The way everybody is describing regretting with interest it would be a very useful tool. However, at my school it hasn't really worked that well. It does help some chapters to be able to invite girls to later parties who had earlier regretted. The problem is that most girls regret with interest to every house. I know I did. I didn't want to hurt a house's feelings so I regretted with interest even houses I had no interest in. I think maybe our Rho Chis did not explain it properly to us.

Regret with Interest Can Work
 

APhi Sailorgirl- that happened with a friend of mine's sister. She went undercover for the school paper and when sororities found out about this, many of them cut her in fear of her saying something bad about them.

At Kent you go from 6 to 4 sororities and many girls were encouraged to cut "regret with interest." Anyway, she cut Tri-Sigma that way and they ended up being the only sorority that invited her back. My friend tells me that this girl is one of the strongest sisters in the chapter.

I think this can be especially useful for after the first day - say you have to cut from 15 to 10, and you know you don't want to go back to houses 14 or 15, but you think houses 11, 12, and 13 would be okay - you just slightly prefer houses 1-10 right now, after 15-20 minutes of conversation.

We have this option at Mississippi State, too. It works well on behalf of the chapters as well. If one chapter say has a not so great return rate after one party, then they can reinvite girls that "regretted with interest" back to the next party. This gives the girls another look at the house, and also gives the sorority a chance to have the same size parties as the others. As a panhellenic officer last year, I know we really encouraged girls to use this option just in case they were released by their top choices!

I think the "regret with interest" sounds like a great option.

For one, it would help to eliminate problems getting cut from all of their choices, even if they were interested in others that they had to cut. Also, if you're at a school where on Open House you see 14 houses in one day, none for more than 20 minutes, you might not really know what sororities to choose and have to just randomly pick X amount of parties to attend. I think it's great to keep the options open...

We had it when I went through rush, and then the following year we changed to SORUSH, so it was N/A.

What I don't understand, is if you are a PNM, wouldn't you regret every sorority with interest? It seems like it would be a good way to insure more invites.

Maybe not though -- one of the chapters that consistently had the most members I would NEVER have agreed to join.

They had some lovely girls, but the majority I just would NOT have fit in with. And I knew that, and knew I'd be miserable there.

bump for 2006!

Our regret with interest is different than what you have all been writing.

I was a swimmer my freshman year and had to miss 2 days of recruitment because of meets (gasp) and I thought I was done for.

The first day I missed (day 1 of recruitment) there were no cuts I or the sororities made, so we simply had an absence with an excuse (I was in a pool, swimming my botty off).

The second day I missed (day 3 of recruitment) I had to cut the sororities I was invited back to down to 3 (you were invited back to at most four, I was invited back to 2). On this day, I regretted with interest to the two sororities on my list, and listed both (meaning I didn't want to cut either).

Our regrets with interest mean you cannot be there, but are still interested in the group. You can simply regret to other groups, but most women don't want to do that.

As a recruitment director, I would feel upset that a group rejected me, even if they still had interest in me. I could see where it might be useful at some schools, but we use the percentages of women returning back from the last year to determine how many each sorority can invite back. (there is a technical term for this, but is escaping me right now :) )

I guess I'm on the fence post about it... useful, but I would have hurt feelings :o

Do you have them on speed-dial??

We used to do "regret with interest" at UCF-- it started the year after I went through recruitment. I can't remember if my girls were able to do it the year I was a recruitment counselor... so it may not have lasted long! ZTAngel, did you get to do it that year?

Either way, don't worry about it. Keep your options open and remember that UCF makes a very strong effort to place the women at recruitment with a sorority-- so long as you are open to the fact that it may not be your #1, 2 or 3 choice-- there are still great opportunities out there to get involved with the UCF sorority system. They're all great chapters; most are over 100 members! And as I've said before-- surely you can find your niche in a group of women that size! :)

Recruitment will be here before you know it. I'm so excited to see the outcome for our 2006 PNMs!

I'm glad to see a PNM getting the facts straight rather than going by Greek Chat gospel, actually!

Yes, but would they not give her that same answer during rush orientation (or whatever UCF calls it)?? It's great to be enthusiatic...it's creepy to stalk the Greek life office.

They sure would, but there are recruitment counselors staffing the UCF Office of Greek Life all summer to process applications and to take phone calls from PNMs and parents.

Also, in my experience, the UCF recruitment counselors were trained more on how to prevent heat exhaustion than fielding important questions and scenarios-- like what to do if a PNM shows up late to the party? (Correct Answer: Send her into the party!). So if they start getting phone calls like these now, they'll be better equipped in the field during recruitment week and at Greek Forum. And while they're in the office-- they're there to work and answer questions!