Being a cheerleader these days is about a LOT more than being attractive, especially if your HS/university has a competitive cheer squad. I mean obviously you'll be fit and in shape but some competitive cheerleaders are far from the drop dead gorgeous stereotype. It's about your skills and athleticism, not your face.

Of course this is chapter specific. In fact, this is membership selection stuff, and we probably shouldn't indulge the OP at all. My point is that being in an honors program does not mean chapters are going to fall all over her (her daughter?). It's an item on the resume, just like anything else.

Re: cheerleaders -- This obviously differs by campus, but if you were a cheerleader or an Illinette at Illinois, you missed most of rush. Most cheerleaders signed up anyway, and had pref invites anyway. The same would not have been true for an honors student who missed two rounds of parties. In fact, it was not even true for women in marching band, who missed two rounds for the same reason the cheerleaders did.

Yes, I have a daughter, but this conversation actually came up between myself and an old college buddy who was in a different sorority than me. I am writing a RIF for her daughter (unfortunately her sorority is not represented at my D's college choice) and we started to discuss her extremely attractive honor student. Someone from her local Panhellenic started the debate and we were just finishing it. Their stance was attractive, good personality and honor student = rush crush. I was simply throwing it out there for varied opinions. And I knew I'd get them :D

This reminds me of the question that college counselors always get when talking to parents of high schoolers- is it better to have lots of AP courses with a slightly lower GPA or regular classes with a higher GPA? The answer- the AP courses AND the higher GPA. So in this instance, the cheerleader who is an honors student and also is the president of the hs key club, with a great personality to boot. :)

Also, we're going off of HS GPA, which can be so different from what actually happens in college. We all know 4.0 girls who went off the rails after that first semester at Large State University because they couldn't hack it...

So true. But it isn't always the academics they can't handle, it is often the freedom that does them in.

True story, as I can attest to from personal experience. I came in from high school with a 4.0, admission into the honors program, and more activities than any sane person should have on one resume, and then I discovered the joys of "college life"--although since we have deferred recruitment I ended up rushing with a less then stellar gpa, but I was still in honors (thank you, grace period!) AND a collegiate athlete, so who really knows.

On the flip side, I graduated cum laude, so a girl with a gpa on the lower side one quarter/semester into her freshman year can definitely turn that around if she's driven enough. Sometimes i think it's a shame that formal recruitment is structured so that a lot of times a girl has heavy cuts in the beginning rounds soley based on GPA.

There's that, which I saw first-hand, but I was thinking more about the academics.

Let's use the example of Suzy Smith. She's a 4.0 valedictorian of Small-Town HS in Texas* that may not have the best academics. She does what she can extracurricularly--cheerleading, honors classes and societies, etc. Because she's in the top 10% of the class, she gets an auto-admit to UT-Austin. She's not stupid, she's just not prepared for the academics, especially when there are kids from better high schools who can eat her lunch on a bad day.

Should she be considered a "better" fit for a sorority than a girl from a more rigorous HS who made a 3.5 with the same activities? All things being equal, there's a higher chance that the 3.5 girl will keep up the higher GPA.

*Not picking on Texas here...they're the only state that I know of off-hand where there's an auto-admit for the top 10% in a HS class.

And this is why they have things like the SATs. My hs best friend had MUCH consistently higher grades than I did, but her SATs were in the crapper - I don't think she even broke 800 - and so she didn't go to college.

Nowadays I think HS grade inflation is more of a culprit (in regular and AP courses) than WHOO HOO I IZ IN COLLEGE TIME TO PARTEE. Not to mention there are a lot more courses on how to ace the SATs.

Depending on your major, the grade inflation may be just as bad in college.

Do sororities look at SAT scores? I have no idea--it's been a few years since I wrote a rec, and I don't remember providing mine in my Panhel apps.

I also used UT as an example because it's just the top 10%--you can go to a crappy HS, have a 4.0 and be admitted regardless of your test scores. That goes to say if you're just outside of the 10% and you scored a 1600, you're not guaranteed admission.

Even though people are pissed off about it, it looks like other states have considered that same option.

LOLZ, I forgot what we were talking about. :) I didn't really mean for sororities, I meant considering how academically ept someone is in general. But honestly, it might not be a bad idea for sororities to check it out.

This all gives me a little bit of insight on why some of the sororities at SEC schools are notorious on (allegedly) confining their membership to certain high schools. You know that if Judy got a 3.0 at Bear Bryant High, it's probably better than Tammy who got a 4.0 with all AP courses at Roger Clinton High.

That might be true, but there's also a good bit of classism and general provincialism thrown in there as well. My chapter wasn't like that so much because we were from all over the country (and in some cases, the world), but at a school where students are from the same general region, it's easier to gauge "what kind of girl" someone might be based on what high school she attended.

Oh, I'm sure. I was trying to give them a more high-minded explanation for it. :)

Or if you're from St. Louis. If you're from St. Louis the first question someone else asks you is "What high school did you go to?"

It excessively annoying if you're not from the area.

/randomaside