I guess it would help to mention that this campus does informal recruitment in the fall (no freshmen allowed) and formal in the spring. What I'm looking for is just some small things to do so that the freshmen start thinking "oh, the JKLs are such nice/fun/sweet/cool girls!" and generate goodwill and positive feelings to hopefully roll through to formal recruitment.

Don't whore around, don't be the chapter drunk at every fraternity party, and don't be stuck up.

I think a big aspect of this is creating your own positive PR. Participate in campus and greek activities, get (or keep) a high GPA, and make sure people on campus know about the things you're doing - it can't hurt to befriend someone on the school newspaper and let them know what great things your chapter is doing. Or even the city newspaper or tv station if it's a big deal.

Of course the key to this is getting members who want to generate this PR and are willing to do the work. That can be another issue entirely.

Roll out in huge numbers for EVERYTHING. This makes it look like it is fun to be an XYZ and that it would be great to be one!

If they don't have numbers, would not that be very hard to do?

If the whole chapter shows up at events, it will look like there are more of them than the largest chapter that shows up with a fraction of their sisters.

Also, make sure to work on your internal PR. Freshman will notice if you have a great sisterhood and seem close when you're out and about.

Okay, good point. :) But what I meant was to make sure that they are present and visible at all campus activities. Whether there are 10 or 100 of them, wearing letter shirts, big smiles and good attitudes will be a plus for her group.

Agreed, but on the flip side of this it can lead to chapter burnout. With smaller chapters everyone would have to show up all the time; with larger chapters only half or 3/4 would have to show up to have the same effect. It can definitely be a tricky situation to manage (high attendance/lots of PR vs. chapter burnout) and unfortunately I don't have a good solution other than having determined members who are willing to put in the work.

I know a lot of universities have a juicycampus catagory (or whatever you want to call it) and I have to believe that it will make it much more difficult for the less popular sororities to turn things around. Has anyone else seen juicycampus? It's horrible. I feel so bad for the people & sororities that get written about. Many pnms will go on & if they hear bad things about certain sororities they may want to drop them more. It's sad really. There's one sorority in particullar & although they've been turning things around the past two years no one (especially the fraternity men) will let go of their old rep. They get so much bad talk on juicycampus.

Juicy Campus is by school. At one school the XYZs are awesome, at another they're awful, and it says so. As heinous as that website is, it does point out that chapters of the same sorority are different at every school.

This is why I believe so strongly in a recruitment week that starts the day girls move into the dorms. (Actually, they move in a day early and do an FFR orientation, then start Open House rounds the next day when everyone else was is moving in.)

Many of the girls that come through have never even heard of the majority of houses. Generally, they know Chi Omega because the Chi-O fountain is a campus landmark. Theta is also one they seem to know; I always hear "Oh my mom was a Theta."

If the PNMs stay away from the three B's (boys, booze and bars) like they're supposed to, they have very little chance of hearing false information that may unduly influence them. We point that out during FFR orientation.

I always felt bad for the girls who pledged a certain house because they seemed fun and pretty, only to find out that chapter was on social probation and wouldn't be having as much fun as they hoped! And I really feel bad for the girls that pledge a house with significant debt, because they could choose that chapter for all the right reasons and then have such a huge weight put on their shoulders.

:(i feel bad for girls who pledge the less popular sororities.

I think that girls who are going through the rush process & know about this site most likely know about jc already. Also, I wasn't saying that everything written on that website is true...my point was really the opposite. It's not only fraternity men that bad talk sororities it's also certain sorority members that do it too.

Are you talking about/to me? Or maybe you're talking about something else and I just can't tell what. I'm confused. (FYI, I'm not an AXO).

ha ha, no, I was talking about some skanky sleazy posts that were deleted. (I'll also be deleting mine as it makes no sense now, obviously.)