Schools that (should) open for expansion

[aephi alum]

Originally Posted by Low D Flat

I find the Alabama houses quite overwhelming from the street; they give steroids/Disneyland to me.

That struck me as well. I evacuated to Tuscaloosa after Ida, and made a point of taking a drive around campus, and those houses are huge. They also struck me as pretty cookie-cutter for the most part - the house that stuck out to me was Phi Mu. It also struck me that if an NPC sorority were to colonize, where would they even put a house?

That's just physical infrastructure. I didn't go into any of the houses or talk to any members. If AEPhi still had a chapter there, I might have knocked on their door, but that chapter is dormant, and in any case recruitment had just ended and everyone was gearing up for football season.

[Titchou]

Originally Posted by aephi alum

That struck me as well. I evacuated to Tuscaloosa after Ida, and made a point of taking a drive around campus, and those houses are huge. They also struck me as pretty cookie-cutter for the most part - the house that stuck out to me was Phi Mu. It also struck me that if an NPC sorority were to colonize, where would they even put a house?

That's just physical infrastructure. I didn't go into any of the houses or talk to any members. If AEPhi still had a chapter there, I might have knocked on their door, but that chapter is dormant, and in any case recruitment had just ended and everyone was gearing up for football season.

the Phi Mu house is a larger version of their original house....back when all were very different. They didn't want to build new but did when they were certain they could reuse the style. There are a couple of houses right now from the old rows that are "swing"houses - used for groups who want to rebuild or add on/renovate - fraternities included. Since it is UA land, they just hold on to them. That land could be used. And there is an old dorm to the southeast of the DG house that could torn down as well.

[Low D Flat]

Originally Posted by aephi alum

\They also struck me as pretty cookie-cutter for the most part.

Yes. Tri Delta is my favorite of the new houses for that reason. Points to Chi Omega for being the only organization that preserved its original house as part of the rebuild.

[Cheerio]

Originally Posted by carnation

Sometimes we see posts that say, "Woo! ABC, the newest chapter, is doing so well at Whatever U!" People who know the campus know that ABC may have pledged 75 and then lost 20 in the first 2 weeks and 25 more before initiation--and that member retention overall is horrendous. They may also know that the chapter's grades are far below others or that few members show up at functions.

I have never heard if a school that publishes retention rates but low ones a real thing.

If a new chapter is going to be automatically shunned by PNMs, what possesses a greek council and/or University that knows this to open their campus in the first place?

When a new chapter's grades are poor and members unmotivated, is that strictly a result of poor choice of new members by the colonizing NPC? Or does some blame go to a greek life/university that opened to a new group knowing the PNM pool was likely not up to snuff?

[Cookiez17]

Well via the 2024/5 colony thread, Utah and Clemson have opened up for expansion. I wasn’t expecting Clemson to open up so soon.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Cheerio

If a new chapter is going to be automatically shunned by PNMs, what possesses a greek council and/or University that knows this to open their campus in the first place?

When a new chapter's grades are poor and members unmotivated, is that strictly a result of poor choice of new members by the colonizing NPC? Or does some blame go to a greek life/university that opened to a new group knowing the PNM pool was likely not up to snuff?

What possesses them? Some people deal in fantasy instead of reality and believe all the kum ba ya we're all Greek and equal line. Either that or the school is being pressured by parents whose daughters were cut (of course the daughters never tell the parents that they refused to consider anything but "top" chapters and behaved accordingly) and basically forces the Panhel to open.

Personally I believe that groups that start as locals on their own steam are more motivated and probably don't have the grade/motivation issues, but then the nationals come in and want to cherry pick members. You can't have it both ways.

I think about that great Carnegie Mellon expansion story on here and how the one group (that if you read between the lines was the most nationally prestigious) basically didn't vibe with the local or its members at all, but wanted to take them on just to have a chapter there - and would most likely have made things so uncomfortable for the women that they would have quit.

[carnation]

I remember hearing a story about how my group and another group let's call AB were 2 of the 3 finalists to start a new colony at a prestigious school. This story, told to me by one of our extension specialists, involved all 3 groups getting to campus and 2 of them realizing that no way did they want these really strange birds wearing their pins. (I don't remember details now but these college women were bizarre. Think of the Weird Rush Stories thread.)

Anyway, the groups put their heads together and AB decided to act all ditzy and blonde at the presentations. I forget how my group acted but it was designed to be off-putting. The third group didn't care if they were weird as long as they could get a chapter there so they acted normal, and they were selected.

I have no idea if that chapter still exists.