<p>If you have (or were) one, I’d LOVE to know the specifics of the costs incurred…including Greek-related costs, the transfer of the meal plan, pocket money, extra wardrobe requirements, books, and whatever the things I can’t anticipate are! Frankly, the cost of shoes and formal dresses for HS senior year is startling…I need a heads-up for what the typical fashion-conscious GLO coed actually spends!!!</p>
<p>Just for the freshman year…as that will be the only one for which the class of 2017 NMFs will have the Honors Housing benefit.</p>
<p>I am sure many of us would appreciate it. I have searched this Alabama forum on COA and need some “pledging female” details beyond what has been posted.</p>
<p>I don’t think a person needs to be a NMF to answer your question. </p>
<p>The cost of joining sorority X, will be the same either way. </p>
<p>That said, sororities don’t all cost the same. Dues can vary, social events can vary, clothing expectations can vary.</p>
<p>You can look up the price adjustment for the meal plan at Bama Dining.</p>
<p>I would guestimate that you’d need to budget about $5k for frosh year for sorority related expenses in addition to the non-NMF covered expenses. For the later years, you’ll need to add in housing.</p>
<p>the cost of sororities varies greatly. they post an average, but not all are very near the average.</p>
<p>i would say 5K is a good estimate.</p>
<p>if i was getting full tuition and housing, i would be glad that the sorority is all I had to pay! : )</p>
<p>my DD is in a sorority and lives in the sorority house. the cost of that is about the same as living in a super suite with a meal plan. maybe not exactly, but close.</p>
<p>other expenses. you will take a hit for rush outfits, but after that, we haven’t “needed” to spend a lot on clothes.</p>
<p>she will, however, need to get rid of all her t-shirts that fit and replace them with gigantic ones. she will also need a pair of nike shorts for every day of the week, some neon tennis shoes, a north face jacket, some leggings and some uggs! : )</p>
<p>^^^ Mike, that is hilarious about the gigantic T-shirts. I always wonder why students wear such large clothing when they have such great figures! :)</p>
<p>I thought it might be more like $5k per semester for the second semester when the meals are totally included in the sorority fees…have seen so many truly different numbers…</p>
<p>I have been buying those Nike tempo shorts whenever I run across discounts! I have heard that a pair for each day of the MONTH is not unusual!!! Did not know about the neon tennis shoes, will add those to the list!</p>
<p>I don’t think they give a discount for NMF pledging a sorority. The cost will be the same for all of the pledges and depends on the sorority they join.</p>
<p>TX…figure out how much you’d be paying if she doesn’t pledge. </p>
<p>For frosh year, that’s probably about $5k for books, fees, meal plan, dining dollars, parking decal, misc. </p>
<p>then determine the price difference for Greek Plan for meals and subtract that.</p>
<p>then add about $5k to the total for various Greek expenses: dues, fancy clothes, Tshirts, jewelry, gifts for your Big, etc. (again, this estimate can vary depending on House, your child’s clothing expectations/needs, etc). </p>
<p>I think you’d be safe expecting to pay about $10k for frosh year; more for when she needs housing.</p>
<p>Right now, I’d be hitting all the nicer dept stores “fancy dress depts” and buying the clearanced Winter Formal stuff in the needed sizes. A friend of mine does that for her Greek D. She’s found clearanced fancy dresses at Dillards for under $20 each. Buy both long and short dresses.</p>
<p>MikeWozowski – excellent answer about the endless TSHIRTS!!! My DD already had drawers full of cross country and triathlon shirts but now we seem to have to buy a shirt for every event known to man. And yes the whole family could probably fit into the size they like to order. I finally had to put my foot down and say no more, except for big ones like National Championship and Formal. Which, by the way, I hope your DD will enjoy this weekend! I got the annual “can I get a spray tan?” text today, so we should add that to the cost of being in a sorority apparently.</p>
<p>UA’s Panhellenic website says that the average cost to “live out” is $2,300 per semester. I always tell girls that you can plus by 15% to get the high end of this. This includes meals, parlor fees ect. Your first semester will have a new member fee that they say averages about $472.83. If your DD pledges a house that is building a new structure then your building fund will be a little higher and you can expect your house bill to go up as well.
Most sororities bill through Greek Resources. You will be billed a house bill and you will be asked to put $300 into what is called the Purchase Fund Account. This account pays for t-shirts, zaps, koozies, sunglasses, sweatshirts. I will tell you that the $300 goes fast…especially Freshman yr. They make t-shirts for EVERYTHING!!! The account is debited each time a shirt is delivered to your daughter at the house. We spent close to $800 on t-shirts ect her Freshman year (It didn’t get better sophomore year but this year it has slowed down a little). How much you are willing to let your DD spend on t-shirts and such is a conversation y’all will have to have.
Swaps are themed…so we did spend less than $200 on costumes ect (that does not include replacing the $25 Pottery Barn pillow case that she cut holes in to make it a dress for the “Anything but Clothes” Swap).
One place where we went through $$$ was eating out. There is no dinner on Friday night, nor any meals Saturday or Sunday. There will be Game Day meals on Saturdays of home football games…these are not extra. DD flat out refused to even step one foot inside of a dining hall. She used her dining dollars and Bama bucks at Julia’s and the different places that took them. We started her with $500 of Bama Bucks each semester and most of the time she made it through with a few pennies to spare. I load a Starbucks gift card at the beginning of each semester ($200) for her to use. But she still went through at least $500 on eating out. She and her boyfriend took turns paying for meals, movies, ect.
We laid out quite a bit for recruitment clothes, shoes and accessories. There are haircuts, tanning, manis and pedis, birthday presents for sisters, presents for her big. Some sororities include the badge fee in their bill but note that this is for the very basic pin and if you want anything special it will cost extra.
In addition to the sorority functions there will be date parties with fraternities that will require dresses. In the Spring if your DD is invited to a Fraternity Formal then she will need clothes for the weekend (DD went with her boyfriend to NOLA, there was a cocktail party Friday night, sightseeing on Saturday, a lunch, the Formal on Saturday night on a River Boat Cruise, a brunch on Sunday).<br>
So I would say that in addition to the almost $3000 we paid for her to live out, plus $600 in t-shirts first semester plus another $1000 on Bama bucks and eating out, plus clothes and girl stuff at $1500 and then mad money and gifts ect we were probably over $7000 a semester.<br>
M2k is right…hit the dress sales now…Antro has some great ones and so did Dillards…we too scored so beautiful ones for not a lot of cash.
One other thing…in the Spring your DD will need to purchase her clothes for recruitment on the members side. Each day/party the members have specific clothes, shoes and jewelry they are required to wear. They usually have “dress check” in March or early April. They have to dress for each day completely, shoes jewelry ect. We had to buy everything because we were new and didn’t have it. It was costly.<br>
Oh and there’s game day dresses :).
I forgot about the neon tennis shoes…sorry.<br>
Hope this helps ;/…don’t forget the Valium script for dad when he gets the bills!!</p>
<p>I think I need to climb the stairs and tell DD she needs to write a few more essays for those local/one time thousand dollar scholarships that are available to HS Seniors. She needs to foot some of this.</p>
<p>The GC just sent a list of several local ones with a Feb. 15th due date. They are really good about giving the kids every opportunity to be considered. however, many of these are either looking for specific qualities/demographics or they have quirky essay prompts that necessitate a completely new essay, not one that can be readily reworked from other applications.</p>
<p>My $.02: Go to a scholarship clearinghouse like Cappex and enter a profile - you will get more tailored scholarships to your situation/major/stats/interests. There are scholarships being added all the time. My S had one with a July deadline…and did not get paid until December. Scholarships should be considered a year-round thing…and does not stop once they hit college. There are plenty of scholarships for college Sophomores, Juniors, Seniors. Graduates - in fact, you have a lot more chances once you get older, since less people bother to apply, and you usually have a much greater focus in your field of study. Truly.</p>
<p>^^^^this is a GREAT post!!! I had not thought about the scholarship thing as an ongoing task, other than the renewable paperwork, but you are certainly correct and I am sure that many of us will benefit from this reminder! Thank you!</p>
<p>Most students will benefit from some help with this process. Not many will have the time, for example, to sift through 100’s of scholarships and find a good dozen to go for. These should be ones with a high yield commensurate with the effort required, as well as with the chances of being awarded. (There is no use, IMO, going for “lottery”-type scholarships with 10s of 1000s of applicants, for a mere $500. Buy a lottery ticket instead: instant winner/loser!) The waiting is sometimes the hardest part, as there is never any indication of how well he did on these until the award-by date has passed.</p>
<p>I help do the narrowing-down process for my S. From the 20 or so that I give him, he decides what to apply for, goes online to start the app (most are online), and then we both keep a running tab on the deadlines. He will probably go for no more than a dozen, by the end of it this school year, and these are highly targeted in his field of study and highly match his qualifications. There are so many that he COULD apply for, but he decides he either isn’t qualified enough, or there are too many other applicants, so he flags them. </p>
<p>He has been very successful recently in getting letters of rec from profs at UA (despite having only 1 semester under his belt). I have made other posts with other suggestions, but the tip on LORs is generally to make yourself visible to teachers through active learning: show up for class, ask questions in class, stay after class to clarify material, communicate in office hours or via emails, etc. Fortunate for him, he is that sort of kid. But you would be surprised how few kids are truly ‘visible’ in classes (and don’t even show up!), and professors do not get the chance to know them well enough.</p>
<p>Good luck. Takes time, but rewards are out there for those who apply.</p>
<p>Wow. I wondered what I could do in my soon-to-be-empty nest that would allow me to feel connected to DD without hovering…this sounds like just the ticket. Thank you.</p>