I’m not really sure the average size of a sorority pledge class, I think it really depends on the school. I’ve seen girls bragging about PC’s with 17 girls, which I find positively bewildering. Our newest PC has 73 beautiful perfect little babies. Which, mind you, is ridiculous, far too large, and means in one pledge class we have more members than there are in some entire fraternities (LOVE those odds at a mixer) but my point is, at my school the sororities are really big, and the number of members is steadily rising each year. When I was their age, 52 of my pledge sisters and I ran together, whilst singing our recruitment song in unison to the front door of the place we’d call home for the next four years. While, I wouldn’t change a thing about my sorority, I think there are some serious advantages to having smaller chapters, mainly, I imagine it being less cliquey. I can honestly say, *recruitment voice* that I really do love (and by love I mean genuinely like and would have lunch/coffee with and enjoy myself) every single one of my sisters (except for that one bitch whose very existence makes me want to become a drug lord so that I may numb the pain her being brings to the world…do you wanna buy some drugs?), but it is actually impossible to be best friends with all of them. I’ve noticed, because of this, that sororities tend to be broken down into smaller and smaller circles so that we may have the ostentatious love and pride that comes from a big group, while maintaining those much fewer, and more meaningful relationships.
I’m not going to touch on the misfits, or the legacies, or the girls who you just sort of forget about, because while they exist, they are few and far between, often disaffiliate, and are hardly the girls that come to mind when you think about what it means to be in a sorority, let alone what it means to be in your sorority. The vast majority of us remaining either really like your sorority or love your sorority and normally fit into one of the following categories.
The Girls who really like your sorority.
These girls really care about your chapter, as much as they are capable of caring about it. They will wear your letters, cheer loudly at competitions, get pumped about recruitment and cry at senior farewell just like anyone else. But can I say they really love your letters…maybe, but just noooot as much as some others, mainly because something is standing in the way of absolute obsession.
The Girls Who Pledged as sophomores
For whatever reason, these girls decided to wait to go through recruitment. Maybe they were transfer students, or maybe…actually, that’s the only good reason I can think of to wait, but I’m sure there are other explanations. I’ve noticed, however, that they tend to stick together. Not that they are outcasts by any means, they are a welcomed and wonderful part of any sorority, but they are definitely different from the freshmen who rushed and it’s plain to see. If they weren’t transfer students, these girls already have friends at this school. Good friends, in fact. They already love your school, and have had a year under their belts to make their experiences wonderful. They have other important people and obligations in their lives, and to them, your organization might not come first. For them sorority life is more of a means to enrich their college careers than it is a means to make their college career. Now, I don’t mean to say that I judge these girls, and I don’t doubt for a second that they really do love this sorority…I just feel like, they maybe don’t love it as much as the girls who pledged as freshmen and a liiiiiittle part of me can’t help but say “they’re not real seniors” at events when we’re separated by graduating class. I love my sorority more every single day, and every single day it becomes more a part of me. By the time these girls graduate, they’ll never meet their GG in either direction outside alumnae visits, they’ve only experienced three formals, and they’ve had 365 fewer days to fall in the kind of love that the other girls have.
The Family Gal
I don’t want to say that my Big isn’t my friend because she’s one of the greatest people I’ve ever known, but she’s like…not. She’s my Big. It’s different. We’ll meet each other out and explode into a pile of sunshine and glitter when we see each other, but we hardly pregame together. She knows literally everything about my life (and my friends’ lives), and can give me the perfect advice about anything and everything, but she’s not that close with my crew, and I’m not that close with hers. For the most part, she’s always had her friends, I’ve always had mine, and the time her and I spend together is generally one-on-one as Big and Little. I would call my Big/Little relationship a traditional one. I look up to her like she’s a literal god, and would do anything to be just like her, but we’re not like regular friends. The family gal, on the other hand, does not have this type of relationship with her Big. The two of them are inseparable…so much so, that she doesn’t have much of a relationship with her pledge class. She tried to at first, and everyone really liked her, but after revelation, her Big overtook her. The family gal went to all of her Big’s pregames, hung out with her Big’s friends, and became an adopted part of her Big’s pledge class. As her pledge sisters, you often find yourself saying, “you know who I wish I saw more of? Kylie Fucking Simmons!” (her middle name is always fucking). But, the family gal, once she’s a decided family gal, never comes around. She will leach onto her Big, and once the Biglet turns 21, she will begin to leach onto her Little. These are typically the girls who become deadbeat seniors because without their graduated Bigs, and without their pledge class bond, the sorority just isn’t the same.
The Die-Hards
The die-hards are the girls in your sorority who literally breathe your letters. They are obsessed and talk about it constantly. They are the difference between the girls in *** and *** girls. They’re the face of your chapter and can be divided further into two categories and I strongly believe that the way the older girls treat them is the main determinant of which category they’ll eventually fall into.
The House Girls
If any group of girls loves my sorority more than my friends and I, it’s the house girls…but it’s only because they loved it longer, and from the inside. These girls are the model pledges. As new members, they sign up for everything, and the older girls absolutely love them, which makes them love the organization even more. They are constantly praised, and often hand-picked for future E-boad positions, whether they know it at the time or not. They are the girls who voluntarily choose to live at the house…which I see as Big Brother (standards, e-board, etc) always watching but they saw as the heart and hub of all things ***. Even if they don’t live there, they are the girls who always stop by just because. They know all the gossip first, and they’re the girls who represent your letters to Panhel and IFC. They love your letters, because they are your letters, and they were your letters from day one.
The Degenerates
On the other hand, there are die-hards like me; the degenerates. During my new member period, I was equally as excited as the house girls, wanted to go to everything, and get to know all of my new sisters. But, the older girls need scapegoats. They need new members to make an example of. And that…was my friends and I. I swear to this day, that Bid Party was just a test right off the bat to see who the sloppiest girls would be, so everyone knew who would need to be sent to standards all the time. After being lectured extensively on our poor behavior, at like…everything, the other degenerates and I bonded over our rowdy ways and secret hatred for the seniors. Knowing that other girls were as wild as I was made me want to be around these girls more and fall into instant love with my pledge class. I knew who to call to pregame, who to brag to about the crazy night I had, and who scheme with when I got caught for it. And if we just so happened to drink before mandatory speakers and the town council meeting and as a result our sorority was known as “the alcoholics” by my senior year…then so be it. We embraced it, and we have those bitchy seniors to blame. (YOUR PLAN BACK-FIRED!) I don’t resent it at all. The house girls were meant to lead, and we were meant to be led, and/or be the bitchy ones and say the things that e-board couldn’t (like how mixing with one fraternity would be social suicide because they were losers, or how important it was to beat our rival because they are evil whores and everyone knows it) because it wasn’t politically correct when we were the older girls.
There was a fair amount of mixing of the cliques, and the house girls and the degenerates (and often the sophomores from the following PC) were all good friends always. They thought we were entertaining….we thought, thank God we’ll finally stop getting in trouble once they’re on e-board and by the end of it, we would all do just about anything for one another, and more importantly for our letters.
Nice Move280
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Veronica Ruckh
Veronica (@VeronicaRuckh) is the Director of Total Sorority Move for Grandex, Inc. After having spent her undergraduate years drinking $4 double LITs on a patio and drunk texting away potential suitors, she managed to graduate with an impressive GPA and an unimpressive engagement ring -- so unimpressive, in fact, some might say it's not there at all. Veronica has since been fulfilling her duties as "America's big," a title she gave to herself with the help of her giant ego. She has recently switched from vodka to wine on weekdays. Email her at veronica@grandex.co
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