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Old 10-02-2009, 01:45 AM
BrandNewAdvisor BrandNewAdvisor is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: NYC for now
Posts: 36
I pledged a low tier sorority and I have not regretted it.

When I joined my chapter it was generally regarded as the worst on campus. I joined during informal recruitment, this was after a formal recruitment where quota was in the mid 20s and my chapter took 1 new member. After the informal period the pledge class was at 5. Total was 50 and my chapter was at 25. All the other chapters were at or over total.

It was hard at first especially walking around in a bid day shirt and having friends make comments. I didn't understand because my experience with my sisters and my pledge class was the complete opposite of the stereotype. We were social, athletic (we were all involved with at least one sports team), and straight.

We were also motivated. A group of 10 of us (about half the chapter) were generally fed up with the crappy reputation. We had one or two mixers a semester when other sororities had that many a week. We also had business type meetings 3 to 5 nights a week (I'm not exaggerating). By my sophomore year my entire pledge class held offices and we were determined to change.

We graduated a lot of dead weight and didn't let anymore in. We looked for quality members not just numbers, sometimes at the dismay of our advisor and nationals. We made every effort to be social and social in an attractive way. There was one sister who continually acted inappropriately in social situations. Instead of letting her get away with it, we reported her butt to standards and got it taken care of. We made friends and joined other groups and clubs. We always spoke positively of the sorority in public and kept drama behind closed doors (something not done At All in the past).

I ran recruitment my junior year and had a good long chat with out recruitment advisor about how things got so bad and looked at where exactly things were going wrong.
Progress for us was having girls put us on the pref card at all. Generally when we were all that was left for a girl in recruitment she dropped. Our overlap was with the most popular chapter on campus and most girls suicided.

Long story short after much effort by my senior year we took quota plus, had mixers every other week. We handled business more efficiently and only had one or two business meetings a week. Only the people who needed to be there were and it helped with burnout. We were at 40 members the highest in 8 years. I visited campus the year after I graduated and was hanging out at my fiance's fraternity. I was asked if I belonged to a sorority by a freshmen and when I answered it was the first time it elicited a positive enthusatic response.

I just started advising at a chapter that is in a similar situation that mine was in and hopefully I can help them to turn it around. You just have to want it bad enough.

Your sorority experience is entirely what you make of it. Join the lower-tiered sorority and make it what you want it to be. Be willing to work and ask for help when you need it, from the national organization and from panhellenic.

Forgive the long post, this is a topic I feel really strongly about. If all those girls that suicided decided to join my chapter it would have never gotten as bad as it did and could have turned around so much faster.

Last edited by BrandNewAdvisor; 10-02-2009 at 01:50 AM.
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