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In Canada it is not a reasonable question at all. Especially at the school I am fairly certain she goes to, locals have lots of parties and no dues so trying to explain high international dues when we don;t get any of the perks the US internationals does turns people off.
We would rather them love us first and work out payment plans etc to make sure they find a place they love then scare them off with a high price tag which we are capable of working around.
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Being a local, sure, having significantly lower "dues" is a perk - but I'm a firm believer that when it comes to the bottom line with dues, if you really love an organization and really want to be apart of it - and receive a bid - you'll do what you have to do in order to attain the necessary finances. International Dues on my campus usually range between 400-600$ (unless they've drastically changed within the past few years) - if you think about it this way, those are dues which would easily be paid off working 1-2 days a week at a part-time, minimum wage job for a semester. I have friends in an international organization, and they just make a point in the summer to work an extra 2-3 weeks instead of having them off, in order to pay their dues. If you really love your organization, you make it work - regardless if its international/local.
However, I've never heard of a local within the city which I attend school having "no dues". For my organization, not having to go through a headquarters for things such as initiates and pledging pins (which we receive directly from the same jewelry supplier as the international organizations on campus) significantly cuts down our costs, along with not having to pay into things like chapter slush funds and headquarters fees.
We're very up front with our rushees during rush about how much it costs to be in our organization - we have a poster board with an entire break down of where our dues go in the chapter during our class room meet and greets - but we never use it as a main "selling" point. We wouldn't want a girl to rush us solely because, hey, she couldn't afford international so why not try local because it's cheaper? I always encourage rush to look over the board so they're aware of where their money goes, but I don't dorm storm going, "Hey! Rush my sorority! We have super low dues in comparison to international," etc.
And as for "parties" (I assume you're referring to mixers...), we don't have to inform a headquarters every time we mix, but we have a cap of 3 mixers during rush (which must be equally balanced out by other events such as sisterhoods, philanthropies, classroom meet and greets, etc.)
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