I also was in school in the '80s. One of the other GLOs on campus gave out live goldfish as the formal rush pref night favor. Interesting gift considering that no animals, to include fish, were allowed in the dorms.

My freshman year was the last year the sororities gave out any favors at my school. Each sorority would give each PNM a flower at pref. My AXO roommate dried the carnation she got at their pref. I'm kind of glad they did away with the flowers - just try to find lilies of the valley in August! IIRC, the sororities with hard-to-find flowers gave out roses; no NPC sorority on campus has a rose for its flower.

We did have food (snacks) and beverages at every party. We also made name tags that tied in with the party themes; PNMs were allowed to keep them. The only other things the PNMs could take with them were half-sheets with financial information.

AGDee - china?? Yikes. We used paper plates.

Yes, we always borrowed the china from an older chapter at a school about 30 miles away for Preference. I think we used red, yellow and green plastic plates for the earlier parties. We did have our own glass punch bowl and glasses that matched it. We weren't very refined though and got yelled at by one Chapter Advisor for not using saucers with our tea cups. I think that was our biggest offense back in the day!

When I rushed, the NPC rush was just being instituted, so we had this combination monstrosity. We had a First Round, then what was called "chat dates" for a week. A sorority sister would call you and you set up a one on one activity together. Often, this became a four or five or the whole sorority on one, as you'd meet at the house or on the campus hangouts. Then started the real Rounds.

We had refreshments at every round - which got highly competitive! - and there were mostly skits. You were allowed to take home your napkins, glasses, etc (they were usually engraved or printed) from these parties.

I hate to think about the money spent on Pref! One sorority was rather famous for serving a full buffet (mini-meatballs, mini-quiches, crudites, etc), but everyone had something nice (ADPi served personalized petit fours). We got favors - AEPhi gave pearl necklaces! - both ChiO & KKG had the stuffed owls, one GLO gave plants, and believe it or not, I cannot remember what ADPi gave! Bid Day was the next day.

Total time for rush: 32 days!!

WOW....the sheer amount of $$ and planning involved in these rush recaps is blowing my mind. Personalized petite fours? Pearl necklaces? Engraved plates? For a girl who may not even go to your sorority? Wow.

Now as a non-NPC campus, we are allowed to give small favors (nothing of a worth over $2 i think) at open house. Most give a pamphlet of info on their sorority and a piece of candy or a pencil. At novelty parties, girls are fed although not a full meal (we always serve "Sand" and fake margaritas), there's games/skit/slide show...at ours we also make leighs with the girls that they can take home (still have mine!). At preference, girls are typically given flowers, although parties are spaced so that there's a significant amount of time between parties and girls would be able to return said items to a discrete location. We give flowers (white roses) and a small beaded bracelet in our colors.

And that my friends, is why we now have a push for "no frills"...

I guess I failed to mention that we also had skits at every party except preference. (We sang more at this party.) The skits were short except for Theme Night. We did Oliver for our theme party my last year, and it was beautiful. Snacks were also served each party. We made beautiful name tags for rushees, and we had beautiful door decorations. We sang sometime during the week almost every Chi Omega song we knew and practiced weeks and weeks on skits, songs, and rotation. (It was a great way to bond with sisters.) Most of our favors were elaborate name tags and carnations, and I think most of the sororities on campus stayed at this level for favors. We certainly never made stuffed owls. I don't know if there were any limits on what could be given to rushees. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I went to my daughter's pref party, and one of the actives was worried that a rushee or potiential new member, had made it out of the chapter room with a napkin. We gave them napkins and hoped they took them. Then when my daughter became a rusher, she told me they didn't decorate the door or sing door songs every night. I was crushed! Rush with not much singing and no door decorations! This part seemed very different to me, so the frills, no frills part of rush, I mean recruitment, is very different. The Panhellenic rules and methods for member selection, however, seem to be about the same as they were in the seventies at my school.

You slobs!

The rush history article
 

The description of bid matching in the rush history article was more of the most specific I've ever read/heard.

Maybe it would be good to also post a link in the quota, release figures, etc. thread. People might not want to read the whole mathy article, but that section was interesting, (as was the really high number of ISP).

I know most of it is probably done automatically by computer today, but it still explains the process.

I rushed at a time when we couldn't give out anything to rushees.

I can see it would get out of hand pretty quickly, but the flower idea seems so nice.

I should have mentioned that EVERY sorority on my campus gave their GLO's flower at Pref, along with the gift, and one sorority which was then exclusively Jewish giving Sedar plates. I still have my ribbons from my flower, but for the life of me, can't remember what I got from ADPi! And yes, I am duly ashamed and will probably get in touch with a pledge sister before I convince myself that I have Alzheimer's. Pitt women will appreciate this: all but two of the sororities are in one dorm, Amos Hall. There are 2 flights of 12 stairs between each floor, and we were on the top (10th) floor. As the PNMs were leaving at Pref, one sister would slip inside the elevator and "accidentally" hit all the floors. Meanwhile, all of the sisters were running down the stairs - in evening gowns! - so that when the elevators doors finally opened in the lobby, all of the sisters would sing one last goodbye song to them! It was really shocking! Now, each GLO stays on their own floor.

We had one chapter at the time which had something like a $50,000 Rush budget. I've also heard of chapters bussing the PNMs to a wealthy alumna's home for Pref, or to a yacht.

I'm all for the no frills!