College Sororities - Sad and Confused......kinda of long sorry

[bunny]

sounds like a lot of bitter people on this thread.

Why are the pretty girls always so mean? Except of course when they are helping homeless people or the blind. But the fat girl with buck teeth and frizzy hair sitting next to her in class- gag me with a spoon.

 

[freckles and boo]

sounds like a lot of bitter people on this thread.

I am not bitter about rejection because I would never have subjected myself to such an arbitrary process. It was obvious to me from the start that I was not sorority material. That had nothing to do with my looks or my grades or my personality and everything to do with my self-respect. To me the greek system is a perpetuation of high school cliques. Perhaps there is a service element, but is also conformity element that makes me cringe just thinking about it.

 

[Karibeth19]

Just for curiousity, I checked out the national website for Tri-Delta Sorority. I then looked at the website some chapters had. I saw no minorities, no handicapped girls, and no overweight girls in any of the pictures. I remember from my college days that these girls were all beautiful and popular. Please don't tell me that has changed and from the photos I saw it hasn't. Sororities are social groups who do volunteer work to gain credibility. That is not their primary focus.

Go to this page: http://www.alphachiomega.org/about_axo/notable_alumnae.asp

Scroll through the list of "notable" alumni. You will see a very notable minority among our alumni.

You absolutely CANNOT make a judgement about a sorority based on photos on a website, and to do so is completely unfair. You have real sorority women here on this board who have said time and time again that there are indeed minority, handicapped, and overweight sorority members, and yet you decide to belive a small sampling of pictures. They have said time and time again that philanthropic work is an important part of the sorority experience, and yet others essentially have said "whatever". They have kindly explained to the OP the selection process, and tried to make her and her DD feel better by saying she was not rejected because of who she is, but because of her grades and/or class status, yet those explanations are not believed. They are the ones who have been or are currently in the sororities, who know what really and truly goes on, and all they are trying to do is be kind and helpful by explaining the sorority experience, yet the others on this board continue to be closed minded and judgemental and insist that they're not telling the truth. I find it extremely sad...

 

[Nennie]

Go to this page: http://www.alphachiomega.org/about_axo/notable_alumnae.asp

Scroll through the list of "notable" alumni. You will see a very notable minority among our alumni.

....and suddenly the thread gets quiet. LOL!!!!

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

Go to this page: http://www.alphachiomega.org/about_axo/notable_alumnae.asp

You have real sorority women here on this board who have said time and time again that there are indeed minority, handicapped, and overweight sorority members, and yet you decide to belive a small sampling of pictures. They have said time and time again that philanthropic work is an important part of the sorority experience,

Ok, will all the minority, handicapped and overweight (at the time you pledged) sorority sisters please chime in here?

I'd love to hear from you. It would certainly give me a different view than what I've seen.

Also, sisters, I'd love some detailed summations of the philanthropic work YOU PERSONALLY did while at college through your sorority. I want specifics. I want the name of the soup kitchen you donated time to.

And let me also point out I have no personal ax to grind-never pledged, never wanted to, never worried about it. I just want you to put your money where your mouth is.

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

....and suddenly the thread gets quiet. LOL!!!!

You've got Condoleeza Rice and about a hundred blonde meteorologists. And Trista Rehn of Bachelorette fame. Wowza.

 

[Nennie]

You've got Condoleeza Rice and about a hundred blonde meteorologists. And Trista Rehn of Bachelorette fame. Wowza.

And you have a nasty attitude, yet you expect people to take the time to list all of the charity work they've done for your personal review??? You have formed your opinion, and obviously there is nothing any of us can say to change it...so why bother!

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

And you have a nasty attitude, yet you expect people to take the time to list all of the charity work they've done for your personal review??? You have formed your opinion, and obviously there is nothing any of us can say to change it...so why bother!

Ah, the happy sound of denial.

You're taking the time to argue with me, why not give me a few charitable bon mots?

Not for my personal review. There are about a thousand hits on this thread. Lots of people would like to know, I wager.

Anyhoo, fighting with catty women was *precisely* why I avoided sororities and darned if I'm not wasting my time doing now! . Shame on me!

Off to do good, instead.

www.savethehorses.org

 

[Nennie]

Nah...afterall I'm just a blonde bobble head who was too busy partying and mingling with frat boys to do anything that you'd deem "worthy."

Other ladies in my sorority, however, did the following:

Raised money for Susan G Komen
Volunteered at the Race of the Cure
Handed out breast cancer self-exam cards
Raised money for Project Lou
Raised money for Ronald McDonald House
Volunteered at Ronald McDonald House

My sisters said it felt really good to do those things. I was too hung over from partying all night and bleaching my hair...so I'll just have to take their word for it.

 

[Karibeth19]

Also, sisters, I'd love some detailed summations of the philanthropic work YOU PERSONALLY did while at college through your sorority. I want specifics. I want the name of the soup kitchen you donated time to.

I think that is extremely rude, but fine, I'll tell you. It's been 20 years, and I don't remember names of places, so I'm sure my description will not be detailed enough for you, but here goes.

Every Christmas for the entire 4 years I was in the house, we would go shopping to pick out toys, mostly paid from from house finances, but many paid for out of member's pockets. We would wrap the toys and then go to the local children's shelter and throw a huge Christmas party for the kids. We brought them treats, sang Christmas carols, let them open their gifts, and spent a lot of one-on-one time with the kids, usually playing with their new toys. We did pretty much the same thing for a nursing home in town. We would go spend time with the Seniors living there, sing carols, and just have conversations with them. We also raised a lot of money for our charities through fund raisers. What people on the outside see as frivolous parties, are really time consuming fund raisers that make a lot of money, and our house held several campus events to earn money for our philanthropies. We spent many hours standing in our house parking lot selling spaces on football game days, the money earned going to our charities. We raised money and collected clothes and toiletries to donate to the local battered women's shelter. During the 1st Gulf War, we made care packages to send to soldiers overseas and participated in a military pen-pal system to exchange letters of encouragement from home.

Those are just a few of the things I can remember; I'm sure there were more. I am also sure this was just a waste of time, because I can tell from your attitude that nothing I say will change your mind.

 

[Karibeth19]

You've got Condoleeza Rice and about a hundred blonde meteorologists. And Trista Rehn of Bachelorette fame. Wowza.

UMMM, no, did you actually read the list???

Eleanor Neil Coppola (Alpha Psi, UCLA) — Shot footage for the award-winning documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, which chronicles the making of the film Apocalypse Now. Has also published a journal kept during the filming entitled Notes.

Georgie Anne Geyer (Gamma, Northwestern) — Journalist. Author of several books including a biography of Fidel Castro. Her column on international, domestic, and women’s affairs and U.S. foreign policy appears in approximately 120 newspapers in the United States and Latin America.

Tami Lane (Zeta Eta, Bradley University) — Tami Lane won an Academy Award for her work as the lead prosthetic makeup artist on the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. She was responsible for leading a team of 42 makeup and prosthetic experts who often worked on more than 170 creatures each day. Only two, Lane and Howard Berger, were specifically named for this film. Lane has worked on major films including The Green Mile, Vampire, The Lord of the Rings, and the upcoming Superman Returns. In 2002, Lane was a member of the makeup team who earned an Oscar nomination for work in New Zealand on The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Agnes Eckhard Nixon (Gamma, Northwestern) — Creator of daytime television dramas such as “All My Children,” “One Life to Live,” “Loving,” and “As the World Turns.” Former chief writer for various daytime dramas and inductee into the Broadcast Hall of Fame.

Dr. Condoleezza Rice (Gamma Delta, Denver) — Current U.S. Secretary of State. Former National Security Advisor under President George W. Bush and former Provost of Stanford University.

Alma Gates Scroggins (Alpha Upsilon, Alabama) — Executive vice president and chief financial officer of CNN

Victoria Toensing (Alpha Mu, Indiana) — Attorney in private practice and former deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department. Successfully pursued and sought the arrest of Iraq’s former leading bomb courier and terrorist.

Sherron Watkins (Alpha Phi, Texas) — Sherron Watkins is the former Vice President of Enron Corporation who alerted then-CEO Ken Lay to accounting irregularities within the company. TIME magazine named Sherron, along with two others, as their 2002 Persons of the Year for being "people who did right just by doing their jobs rightly." Now an independent speaker and consultant, she co-authored "Power Failure: the Inside Story of the Collapse of Entron" (Doubleday, 2003) She is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a Masters in Professional Accounting as well as a B.B.A. in accounting and business honors from University of Texas at Austin.

Pretty remarkable women, I think...

 

[friendofgusgus]

Overweight sorority member here.

I also pledged my house as a "mature sudent" when I was 26 years old.

Neither of those things kept me from joining my house. They didn't matter to my sisters and they didn't matter to me when I was on the other side of rush.

The treasurer of my house was Latino. Not that it mattered to us.

Our pledge class president was Arabic. Not that it mattered to those of who elected her.

My house's charter was revoked by our National in the 1970's for admittimg Jewish members. We re-founded later on based on alumi support.

We are historically a very forward-thinking group of young women who fought and lost - for a time - before our National organization caught up with us. For the most part, we are cool people.

I also cannot recall seeing our chapter's house on the web site. Who cared? We were too busy studying for Organic Chem!

Are there houses where these things might have been problems? Who cares! I wouldn't have been interested in belonging to those groups anyway. They could have cut me or I could have cut them during rush but the end result was the same. I found a house where I was valued and where my values were shared. Many other posters found the same.

Just like everything, YMMV. But that doesn't mean that such places don't exist.

There are also systems other than the NPC. My campus had African-American sororities and they were preferred by most African-American women there. They are not part of the NPC and have completely different rules for rushing, membership and admittance. We used to speculate that an African-American pledge with a good GPA could write her own ticket. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to see that in action while I was there - we did not have any African-American pledges.

 

[Deb & Bill]

I didn't see Mother Theresa on the list though.

 

[bunny]

I am sure sororities do a lot of good work for the community, but I find it really hard to believe the selection process is not based on looks. (BTW, Condi Rice is a beautiful black woman.) What group of cheerleaders would want an ugly girl going around campus wearing a sweatshirt with their letters on it? Sororities tend to have a uniform look to them. If that is true, just admit it. Cheerleaders can admit that to be one you need to be slim, athletic, and beautiful (at least at the college level and up).

As for the OP, encourage your daughter to do something else. If she is already being turned down because she wasn't a freshman, one more year is just going to hurt her even more. There are millions of smart, successful women who never belonged to a sorority or men to a fraternity. I would bet Bill Gates was never a member of one. I joined groups in college based on common interests such a foreign language club and a Christian organization. I made some of my best friends in the dorms. Just tell her to enjoy her college days. They go by way too fast.

 

[Nennie]

I didn't see Mother Theresa on the list though.

She was a Kappa Delta

 

[Karibeth19]

So, let me get this straight...Sororities are bad because the girls who join are shallow, superficial, and judgemental, and do not include girls based on their true self worth, which is demeaning.

But, it's OK to judge those sorority women based on single experiences, heresay, or a few bios or pictures on a website. It's OK to say that because they are blonde and pretty, women like Trista or a few meteorologists don't matter; their contributions are not substantial enough to be worthy. And even those who have made very worthy contributions don't matter because, in the end, they're just sorority girls.

Hmmmmm, sounds very hypocritical to me.

 

[lillygator]

It's not worth it....they are going to keep their judgements the same no matter what!

 

[Deb & Bill]

She was a Kappa Delta

 

[daisax]

But, it's OK to judge those sorority women based on single experiences, heresay, or a few bios or pictures on a website.

I never had any contact with the sororities at my university, or anybody who belonged to one. So I have no personal experience.

I do have a philosophical objection to "auditioning" for the part of lifelong sister/friend.

My (white) best friend went to Indiana U and got excited about pledging, then looked around and saw no minority women. She asked, and was told "Oh, we'd love to have them but they wouldn't feel comfortable." She took that as her cue to walk away.

 

[fall08CP]

As a current sorority member (and rush starts on Sunday-woohoo!) I would have to respectfully disagree with many of the posters on here. I am a part of a local sorority on a private school campus, but we do things much the same as our national counterparts. I can honestly say that my sorority, and 6/7 of the other sororities on campus, do not discriminate based on looks. The 7th one I don't know much about so I can't make that judgment. I would love to show pictures of my sorority so that you could see the diversity- we have African Americans, South Africans, Asians, thin girls, fat girls, stunning girls, average girls.. you name it, we have it...Greek Life on my campus donates more money than any other organization to our annual "Dance Marathon" and "Relay for Life" events.
Perhaps my campus is not the norm; I don't know, it's the only one I have ever attended. However, I know the overall view of Greek Life is very positive on my campus and only 5-10 girls out of 400+ rushing are not placed at the end of Rush. Most of them rush the second year and get a bid. We have a mutual decision- rushees cut us but we don't cut them. We have closed events that are "invite only" but there is always a following open event that anyone may attend.

OP, I'm pretty sure I know what campus your daughter attended. That school has a VERY competitive rush and out of my 10 friends that rushed in the past year, only one got a bid- and she's a legacy. I don't like how that school cuts so quickly and how short rush is but she really shouldn't take it personally. Hundreds of girls are rushing and the sororities hate cutting just as much as the rushees hate being cut.. I promise. If you have any other greek life questions, please feel free to PM. It's been one of the best choices I've ever made and kept super involved with campus activities. However, it is not for everyone.