Should you join a "lower tier" sorority?

[QUOTE=what most people are sick of is "didn't feel a connection" being used as a bullshit euphemism for "they are the lowest on the totem pole." The topper was the girl who cut the (low tier) sorority that was the nicest to her and kept the ones that she straight up said were bitches.[/QUOTE]

last year a guy came on greekchat (I think it was greekchat) and ranked the sororities at my daughter's school. I am not even sure if he was greek. During rush my daughter overheard another rushee in class describe a sorority as bottom tier using the SAME phrase that the guy had used. Her comments and her opinion were clearly just spreading the opinioin of that one guy and making that her opinion too. That is gossip, vicious, untrue, and hurt the reputation of the sorority. Well, during rush the young ladies of this disparaged sorority were so nice to my daughter. My daughter accepted their bid. She is so happy that she followed her heart. She was just initiated last week and proudly showed off her new pin to me.

[Benzgirl]

Originally Posted by ClemsonMom

last year a guy came on greekchat (I think it was greekchat) and ranked the sororities at my daughter's school. I am not even sure if he was greek. During rush my daughter overheard another rushee in class describe a sorority as bottom tier using the SAME phrase that the guy had used. Her comments and her opinion were clearly just spreading the opinioin of that one guy and making that her opinion too. That is gossip, vicious, untrue, and hurt the reputation of the sorority. Well, during rush the young ladies of this disparaged sorority were so nice to my daughter. My daughter accepted their bid. She is so happy that she followed her heart. She was just initiated last week and proudly showed off her new pin to me.

More than likely it was GreekRank.com, not GC or Juicy Campus (which I don't think is active any longer)

[Psi U MC Vito]

Juicy Campus is dead. never heard of Greekrank.com myself.

[Benzgirl]

Originally Posted by Psi U MC Vito

never heard of Greekrank.com myself.

Not as bad as JC but still not great. It's strictly Greek and doesn't attack individuals personally.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by BadCat25

"Didn't feel a connection" is better than "I would rather be dragged behind a horse through barbed wire than be seen in public wearing those letters".

Not really. At least have the kahunas to say what you mean if that's what you mean.

We've told girls before that if they're rather be dragged behind a horse through barbed wire than accept their bid, they should suicide and give that other spot to someone else. Some people just won't change their minds like that - we get that - just don't sunshine & sugar it up.

[baci]

Originally Posted by AnchorAlumna

I dunno.

At my SEC school, it's like the "tiers" are set in concrete reinforced by rebar and encased in steel. The top, middle, and lower tiers, with just a tiny bit of shifting within tiers, are the same now as they were in 1971.

It doesn't seem to matter what women do or achieve, they don't change.

And Panhellenic has traditionally been all about enforcing that. Informally, of course.

I do agree with this post from my experience at an SEC school. The tiers are set and there has been minimal movement for generations.

IMO, it feels like a carryover of high school - who is most beautiful, best figure, most popular, dresses best, what area they are from, and possibly what parents do for a living come into play. It doesn't matter what you do or achieve in many cases. The young girls that fit closely to the above filter into the top groups and then it falls from there.

What I have noticed over the years though is how nasty girls have gotten. Many young girls that are presently in a sorority will try by various means to start rumors and tear apart another group. The internet is a perfect place to do so. It may be a top tier trying to trash another top group or a mid tier trying to move up and attempt to knock another group down. I am shocked at what some of these girls will do with their time.

I met a wonderful woman who told me her best years with XYZ have been those out of her four years in college. She said it fulfilled her life like she can't explain. That really touched a spot in my heart. I understand why the tiers are there to a point (whether I agree or not), but it is sad and ridiculous. There is so much more to each of the organizations. You just can't always explain that to an 18-21 year old woman with her own mind.

[dgdramadawg]

I am probably repeating stuff because I haven't read the whole thread.

I think that one of my girls who rushed this year (I didn't post her story because the end was sad) best explained the reason not to pledge a "low tier" group that was struggling with numbers: "I appreciate what they're trying to do; I just don't want to be a part of it."

A lot of PNMs don't want to be in the smallest/least popular group because they don't want to have to deal with all of the work that would go into making a chapter grow. It takes a special kind of girl to join a group that's not as popular when she KNOWS that the group isn't as popular, and an even more special kind of girl to join a group that is struggling with numbers on top of a "low tier" rep.

When I look back at my school and the way it was when I went through recruitment, I remember 3 groups that people referred to as "low tier." Of the three, one chapter has closed due to low numbers and the other two have gained in numbers and in reputation to the point where the difference in chapter size between them and others is negligible. However, even with those gains in reputation, those two chapters still have to deal with being called "low tier" every recruitment (despite members every bit as pretty, smart, involved, etc. as those in "higher tier" houses).

I saw at the top of the thread people mentioning whether PNMs would ever choose a "low tier" house over a higher house, but sometimes a PNM doesn't feel comfortable in that high tier house. Back in my thread (http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=87526) I said this about a "popular" house: Their house is big and pretty, but the conversation was more and more awkward today. I just don't know that I am a fit here. The girls are nice and I could see myself being friends with a few of them, but I just don't feel like I fit in with the majority of the girls. I think I would have to change myself to be happy in this house and I don't think it is worth it just to be in a "popular" sorority. The girls on my hall and in my rho chi group insist that this is the "best" house I have left, but the more I see of it, the more I think it is just not for me.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by BadCat25

"Didn't feel a connection" is better than "I would rather be dragged behind a horse through barbed wire than be seen in public wearing those letters".

Well, I would rather have been dragged etc etc than be seen in public wearing letters of a couple sororities, not because they were "lower tier" but because of how they treated me at their rush parties or how they treated their pledges. I didn't want people to look at me in those letters and assume that I would act like that.

Again, I honestly think it has a lot to do with whether you have deferred rush. If you get to see these women on a daily basis for a semester or a year, as opposed to seeing them sparkly and shiny at rush being your first contact, a lot of the "glamour" wears off.

[carnation]

I bumped this because as I read over it, it seemed that there was a lot of gold in it.

[Tom Earp]

WOW, I still want to puke every time I read a post like this one was! I am glad you brought it up again. It is so sad the mentality of who is the top Hen in the coop or maybe top she male in the harem?

Having started a Fraternity as a local, we were not considered S**T on campus! Not a GLO would act like we even existed except finally The ADPi who were considered The worst on campus. They were their won Sisters and damn proud of it.

Each Chapter on each campus is different, some are better than some and then in the reverse!

I hope some of the new Divas remember that!

[Cheerio]

Originally Posted by AnchorAlumna

I dunno.

At my SEC school, it's like the "tiers" are set in concrete reinforced by rebar and encased in steel. The top, middle, and lower tiers, with just a tiny bit of shifting within tiers, are the same now as they were in 1971.

It doesn't seem to matter what women do or achieve, they don't change.

And Panhellenic has traditionally been all about enforcing that. Informally, of course.

Do you know whether the members of your 1971 top tier groups made the most of their lives by becoming involved sorority alums? Did women in those top tier groups have better marriages, better children, and lead better lives than women from your lowest tier groups? And whether they did or did not, so what?

No NPC sorority has folded since 1971 (the year Iota Alpha Pi dissolved). That indicates every NPC group holds a strength of purpose and industry despite when some may rate them as a lower tier!

ALL current NPC groups have thrived for between 102-168 years. Each group contributes mightily to our NPC organization for the betterment of educated women, notwithstanding each group maintaining distinct and individual reasons for living within/learning about/giving to the world.

One reason women join a sorority is that united with others you can offer the world more. There are women of the 1971 sorority class from within every tier group who will tell you they have experienced self-defined good lives, and the world is no worse for their having lived.

[AnchorAlumna]

Originally Posted by Cheerio

Do you know whether the members of your 1971 top tier groups made the most of their lives by becoming involved sorority alums? Did women in those top tier groups have better marriages, better children, and lead better lives than women from your lowest tier groups? And whether they did or did not, so what?

No NPC sorority has folded since 1971 (the year Iota Alpha Pi dissolved). That indicates every NPC group holds a strength of purpose and industry despite when some may rate them as a lower tier!

ALL current NPC groups have thrived for between 102-168 years. Each group contributes mightily to our NPC organization for the betterment of educated women, notwithstanding each group maintaining distinct and individual reasons for living within/learning about/giving to the world.

One reason women join a sorority is that united with others you can offer the world more. There are women of the 1971 sorority class from within every tier group who will tell you they have experienced self-defined good lives, and the world is no worse for their having lived.

To be clear, nobody is thinking of certain sororities nationally being higher tiers than the others. Every sorority has "top" chapters and struggling chapters.
This is a by-campus thing.
Certainly PNMs don't give a rip about which sororities are strongest nationally. They just care about their own campus.

Women in the so-called top tier groups have, AFAIK, had the same types of lives as the rest of us - some successful, some not.

Have the snooty sorority girls "made the most of their lives by becoming involved sorority alums"? (Oh, do you have to be an involved sorority alumna to make the most of your life?) Same answer - some have, some haven't.

I HAVE found out - and did so pretty soon after graduating - that tiers don't matter so much among alumnae. Just the experience...which is pretty much the same no matter what tier your chapter was considered.

[SigmaCat]

I always had an ambivalent sense of the whole tier thing, probably because I went to Berkeley, land of the Greek system that defies categorization. We both did and didn't have a culture that encouraged competition and tier-oriented thinking, and that confused the hell out of a lot of us.

Granted, I graduated before Greekrank and social media were things, but we did all develop at least a vague sense of which chapters were considered "top." That said, even members of said "top" houses might have a hard time articulating why, because most of them simply joined the chapters they liked best, usually where they already had friends.

Honestly, we had quite a few chapters that always met quota and campus total, had high GPAs, and attractive, kind, high-achieving members. It never really made sense to me to try to split hairs on rank, because most chapters were functionally alike. Certainly, they all tapped into different regional networks of friends and acquaintances, and people who were in activities together outside of the house tended to follow each other into one sorority or another, but since most chapters benefitted from the phenomenon, it wasn't exactly an advantage. Honestly, the one thing we could really point to was numbers, and as someone else mentioned upthread, it's not really being judgey or elitist to say that you like a chapter but don't want to be strapped to a sinking ship.

End of day, if you want to be in a sorority, then join one if the opportunity presents itself. If you're so concerned about getting into the "top" house that you'd rather drop out of rush than pledge a mid- or bottom-tier house, then you really weren't all that into Greek life anyway. You wanted to win a popularity contest.

[carnation]

Originally Posted by SigmaCat

Honestly, the one thing we could really point to was numbers, and as someone else mentioned upthread, it's not really being judgey or elitist to say that you like a chapter but don't want to be strapped to a sinking ship.

You know what? This says it all. There's a huge difference.

[33girl]

I know with 100% certainty that there are some women in lower tier or closed chapters who would not trade the friends they made there for anything, even being in a “popular” chapter that was still open. To say as some do that if you can’t be “top tier” don’t be Greek at all is absolutely asinine.

And..there have been SEVERAL instances of a “top tier” (if not THE top on that campus) being closed for risk management issues. Nothing is certain.

Edited because the poster to whom I was responding has deleted her comment, and I didn’t want to look like Jimmy Stewart talking to Harvey.