Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums College Young college student-- Rush-- Y/N?

I have never liked sororities, and my eldest knows that. However, she decided to join a sorority at school. She has a job four hours a week that pays pretty well for doing very little($16/hr), so she is covering all of the dues.

Since she is now 18 (17 when the school year started) and she is paying for the sorority, it is her call. However, if she was 15, I might think about it differently. The sorority she joined has a fairly high minimum GPA to avoid being put on probation (think it is 3.4), and it seems to be consistently the highest GPA sorority on campus, so I think the kids are probably okay. She already had to appeal a fine (and won) because she didn't attend some sort of sorority event because she was busy doing some other activity. I think her sport conflicts with an upcoming sorority event - we'll see how that goes.

Agreed, however colleges do not collaborate or partner with parents, therefore a child on campus has some autonomy.

I went to school a year early at 17 (just turned) and I was never treated any different to any 18 year old freshman. The school only cared when evaluating me for admission. And since in my state K cutoff used to be in Dec, in the fall there are many 17 year old freshman. My own daughter started university across country before she turned 18. Universities collaborate with the student, not the parents. My daughters school was very clear about that at parent orientation.

Parental responsibilities never end in my mind anyway, perhaps others more easily dismiss them. Parents aren't always around to step in, even at 15, if you think otherwise you live in a different world than I. The goal as a parent of course is to raise your children to think on their own.

I'll agree with that, colleges seem to think it's their job to separate parent / child. The idea being that the child is 18 and legally responsible for their own decisions. At least that's the reason they give you, personally I can't help but wonder if the real reason is because they can manipulate and run all over an 18 year old and it's a lot easier to deal with than an adult.

While I can appreciate that thought pattern, they're still freaking KIDS who's portion of the brain that deals with reasoning isn't fully developed. The fact that they're willing to graduate colleges with 100k of debt with a degree they can't do a damn thing with alone tells you their reasoning isn't fully developed

Perhaps we do live in different worlds, or possibly different countries or states. In mine, except in the cases of emancipation, the law clearly defines the age of majority at 18.


Obviously.

Of course, as a legally-responsible parent, there are potential criminal repercussions to permitting your children to engage in activities that are highly likely to result in illegal behaviors and significant harm. You are expected to exercise your adult judgement and override their immature judgement in such cases.

HK, my advice: Find out how age comes into play. It could be that she is absolutely not allowed to rush at all, or only under certain restrictions. That would be useful to know.

Since she's admitted that she's considering it for social reasons, I'd just suggest the following:

Tell her that college is for learning new things and she should ABSOLUTELY check out Greek culture to see if it is a good match for her. That she can't pledge or live in a house because of her age, but she should learn more about it, maybe be a little sister with her friend as a mentor, and possibly participate in some rush activities.

Then I'd also point her to other avenues for exploring social opportunities that might be of interest. I remember my college had a college club fair where the different groups had tables and talked about their clubs. You might point her to such a thing, or the catalog of clubs if there is one.

Finally, I'd see what offerings there are associated with the honors college (apologies if you have done this already). Again, just to point her to them for her own exploration.

I guess my thinking is that if she's looking for social connection, if you simply forbid her from all things Greek, you might just end up pushing her there (she already has a friend who she respects who is in that system). Whereas if you say "here are lots of great social things to check out and you should feel free to do so" she may just sample several and discover for herself which ones are the right fit.

As for my personal opinion of sororities, it is not very high. I understand that there are academic ones, but I was never very impressed with what I saw of Greek culture at my state school. I wouldn't have wanted to be a part of that, not for all the social life and "friends" in the world.

As far as law is concerned. If a 17 year old college student was arrested say for underage drinking or vandalism, then the parents would be called and the parents would be still liable. If you 17 year old ended up in the hospital, you would be called, while you might not if they were 18. Since my daughter started university before she was 18, I believe I did sign my "permission" that she attend. But otherwise the university assumes that the child is responsible.

This is a bit crazy is the world of PAYING for university. Since most financial aid assumes that a parents will be helping a 18-24 year old with college fees.

in loco parentis used to be a thing. No more, however.


I'm with Jon. And raptor-dad. Well, and Dude and Old Dad, too, come to that.

I really doubt that a sorority is a good idea for dd in any event... but it's not like I can just TELL her "nope, not happening."

As others have noted. I could I suppose, but it wouldn't get me very far. So nobody should worry that I'm going to either take her bar-hopping myself or lock her in the basement.


Just wanted to get some idea of where other parents would be on this one, and why. This is helpful.


Also-- unspoken rule on forums like this one? Only PARENTS are really supposed to aggregate post-specific or thread-specific tidbits which are semi-identifying regarding their own minor children. It's the only way that such a community can function-- those things are semi-identifying by nature when you're dealing with parenting outliers. Nowhere is this more true than with 2e children, which is why most of us here are SO careful what we put in one post. To make a wide variety of detail/unique features searchable about someone else's child is considered very uncool, and ultimately results in parents gutting the history of the forum in an effort to protect their kids from it, which helps no one, long term. It's a netiquette thing which is particular to parenting forums. I've said something to Mark about this.

First off, I should say I didn't yet read all the posts, but I wanted to offer why I did rush when I went to college, albeit at the "normal" college age.

I did rush not to actually join a sorority but to get a chance to arrive on campus a week earlier than most other students so that I could get the lay of the land and meet a few people before school started. That served my needs as an introvert, since it was slightly less overwhelming to have to meet a small group of other new female students. Even though none of the the girls I rushed with became my good friends, it was nice to have a familiar face until I did meet friends.

I never really fit into the sorority stereotype, but it was a good experience to try to have conversations with these people during rush parties. Kinda like job interviews, although much more, shall we say, "sweet." It ended up being kinda fun in a personal project kind of way - to see if I could get invited to join.

Anyway, all this to say that there might be more benefit to going through rush than joining a sorority.

Amazingly, I did end up joining a sorority, mostly because I was flattered that they wanted me. After just one year I did fully realize that my personality just didn't line up with sorority life as much as it did with the friends I met in school, and I ended up not really going to many more sorority events. It was a good learning opportunity, though, and a chance for me to explore who I was and wanted to be and evaluate possible life paths.