Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in NOVA. 80% of DDs friends spread all over US joined sororities. Gotten very popular today.

We, too, live in NOVA. Maybe we're weird because we are an intellectual family but not one of my children, male and female, had any interest in rush and not one of their friends participated. And,yes, one of them is at UVA and has never stepped foot in a Greek house. There is life outside the Greek world, you know.

Well, let’s all bow down to the “intellectual family.”



You sound insufferable.

+1 we’ve all met this person / people like this IRL

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in NOVA. 80% of DDs friends spread all over US joined sororities. Gotten very popular today.

We, too, live in NOVA. Maybe we're weird because we are an intellectual family but not one of my children, male and female, had any interest in rush and not one of their friends participated. And,yes, one of them is at UVA and has never stepped foot in a Greek house. There is life outside the Greek world, you know.

Haha. Reverse snob. You were too intellectual to join Greek life or they saw right through you ?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in NOVA. 80% of DDs friends spread all over US joined sororities. Gotten very popular today.

We, too, live in NOVA. Maybe we're weird because we are an intellectual family but not one of my children, male and female, had any interest in rush and not one of their friends participated. And,yes, one of them is at UVA and has never stepped foot in a Greek house. There is life outside the Greek world, you know.

Well, let’s all bow down to the “intellectual family.”



You sound insufferable.

Sororities sound wonderful in theory. A bunch of instant friends. The problem is, if you're ugly, like I am, you are excluded.

Anonymous wrote:I would love to find a way to be more open minded, but this all sounds like a horrible way to spend my hard earned dollars.

It is hard enough for us to pay for college and to give our kids a good start toward a professional career. Wasting money on an activity that diverts effort from that...

Sounds crazy.

Isolation is a real problem at most colleges. So much so that colleges are trying to find ways to address it. It’s one of the contributing factors to the increased mental illness and suicides in this age group. As long as DD is in a healthy, positive sorority, it could be just what she needs to feel connected in her new home. As we tell the kids- keep an open mind.

- former GDI snob with a daughter rushing at an SEC school

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP this is the absolute worst forum to ask. Sorry but DCUM is pretty anti-Greek and won’t give you the correct answer. At a large SEC school you will not be out of place staying for the week at a nearby hotel. Recruitment is stressful and she may want/need to get away (and since she is an out of state girl she isn’t goibg to have the “perfect rush” so you may need to remind her that , because of restrictions on the number of bids each sorority can extend, many groups have to make some tough membership decisions before they even meet her, and an out of state girl is an “easy call” to release because she likely has fewer ties to the area and fewer local alums who would be upset by it) But remind her to keep an open mind and just be her friendly fun self and she’ll be fine. And on bid day you’ll want to be there to hug her and tell her how excited you are for her. Northern and mid-Atlantic women will think this is absurd but it’s the norm on a big southern campus...and many groups will invite parents in to see the house on bid day.
Go to greekchat dot com to ask questions of helpful pro-Greek alums if you want real answers. Just don’t include any info about your DD that would identify her in any way. Good luck and I hope your DD has a great rush!

This is just appalling.

Appalling that you don’t understand the process? NP but what’s so bad about a mom who offers support to her daughter? I assume the “perfect rush” refers to one who goes through the whole week being invited back by every group because every group wants her to join. This is rare. And do you think if 1500 women sogn up to join a sorority, they can all just pick the same one? How would the other groups survive?? How do you have a 1500-person new member group?? Sorry you don’t understand that there is a process (or maybe just don’t like that there is one) but OP didn’t come here to ask if her daughter should join a sorority or if you approve. She just asked if staying in a hotel was something other parents do.

Not only do I "understand the process" I was my sorority's President. Never, ever again. Ever. What a friggin waste of my time. How do you even begin to justify it?

Interesting that you chose to be president of an organization whose membership process you did not embrace. Seems to me that you chose to “waste your time” at your own will...and yet act as though you not only drew no benefit from the exact same process but were somehow not an integral part of it. How do you justify THAT? Just curious...

I grew up. I matured. I realized what the Greek system did to women. Parents who push their 18 year olds in this system need to step back and ask themselves "just WHY?". Why join a group that excludes? That hurts? That is costly? I do agree with the PP about it being women's Hunger Games. I changed my opinion about the Greek system because I realized that my sorority brought out the worst in the women. They were mean, spiteful, vindictive and gossipy, and most of them continued to be that way to this day. I was lucky to get out with just very bad memories of being President. I have received no benefit from the experience.

Anonymous wrote:I would love to find a way to be more open minded, but this all sounds like a horrible way to spend my hard earned dollars.

It is hard enough for us to pay for college and to give our kids a good start toward a professional career. Wasting money on an activity that diverts effort from that...

Sounds crazy.

+1

Anonymous wrote:We live in NOVA. 80% of DDs friends spread all over US joined sororities. Gotten very popular today.

We, too, live in NOVA. Maybe we're weird because we are an intellectual family but not one of my children, male and female, had any interest in rush and not one of their friends participated. And,yes, one of them is at UVA and has never stepped foot in a Greek house. There is life outside the Greek world, you know.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can’t stand organized groups that exclude people. It is s symptom of what is wrong in the US today. We need more inclusion and less exclusion.

If you go into formal recruitment prepared with letters of rec to most houses + an open mind and a good attitude, and follow the rules and recommendations, it’s very probable you will get a bid somewhere. Some schools even have it so that if you do everything correctly with regards to rankings and attending events, that you are guaranteed a bid! It’s hardly super-exclusive apart from a few top chapters at every college.

What =ever makes you sleep at night, it is still exclusion.

PP...when you go out to dinner with your friends, do you send an invitation to everyone you've ever met or just a few? If the latter, why are you excluding some people and not others??

I applied for a job at Google. I didn't get it, even though I think it would be way cool to work there and I would have made a pretty amazing addition to their team. I'm not going to go through life all bitter about not working at Google though. I don't even think they are "exclusive" so much as just wanted to hire a different person who was also pretty well qualified. I got a job at a different company. It worked out great.

A sorority is a membership-based organization, and no, it does not include everyone in membership. But it doesn't mean that the individual members can no longer be friends with people who are not given a bid. I am friends with many, many girls who pledged a sorority that did not invite me to pledge. It's fine.

I’m sorry all you didn’t get chosen. It’s too late to be mad about it now. Presumably you are out of college?

^^ agree with above. It works for some women and not for others. People are different. Some women just don’t want to spend time in sorority and that’s fine. Perhaps they give out that signal and that’s why they are “excluded”.

Anonymous wrote:I would love to find a way to be more open minded, but this all sounds like a horrible way to spend my hard earned dollars.

It is hard enough for us to pay for college and to give our kids a good start toward a professional career. Wasting money on an activity that diverts effort from that...

Sounds crazy.

You might be surprised to learn that it's actually not a diversion from these aims at all for most sorority women. As several other PPs have indicated, GPA and academics are very, very important to most women in sororities. And it's important to their alumnae too. Joining a sorority also gives women a support system to succeed b/c they are surrounded by other like-minded young women who influence each other to do well (they have a scholarship chair who recognizes members with weekly incentives to go the library...they have pledge class programs where older members mentor younger members on how to effectively study, where to apply for scholarships/internships--sometimes through networking with sorority alumnae in their field; they educate women on campus safety/safety in numbers, responsible drinking--and require members to uphold certain standards of behavior if they do choose to drink. Binge drinking is a problem across all campuses. And it's a prevalent problem whether you're in a sorority or not--but sororities do not allow alcohol inside their houses (insurance prohibits it) and they do have programming that will teach your daughter how to navigate social drinking (if she chooses to engage in it) responsibly and to look out for her sisters. An all-women's social space like this is an incredible opportunity to gain experience in leadership, voluntarism, fundraising, and planning and executing meetings and large and small events. Older adult professional women advisory boards advise the women in the chapter on finance, housing, scholarship, standards, marketing, and education. They provide leaderhip opportunities and connect women to other leaders on other campuses through attendance at conventions or leadership conferences where they will meet and learn from alumna women of all ages across the nation. The professional world is FULL of sorority women, PP. (And I don't mean the kind you think of from Animal House or MTV. Real sorority women are just...women who are attending college and looking for support and connection from a group that will lift them up and who they can lift up and lean on for mutual friendship and support.)

It's a pretty cool thing, PP. You are right to not want to "waste money on an activity that diverts" from your daughter's goal of getting a good start on a professional career. I just wouldn't be so quick to discount sorority membership as one of those diversions when it can be and often is so much more aligned with what you have said you want for your DD.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm. Rush seems fairly low key at many schools and DD has made many friends through sorority. Guess it depends on the school.

Yes. But OP specifically said that her DD is attending a large southern school. And that’s a different animal entirely. Once recruitment is over, though, the actual membership experience is fairly comparable. The girls at those schools tend to make strong connections through their sorority as well. Friendships formed among young women during the college years can be so meaningful. I’m glad there are still women-only groups in most universities (ahem—I’m looking at you, Harvard!) as I think women really benefit from banding together to encourage each other and be a support system. And interestingly, the All-sorority GPA is consistently higher on most campuses than the all-women’s GPA. So it looks like there are still some benefits of you want to find them.

Possibly because they share test files that other students don't have access to.

Test files??? Bwahahahaha! Oh...I'm sorry. Were you in college in like 1983?? No one has these mythical "test files" anymore. And professors are far too savvy to re-use the same tests at this point. It's the computer age, friend. They don't need to worry about mimeographing their ONE copy of the exam they've used since 1969!

But snark aside, it's likely b/c minimum GPAs are required to remain a member in good standing. Once you post a GPA below that minimum, most groups require that you attend proctored study hours at the library (and you are placed on "academic probation" as a warning to get your grades up). The sorority groups recognize that the women are at university PRIMARILY to get an education and they want to help each other focus on that goal. If you are messing around and unfocused, they will HELP YOU by providing corrective measures to get you back on track. Yes, they do want to keep their status and standard of a high-GPA sorority...but they also know that if they don't help their members prioritize academics above other things, those members could wind up failing out of school and that's lost revenue as well. It benefits the whole sorority AND the individual members when sororities care about grades and academic performance.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can’t stand organized groups that exclude people. It is s symptom of what is wrong in the US today. We need more inclusion and less exclusion.

It usually doesn't exclude totally though. Don't all girls end up with a bid somewhere? It might not be your first choice but that's life. No one is friends with everyone and you can't expect every person to like you and want to spend time with you.

Actually, it does totally exclude some.

I'm sure you can find 2 or 3 individuals this applies to across every campus from one year to the next. And that is basically because in a group of 1600 young women, there are going to be 2 to 3 women who are just socially awkward to the point of making everyone uncomfortable or they say inappropriate things that make them stand out in a negative way. On smaller campuses, sometimes a girl's "mean girl" reputation or "drug user" reputation precedes her and scares women away from wanting that particular girl to represent their group. For example, those girls whose racist snapchat caused such an uproar in MCPS a few weeks ago likely would not be carried by any house past the first round b/c no one wants to touch that hot potato issue of having a member with that sort of negativity. Sometimes it is not as obvious as that and there is nothing "wrong" with a girl but she just happens to be "dropped" by all groups. (Maybe one group thinks she appears too stuck up for them so they strike first by not inviting her...but then the group they thought she would choose drops her too.) This happens. It really does. Because it's not as though all the groups get together and compare lists. But it is rare to be dropped by ALL groups.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm. Rush seems fairly low key at many schools and DD has made many friends through sorority. Guess it depends on the school.

Yes. But OP specifically said that her DD is attending a large southern school. And that’s a different animal entirely. Once recruitment is over, though, the actual membership experience is fairly comparable. The girls at those schools tend to make strong connections through their sorority as well. Friendships formed among young women during the college years can be so meaningful. I’m glad there are still women-only groups in most universities (ahem—I’m looking at you, Harvard!) as I think women really benefit from banding together to encourage each other and be a support system. And interestingly, the All-sorority GPA is consistently higher on most campuses than the all-women’s GPA. So it looks like there are still some benefits of you want to find them.

Possibly because they share test files that other students don't have access to.