My chapter typically held initiation about 8 weeks after pledging. 8 weeks is plenty of time to learn the sorority's history, your chapter's history, meet your pledge sisters, meet most if not all of the active sisters, and fulfill other new member obligations (like earning pearls - AEPhi does that too, only we have 27
).
Another sorority on my campus initiated after only 4 weeks. Now that's a little too short a time!!
We didn't wait for grades to initiate; we used the GPA we had (high school GPA for 1st semester freshmen) as one of our criteria for extending a bid, and if the new sister later didn't make grades, it was no different from an older sister not making grades... you'd meet with the scholarship chair, draw up a study plan, etc.
I don't understand how a sorority can get rid of the idea of testing the NMs - don't you have to know your sorority's history?? My chapter did have a rule, though, that at least one sister had to sit with the new member class and take the test with them; that way the NMs weren't being "forced" to do something no sister was doing. But nothing happened to the sister if she failed
