had been in Fraternity 1 at ABC, transferred to XYZ and joined Fraternity 2. Somehow nobody picked up on this until well after he was initiated (which is mind boggling to me in the era of Facebook). Even though their nationals forbids member from other chapters going, the brotherhood liked the guy and decided to keep him around and keep it secret.

Situation #2: I was on a bus to an event once and talking with a guy who was in fraternity XYZ. He told me that fraternity ABC had folded a couple years ago, and apparently XYZ had stealth pledged a couple former members of ABC (including himself).

Situation #3: Same fraternity as in the first situation. They were seriously considering pledging a guy who had joined a different fraternity (ironically XYZ in Situation #2...oh the tangled webs we weave) and been initiated, but dropped out. They loved the guy and were already very close friends, and figured nationals wouldn't find out and they could always plead innocent even if they did. At the end of the day, the guy decided not to pledge again so it was all theoretical.

I think in general fraternities seem more comfortable operating outside of their national procedures than sororities do. But once again, you can see that the two cases where it did work were not the same as Situation #3, and in Situation #3 there were a number of guys in the chapter that were virulently opposed to his bidding/initiation no matter how much he was liked. It may have worked out that he wouldn't have had enough support to get a bid (obviously do not know the majority needed).

So if your current fraternity is still active at your school, then I doubt it is a real possibility. Even if the fraternity you want to join is allowed to bid you, it still may not work out. Especially because I see far more open rivalries in the fraternity world than the sorority world (where any chapter rivalries are hidden under the guise of Panhellenic unity), so I could easily see a fraternity saying, "Nah, he went XYZ in the first place, they are the worst, why would we take the risk and bid him?"

Lastly, I feel like he may be using the same hidden connotations as the "I just can't find my place in the chapter" girls...so to put it bluntly, if you can't hook up with hot girls in your current chapter you won't be able to even if you join the "Hot Babes R Us" chapter. In the top tier fraternities at my school there were still plenty of guys who couldn't ever get girls.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by TitaniumGene

SigEp's BMP even offers brothers the option to resign within a certain time period and get a refund.

Chalk up another reason to make fun of BMP.