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

[arminnie]

Gosh, when did you sorority girls find time to go to class?

Oh I never had to go to class. I took 21 hours a semester and made a 4.0 while only occasionally stopping by for class. That's why the sororities like smart girls.

 

[OK!]

THANK YOU. I wanted to say something, but it would have come out downright ugly.

Same here. And "ugly" might have been too pretty a word for it.

 

[ekball]

I have to agree here... when I told my parents I wanted to join, they were worried about the financial aspect of it all. I did not come from money...I am sure my parents raised my brothers and I with somewhere between $35-45,000 a year.

But, when we added it all up...living in the KD house and paying dues were only $5 more per month than living off campus and renting a house with a few friends. Yes, I said $5 more per month...If I could afford to do it, anyone could!

And for a previous poster who 'oh so nicely' asked for what we PERSONALLY DID...yeah...be prepared for lists and lists of things from certain people here, because most of the sisters on this site have worked their tails off to do good things for others.

Some of you say that you don't like a 'group or society' that is based upon looks, or what ever and you are doing the same thing- you are saying that all "pretty people" are snobs and stuck up? Hmm, that makes a lot of sense. You get mad at others for it, yet you are doing it yourselves.

I looked up some facts and history from what I did in my house (WHAT I PERSONALLY DID IN MY HOUSE...REMEMBER, this is what you asked for???) here we go...

in the first year of living in the house:

I led a pancake feed for over 2,000 people in order to raise money for our local abuse shelter. They needed a new house and our sorority made a huge money goal to donate to build 1 shelter (yes, our sorority said they'd take care of 100% of the re-build)...Leading the pancake feed was a lot of work. I spent hours on the phone tring to get deals with grocery stores, I made fliers, I did interviews on the radio shows and was on local news twice to promote this feed. Our goal was to get 1,500 people attending the feed, but because of all my work in promoting, we had exactly 2,245 people. Not only did I LEAD this feed, I was out there making the pancakes, making the bacon, serving the people who attended. that project alone took in more than $13,000 and I felt pretty good about what we accomplished.

I was a big sister every year I was in my house. I was assigned to one girl from the shelter (as each girl in our house was) and I would spend anywhere from 1-4 hours with her at some point durring the week. I took her out of the shelter, we went and did fun activities together. I got her involved in girl scouts and that is when I, myself, became a full time helper/leader of our troop. I led girl scout meetings, organized special events for the girls and set up (and attended) camps with them. I felt wonderful to give back to these girls, because I saw that they truely enjoyed it. Three of the girls from my troop were from the abuse shelter, 5 were from an intercity school that never got to experiance much besides being home with no parents and going to school...they truely enjoyed the experiance and I was happy to help in any way I could.

Another thing that I personally did was take part in the habitat for humanity home BUILDING projects. Every single year I would be out there BUILDING the actual homes...our sorority raised money to donate to Hab. for Humanity and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US was out there for several hours working on these houses!! Using hammers, saws, painting, laying flooring...what ever they needed us to do. I, personally, took part in building 8 homes in the four years I was in KD durring college. Not only did we build these homes, we worked on getting them furnished...stoves, fridges, beds, bedding, a few nice toys for each of the kids, we'd give them gift cards to get things they needed...SOME OF THE HOMES WE BUILT WERE NICER THAN THE ONE I GREW UP IN (other girls said the same thing about their homes!)

In my second and third years in the house, we started doing training at the shelter. We would teach women how to do sucessful interviews. I did several hours of the training there. YES, I MYSELF, actually went there and did the training. I'd bring some pizzas (using funds from our kd house account) and the women would actually be excited to have us come and spend time with them. We were there a lot durring my years...we'd go and take part in the game nights and their bible study nights. It was an amazing experiance!

Every year our house made blankets for several different things. We made blankets for the domestic abuse shelter, for the homeless shelters, for the families that moved into the habitat for humanity homes, for other college students (yes, other college students- it didn't matter how they looked, or how much they weighed...but it did matter how much money they had- because these were BROKE college kids (just like myself and 1/2 of the others in my house!!!) We did pizza party nights for dorms. We'd pick a floor from a dorm every other week and we ordered them all pizza. One of the girls that was in our dorm worked at a Dominos pizza and she'd always get us some good deals.

We had sign ups for people wanting free tutoring from girls in our house...I was only a tutor 3 semesters, but I had a lot going on! We found these students through the campus offices...they were students who REQUESTED ASSISTANCE with paying for tutoring...they were the ones requesting it, we offered it!

Well, I'm happy to say that in my 4th semester of living in the house, we had finally raised enough of the funds so they started building the new shelter for families of domestic abuse. It was built in less than a year and when it was almost complete, all of my sisters and I went in and painted it. We did ALL of the inside rooms. We saved $$$ by painting it ourselves, so we had some cash left over. Just enough to build a beautiful play room. We had two sisters in the house who were very artistic and painted kids pictures all over the walls, we made a built in gym and it was wonderful.
For those of you who believe sorority women don't do any thing for anyone but themselves, I really wish you could have seen this project at its completion! And, I would have loved for you to see those kids and moms faces when they walked in to check the place out. Some of these kids were crying tears of joy when they saw their new play room...and the families went from having to share several rooms with eachother, to EACH of them having their own "mini-suites" with their own bedrooms and bathroom (each family got their own "suite")...So, for those of you who don't believe that great things are done through sororities, I'm sorry that you believe that. Because many of us girls have worked very hard to change that "bad reputation" but obviously the bad has been out-weighing the good. I'm sorry for that...there is nothing that we can do about the bad ones...we can just talk about our own personal experiances and what we have done.

AOT

 

[bgirl781]

I am currently a junior at a small private school, and a member of a sorority (the same one as SomedayI'llBe, in fact). I absolutely have loved being a part of it. I decided to go through recruitment my freshman year, because people signed up for recruitment were allowed to move in a day earlier, and because I had heard from a lot of people that it was a great way to meet people. (I was coming 1600 miles to this school). I never thought I would actually join a sorority.

The way we do recruitment is that there are three party nights. There are also three houses. On the first night, there are four party rotations, where all the new girls are split up into one of the four groups. We go into the three houses one at a time, and at the end of the night, we rank which were our favorites. On the second night, you have the option to go back to all three houses, for three party rotations. I went back to two, because I didn't feel at all comfortable with the other one. At the end of the night, you rank the houses you went to. Then you can be invited back to two houses for pref night. I was invited back to the two I had been to on the 2nd night. After that, you pref. I had wound up talking with the same girl all three nights at my sorority. We talked about silly stuff like marching band, and had an instant connection. I preffed for this house, and when I received a bid on bid day, I was ecstatic.

Having gone through recruitment on the other side twice now, it is more intense and more nervewracking already being in the house. There are girls you want so badly, who may not choose to come back to your house, and it's heartbreaking. It is as much, if not more so, their choice as it is your choice as a house during voting, because their preference has to match with your preference.

But I digress. I love my house. We are very diverse, both ethnically, size-wise, regionally, and across the majors offered at my school. We are known to be the "smarter" house, where most of the girls don't party. I love it so much, and my sisters are my family. We don't live in the houses, which I enjoy, but my three roommates are all my sisters anyway. And had I not been in my sorority, I probably wouldn't have met any of them, since all four of us are in different schools.

And since all of you have been wanting to see pictures and stuff, here is a picture of all but a few members of our house before we went off to initiation.

By the way, hazing is so completely unacceptable that new girls are not even required to do study hours until their second semester. That said, as far as GPA goes, no new girls are allowed back for the 2nd night of recruitment unless they have a 3.0 HS GPA.

 

[OK!]

OMg....yeah..this doesn't happen anymore...and that is taken straight from a made for tv lifetime movie. We have a strict "no hazing" policy. I was almost kind of disappointed when we didn't have to do anything stupid to join....nothing, nada, in fact pledges are treated like sisters from the day they walk in on bid day. We want to keep our sisters, not run them off by degrading them...we try to build self esteem, not knock it down. I know that is a huge pill for some of you to swallow, but our intentions are good. Once again....disclaimer -- this is my sorority experience.

That was my experience as well, back in 1991. No hazing whatsoever, and on my campus, they went so far as to have anti-hazing workshops every semester that had mandatory attendance policies.

 

[jezebella]

OT --- how many KD's are there on here?

 

[mykidsand_i]

Proud to be one of the KD's here...if anyone is thinking of joining a sorority, there are many good ones, if you have good grades and can keep up with school, fundraisers, volunteer work all at the same time...you should check out KD (KD is not the only good one...that is just where my good experiance is)

 

[bgirl781]

So how many AXOs are there on here? Besides you, lil, and Karibeth, I'm assuming?

 

[Karibeth19]

Yes, I'm an AXO!

 

[onelilspark]

OT --- how many KD's are there on here?

Proud to be one of the KD's here...if anyone is thinking of joining a sorority, there are many good ones, if you have good grades and can keep up with school, fundraisers, volunteer work all at the same time...you should check out KD (KD is not the only good one...that is just where my good experiance is)

You both already know, but I'm a KD

 

[Deb & Bill]

I'm a GDI.

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

I guess the LMIT's rejected you....

I'm a GDI.

 

[friendofgusgus]

XO here.

White carnation, anyone?

 

[sturdypeasantstock]

But this isn't a job.

This isn't a school.

This isn't even a sports team.

This is a 'club'. This is a group of women who's main purpose is to create a "sisterhood" while helping the community (according to you and others). So why should grades matter? Why should age matter? Why should your mother having been a member matter? Why should ANYTHING matter beyond being enrolled at that school and having an interest to join?

If I want to join Kiwanis or the Lions club, I can. Both are service organizations which do fundraising and community outreach and do not have a list of restrictions on who can and can't join. The fact that sororities are NOT run in a similar fashion makes me think that they are really not as altruistic as they claim.

Great post

 

[sturdypeasantstock]

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.

Good for your friend for walking away.

 

[sturdypeasantstock]

I have to agree here... when I told my parents I wanted to join, they were worried about the financial aspect of it all. I did not come from money...I am sure my parents raised my brothers and I with somewhere between $35-45,000 a year.

But, when we added it all up...living in the KD house and paying dues were only $5 more per month than living off campus and renting a house with a few friends. Yes, I said $5 more per month...If I could afford to do it, anyone could!

And for a previous poster who 'oh so nicely' asked for what we PERSONALLY DID...yeah...be prepared for lists and lists of things from certain people here, because most of the sisters on this site have worked their tails off to do good things for others.

Some of you say that you don't like a 'group or society' that is based upon looks, or what ever and you are doing the same thing- you are saying that all "pretty people" are snobs and stuck up? Hmm, that makes a lot of sense. You get mad at others for it, yet you are doing it yourselves.

I looked up some facts and history from what I did in my house (WHAT I PERSONALLY DID IN MY HOUSE...REMEMBER, this is what you asked for???) here we go...

in the first year of living in the house:

I led a pancake feed for over 2,000 people in order to raise money for our local abuse shelter. They needed a new house and our sorority made a huge money goal to donate to build 1 shelter (yes, our sorority said they'd take care of 100% of the re-build)...Leading the pancake feed was a lot of work. I spent hours on the phone tring to get deals with grocery stores, I made fliers, I did interviews on the radio shows and was on local news twice to promote this feed. Our goal was to get 1,500 people attending the feed, but because of all my work in promoting, we had exactly 2,245 people. Not only did I LEAD this feed, I was out there making the pancakes, making the bacon, serving the people who attended. that project alone took in more than $13,000 and I felt pretty good about what we accomplished.

I was a big sister every year I was in my house. I was assigned to one girl from the shelter (as each girl in our house was) and I would spend anywhere from 1-4 hours with her at some point durring the week. I took her out of the shelter, we went and did fun activities together. I got her involved in girl scouts and that is when I, myself, became a full time helper/leader of our troop. I led girl scout meetings, organized special events for the girls and set up (and attended) camps with them. I felt wonderful to give back to these girls, because I saw that they truely enjoyed it. Three of the girls from my troop were from the abuse shelter, 5 were from an intercity school that never got to experiance much besides being home with no parents and going to school...they truely enjoyed the experiance and I was happy to help in any way I could.

Another thing that I personally did was take part in the habitat for humanity home BUILDING projects. Every single year I would be out there BUILDING the actual homes...our sorority raised money to donate to Hab. for Humanity and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US was out there for several hours working on these houses!! Using hammers, saws, painting, laying flooring...what ever they needed us to do. I, personally, took part in building 8 homes in the four years I was in KD durring college. Not only did we build these homes, we worked on getting them furnished...stoves, fridges, beds, bedding, a few nice toys for each of the kids, we'd give them gift cards to get things they needed...SOME OF THE HOMES WE BUILT WERE NICER THAN THE ONE I GREW UP IN (other girls said the same thing about their homes!)

In my second and third years in the house, we started doing training at the shelter. We would teach women how to do sucessful interviews. I did several hours of the training there. YES, I MYSELF, actually went there and did the training. I'd bring some pizzas (using funds from our kd house account) and the women would actually be excited to have us come and spend time with them. We were there a lot durring my years...we'd go and take part in the game nights and their bible study nights. It was an amazing experiance!

Every year our house made blankets for several different things. We made blankets for the domestic abuse shelter, for the homeless shelters, for the families that moved into the habitat for humanity homes, for other college students (yes, other college students- it didn't matter how they looked, or how much they weighed...but it did matter how much money they had- because these were BROKE college kids (just like myself and 1/2 of the others in my house!!!) We did pizza party nights for dorms. We'd pick a floor from a dorm every other week and we ordered them all pizza. One of the girls that was in our dorm worked at a Dominos pizza and she'd always get us some good deals.

We had sign ups for people wanting free tutoring from girls in our house...I was only a tutor 3 semesters, but I had a lot going on! We found these students through the campus offices...they were students who REQUESTED ASSISTANCE with paying for tutoring...they were the ones requesting it, we offered it!

Well, I'm happy to say that in my 4th semester of living in the house, we had finally raised enough of the funds so they started building the new shelter for families of domestic abuse. It was built in less than a year and when it was almost complete, all of my sisters and I went in and painted it. We did ALL of the inside rooms. We saved $$$ by painting it ourselves, so we had some cash left over. Just enough to build a beautiful play room. We had two sisters in the house who were very artistic and painted kids pictures all over the walls, we made a built in gym and it was wonderful.
For those of you who believe sorority women don't do any thing for anyone but themselves, I really wish you could have seen this project at its completion! And, I would have loved for you to see those kids and moms faces when they walked in to check the place out. Some of these kids were crying tears of joy when they saw their new play room...and the families went from having to share several rooms with eachother, to EACH of them having their own "mini-suites" with their own bedrooms and bathroom (each family got their own "suite")...So, for those of you who don't believe that great things are done through sororities, I'm sorry that you believe that. Because many of us girls have worked very hard to change that "bad reputation" but obviously the bad has been out-weighing the good. I'm sorry for that...there is nothing that we can do about the bad ones...we can just talk about our own personal experiances and what we have done.

The charity work that you did was wonderful. But there are young women who have a lot to offer that would love to be part of a sorority and do the charity work that goes along with it, but they don't have the chance because they don't get a bid.

Yes, I know there are other organizations - i.e. Kiwanis - they can get involved in to help the community.

 

[sturdypeasantstock]

I think it's great that sororities do charity work, but where is their charity towards the young women who don't receive bids?

 

[sturdypeasantstock]

Hi

Sorry this is kinda of long

My DD is attending a Big Ten School. She has dreamt of being in the Greek System since junior high.

When she started college she made some bad choices about grades and couldn't rush. Since then she has worked SO HARD to pull up her GPA so she could rush.

DD is a pretty girl, receives many compliments, works hard yet struggles with self confidence (don't most of us).

Rush has been tough on her - the houses she thought she really liked didn't want her from the start. It came down to three houses - two of them she didn't feel comfortable with and the third one she decided that she liked because they seemed "real" not as interested in how deep your tan was or if you were a Barbie Doll.....

Well today was the final choices for the "formal" interview and she wasn't asked back to any of them. She is DEVASTATED to say the least.....I'm hundreds of miles away and my heart is breaking for her.

What is most frustrating no one will explain the process? Her Rho Gamma (mentor) couldn't explain how the recruitment is run because each house has their own rules. And you can't ask a member of the house about it because it is against policy Some secret society

DD tells me that the boys have it much easier - they attend an informal get together for an afternoon or evening and then are told if it is a good fit or not. The girls have to jump through hoops socially as well as appearance. They were given guidelines as to what they were allowed to wear to each interview- we had to go shopping over winter break for appropriate clothing

MY HEART IS BREAKING FOR HER

Yes I know she will get over this but it is a major blow to her and of course I the mom am hurting 10 times worse. She doesn't want to talk to anyone right now - feeling like a loser.

Help me understand if you can.

Thanks
Have a Magical Disney Day

Please teach me how to reply without quoting so much, lol.

OP - My heart breaks for your DD and for you. I hope that things will work out for your DD in terms of finding friends and organizations on campus that make her happy. Kudos to you for being such a thoughtful, caring parent.

 

[LibertySq100]

To The Op:
I'm sorry to hear what has happened to your daughter.
I myself am an alumni of an International Fraternity, many of which chapters are located on large campuses. My college was very small, and both the few fraternities and sororities on campus would usually never not give a "bid" to anyone who was interested in pledging unless we found some serious issues with their character or attitude. That was my experience.
My cousin was in a fraternity too at the same time. His was the "Football Fraternity" on the campus of his College. They would only party with the "Cheerleader" sorority on campus. I went over to a party one time and nobody that was greek at this party could even recite the greek alphabet. I was shocked. Pledging for them consisted of cleaning the house, serving the brothers and basically being someone's slave. That isn't what pledging should be AT ALL.

My point is: Some campuses foster this greek elitism based on looks or/and athletic ability. At my college, many students didn't play sports because they didn't have time. We were even told some of the coaches would discourage anyone to join a fraternity/sorority so they wouldn't lose their athletes.

My advice? Have her look into starting her own sorority. I bet she isn't the only female not to receive a bid. Sororities and Fraternities are still flourishing (mine opened 27 new chapters in 2 years recently!) and if the College/University is open to it, she should investigate other National Sororities whom might be interested coming on campus. What better to be one of the first to start your own chapter of a sorority!

 

[Rafiki Rafiki Rafiki]

I went to a school where the Greek system was really big, and I went through freshman rush. I was cut on pref night for the one I intended to pledge.

During open rush, I ended up pledging my second-choice sorority because a friend was a pledge there. I thought it would be a great opportunity to make friends and have access to fraternity guys who had already had an "in" for their future.

I was sorely mistaken. I was told what I could wear and couldn't wear, how my makeup was to look every day, and what I could and couldn't say in public. I once stepped out the back door of the sorority house with hot rollers in my hair (yeah, back in the day!) to check the mail. That prompted a call-down by three really nasty leaders of the house. They threatened to kick me out...even though the back door was not visible to anyone except the sorority members...and even though the mailbox was two feet from the door.

The costs for the house were high, the designated "friendships" were worthless, and the so-called "community service" was faked hours to placate panhellenic. The experience ended up being so bad that I left the university.

I'm glad to say that sorority is no longer chartered on the campus I attended.