People think it's bad that members had to wear specific matching t-shirts.......we used to do actual "costumes" for rush. I can remember vividly the identical blue sailor dresses with big white collars and red bows that the Alpha Phis wore my very first rush party as a PNM. Excessive? Perhaps.....but what an impression it made!!! This was back in the day when the rushees would be corralled out front and then the members would come bursting out of the house, singing and dancing and clapping in their cute little outfits....all you could say was "wow!" In Chi O we had a particular party where we had these dresses made, we could choose from like 3 patterns but we had to pay for the material and have the dresses made ourselves. Also when we had other theme parties we were responsible to get whatever we didn't already have ourselves (including matching t shirts when we did those kind of parties.) We did a really cool Kentucky Derby party where we all wore these suits or dresses and then big hats....we looked like the ladies up in the stands that you always see on TV....the rushees loved it. We had to bring our outfits in and get them approved by the party chairs ahead of time so there were no unpleasant surprises. The sick thing is, generally speaking we had everything we needed already for most of the theme parties so it didn't cost too much....once we went to no-frills we had to buy all these silly t shirts every time!!!!

no frills how about no fun
 

As a pnm one of the more interesting activities of the night was seeing all the party themes, decorations, what they were wearing etc. I wasn't shallow enought to use this as my sole judgement of the house, but it made even the most boring houses seem fun. Every year our school fights over the silliest things, like beverages, number of a ballons at each party, dress, what kind of leamonade it is that you are serving etc. Although I agree that it does get rediculous, we went over budget on rush this year, but we did go over cap!, getting rid of singing and skits sounds boring. Last year the rush committee was deadlocked on skits for weeks, with three for and three against, if they get rid of them I will personally be really sad. If pnm choose a certain house just because of the decorations, skits, or outfits, then they are obviously rushing for all the wrong reasons.

Believe me as fun as a "frilly" rush may sound, a medium or no frills rush is better. When I was in school recruitment was 6 very long days and budgets that were supposed to be $10,000 became $100,000. Talk about make your due high. Additionally, all the PNM had to purchase a rush wardrobe. Med. or no frills can be just as fun and way less expensive.

The chapter I advise they have the PNM wear a t-shirt and short the first day - the chapters were stiched letters. The house should look as it always does and we can put up picture boards or "brag" boards, but no other decorations. We sing entrance and exit songs for every round. There are no food or beverages served during any rounds (yeah! no food in the teeth!) and no one but the President and Membership are able to go outside the chapter house on any day.

The second day is philantropy and everyone again wears t-shirts. Who wants to paint or glue in their good clothes?? The house should look the same except for the stuff you are doing your project with. This year the women made pinatas.

Third day is skit, but with the low key skits we do no elaborate costuming or decoration is needed. The girls sing, dance and make the PNM's laugh, but it doesn't cost $30,000 and we don't have a professional writer make it up and a choreographer prepare the dances. (You think I'm kidding don't you!) The PNM's were casual summer dresses or something they would go out in - nice but not cheesy. This year we did TRL with a few commercials between "Janet Jackson's" performance and "N'Sync's".

The last night is Pref - we all wear black dressy dresses and the PNM's dress up as well (most already are wearing their black pref dress for when they are members!)

Other chapters I have worked with in the past are about the same. Of course in Texas, this is about as no frills as you are going to get. I don't think it is any less fun on either side and it lets the PNM's off the hook on the first day - they don't feel like they need to look like a fashion plate or a super model to be invited back. And OH, MY GOD - what if their shoes and belt don't match their purse!!! These girls are stressed out enough during first round.

I think this is one we can all agree to disagree on. It really doesn't matter since the rules have been laid out and that's the way it is. For every girl who prefers a simpler rush, there is one who liked the glitz. Granted, the no frills rush can be less work and less stress, but on the other hand the very best things come with a price. You really can't say which way is "better" and it's a moot point now anyway. I'm sure everyone still manages to knock out the rushees with their parties, just in different ways.

did any of your chapters actually spend 100k on rush?

This is in Texas, dude. She's not kidding.

$100,000 :eek: OMG!!! My whole sorority's annual budget wasn't that huge.

we've done no-frills recruitment for as long a I can remember. When I went through in the fall of '99 we had a week long recruitment, monday and tuesday were the unity parties and held in the student center. All the sororities wore the same t-shirts and khakis so they were all "the same". They could only have one table of pictures, artifacts, etc. On Wednesday, PNM's would cut their first house from their list. Thursday and Friday were the philanthropy parties and the PNM's first tour of the houses. The sororities all had to wear khakis and this time block letter shirts. Saturday, PNM's once again voted but it was two houses instead of one. Sunday was pref and they could wear whatever they wanted....some dressed formally, some dressed nice but more casual. Bid Day was then that night.
Since then, PHC has changed formal fall recruitment to 4 days...which let me tell you is great. This past fall we had recruitment Thurs-Sun. Thursday and Friday were both in the student center and each day we had a little presentation about our chapter. Saturday was philanthropy and house tours. Sunday was once again pref and bid day.
I guess no-frills recruitment is a good thing for us since we are on a commutter university and there are only 5 sororities. Plus....we don't have that type of money to be spending 100k on recruitment. Quota only tends to be 10-15 every year. So not that many women actually go through the process.

EMU has a no frills recruitment and having been the VPR this past fall I definately find it to be benefitial. We also have structured recruitment in the Union, because not all the sororities have houses. It's usually Thursday through Sunday with Bid Day being Sunday night.
I think no frills is good for us because the PNM's perhaps focus more on the girls rather than who has a bigger house and what not. We only have 9 sororities and ceiling is 55, so our greek community is much smaller than most. Each chapter is not allowed to spend over a certain amount, something like $800 I think and we have to turn all our receipts in to prove that we didn't (but there's ways to get around that!). There's no food and no elaborate decorations. We only get 1 hr to set up and a half hour to take everything down and out of the rooms. It puts all the sororities on an even field, except for sometimes chapters get screwed over and put in the tiny rooms (which we had to do, twice!). The PNM's don't have to wear the same tshirt though, but all the sororities have to wear the panhellenic recruitment tshirt on the first day. I think the reason it works well for us is because we're a smaller greek community and we don't have large houses so there's no way you could fit 55 women plus however many PNM's in the houses. :)

Rush in the LBC....

I guess one could call Long Beach State rush a medium/moderate frills rush.

For rush info night, all the sororities on campus wear some form of a flowery/cute sundress (this is Long Beach afterall, it's hot when we go through rush) The only distinguishing markers that we are allowed to wear is our badges. Info Night is held in the Student Union, and there are no refreshments served.

On day one, every house wears something different. But all tends to be black skirt/capris of some kind with an embroidered express metro tee with their house letters on it. (Except for DG, they usually wear either white shorts or capris with their striped rugby's.) On day one, we are only allowed to serve PNM's icewater with lemon in it.

On day two, every house usually gets a little dressier for philanthropy day/house tours. And, on day two we can serve the rushees lemonade.

On day three/pref, we go all out. We are all dressed in our black pref dresses (of course). But the best part is that we get to serve the rushees a dessert of our choice. This past year we did chocolate mousse, with sparkling raspberry cider to drink. And the year before that some delicious sorbet.

As far as the rushees go, there are no restrictions put on their dress. Their PX usually go over the typical attire with them.

-Lil Snakey K

God, ice water with lemon!!!! I can remember having iced tea, lemonade, or various kinds of pop to choose from, plus finger sandwiches, hot hors d'ouvres, and desserts such as chocolate-dipped strawberries, tiny parfaits, petit fours, etc. One time we had this whole buffet laid out that was decorated with fruit. We had pineapples carved out to hold food, grapes bunched all over, a big watermelon carved out and filled with melon balls and berries, etc. It looked great but I can remember having to set up/refill/cleanup and that part wasn't fun.

Thought I'd bump this up--Valdosta State is planning a no-frills rush, although I don't think most rushees know it. It isn't mentioned in the brochure; anyway, I wanted to see more opinions on it since I have only seen extremely frilly rushes (SEC schools).:)

For schools that have a super-low rush budget, does that include everyone's rush clothes? I know that our clothes normally cost us around 300 bucks per girl, so there is no way we could have met the budget! We also rent sound equipment and spotlights, we buy floor coverings, wall coverings, signs...let me see if I can find a pic from skit day...I'll be back...

Okay, I took the pics down, so here is where you can still see them. I made an online album for them.

The frilly rush pictures!

Enjoy!

:eek: Whoa... :eek:

When I saw the first picture I thought...hey, that kinda looked like our party...

But then as the 2nd picture opened up, I nearly fell off my chair. Those balloons!!!