ah sorry, should have clarified.

Independent Sophomores are sophomores that went through rush freshman year and either a) signed independent or b) did not receive a bid. They may be added to a chapter's off quota list, or they may chose to go through recruitment again. Rushing again holds little to no stigma here, and upper classwomen regularly receive bids.

caffeine has not kicked in yet-would you please explain what the term
"signed independent" means. i am not familiar with that term.

hehe, man its hard to get the slang out here. It's funny because the NPC stuff I've picked up from the board sneaks into my language at Otterbein!

Signed independent-- when women sign their preference card, they may choose not to join a sorority at this time for whatever reason. To indicate this, they fill in "independent" as their first choice, and go on their merry way.

Where this gets sticky is the culture of suiciding (Single intention preference). I know that 80% of my pledge class suicided my sorority. It happens a lot, way too much in my opinion.

So a girl signs XYZ as her first choice, then signs "independent". If she doesn't get XYZ, she's independent.

After that happens, two things can occur in her favor.
1) she's put on the "did not match" list, which goes to the chapters after bid matching. Any chapter not at quota may chose to extend her a bid. She obviously doesn't have to accept, but there it is.
2) she may be extended a bid off quota the following year.

It's sorta complicated and scenario 1 doesn't happen that often at all.


I really wish girls would list more than 1 chapter, because I truly and honestly think that they can be happy in at least 2 chapters here...but there's no real repercussions for doing SIP.

Oh okay, that all makes sense now. Thanks for the explanation :)

yes, thank you for the explanation. it sounds like a good idea to have pnms indicate that they will remain independent.

FSUZeta, I agree. Having to writing in independent might make the potential results of SIPing that much more stark.

Yep. My freshman year, we had an unusually high number of girls sign independent at the end of rush. Many of them ended up pledging or rushing again their sophomore year.

I just really wish girls would think about it more . I can kinda hear the grumblings of "I only want ____ or nothing!", not so much from my group, but from talking to the other PX's, it's there. That's gotta be nipped in the butt right now.

Plus we've got misinformation going around that's reached the greek life adviser. Apparently, someone started a rumor about how sororities will be unable to take pledge classes if they are caught drinking in front of PNM's. Not true. Actives are not allowed to drink in any situation where PNM's or potential PNM's are present (fraternity rush parties, house parties unaffiliated w/ the sorority, etc). It's a violation of a) campus policy--dry campus. b) rush rules--no alcohol at any rush function/anything that could be a potential rush situation c) panhellenic rules of interaction w/ pnms--possiblity of dirty rushing is high. It won't *necessarily* cause a chapter to lose its pledge class, but it will be dealt with as an infraction and sent to the United Greek Governing Board. There will be sanctions, but the loss of a pledge class is one of the most severe punishments that can be given, and isn't a situation that's taken lightly.

*whew*

OK, invites to novelty round have been handed out and replied to. Tomorrow AM I've got to walk them over to the greek life office. All of my girls received invites, none of them seemed upset or angry, so I'm assuming they got at least one they wanted.

I had a few get invites to all 6, but across the board in recruitment, most receive 3 or 4. .

To review:
You may receive up to 6 invites, but may only accept (or accept with regret) 4. Accepting with regret counts as "accept". Girls are encouraged to attend as many as humanly possible.

Ive got to attend a novelty party in my capacity as Rho Chi. I'm excited, because its a group that I didn't visit when I went through recruitment...sorta curious to see what they do in their parties. That will be Saturday afternoon.

Then we do the whole shuffle again. chapters do invitations to final party, which is preference to the rest of the world.Girls may receive up to 4 invites to final party, but accept or accept with regret only 2. It's an indication that you would a) consider extending that girl a bid b) would like her in your sisterhood. If a woman attends your final, she WILL appear *somewhere* on your bid list...maybe not at the top, but somewhere.

What is "accept with regret"? Or how does it work? Frankly, it does not sound like a favorable thing for a chapter to hear or know. That a girl is accepting their invitation with regret.

As such, and perhaps I'm missing something, why would someone put down "accept with regret"?

i would guess that "accept with regret" would be like a PNM saying "i'd take a bid from XYZ but if ABC and/or DEF give me a bid, then sayonara"

so when pref night comes around, XYZ knows that the PNM has someone else in mind? i agree, wouldnt want my chapter to see that, but if it was someone we were really pulling for, it would be good to know, and even helpful when it was time to extend bids?

[/interpretation]

on some campuses, pnms may "regret with interest" an invitation when they have received more invitations to parties than they are allowed to attend. perhaps this is the same situation?

example: patty pnm receives 6 invitations but is only allowed to attend 4 parties during the next round. she "regrets with interest" two out of her six choices-letting them know that had things been different, she would have attended their parties. supposedly, it works to the benefit of both sorority and pnm-if patty is dropped after the 4 party round, receiving no invitations from any of the four sororities she visited, supposedly either of the sororities that she "regretted with interest" could extend an invitation for patty to attend their party in the next round of parties.

here's my question: after 2-3 rounds of visiting houses, why cant Patty PNM narrow it down to 4 houses she could be a part of? that's a lot of flexibility. i understand you may get a short amount of time at each house and really dont get much time, but i would think you'd narrow it down to AT MOST 4. i dont want a PNM saying, "i could see myself being at ABC, DEF, GHI, JKL... and oh yeah MNO is really cool too!" because youre pretty much saying that nothing has stuck out over the top from my house to draw you in.

another reason why i'm opposed to first semester freshmen in rush, and more of an advocate for the few sophomore rush threads that come up here

Now see, a "regret with interest" makes sense. But the "accept with regret" seems to be the total opposite as well as not flattering to the chapter that receives it.

Frankly, if a rushee said during rush "If I don't get a bid to ABC or XYZ, then I'll consider joining Sigma Chi" I would tell them not to bother. Actually, I believe I would use more colorful language than that.

At our campus you really couldn't really regret w/o interest. The idea is that you've still only met these women for maybe an 2 hours tops, but you have an order of preference.

The fact that XYZ is #1 means that they have stuck out at you. Some people who actually regret with interest have 0 interest in MNO, but may end up there for the next round anyway.

It's not so much that you don't have a favorite, it's that your favorite may not feel the same way about you. Or they may be everyone's favorite and have to cut many more than other chapters. It maximizes the chances that Suzie PNM will end up with a chapter that she likes, even if it wasn't her absolute favorite when she ranked the chapters. (Though most find it to be their favorite after bonding with their sisters)

Holy thread explosion batman!

I don't know what NPC would call our "accept with regret".

Accepting with regret is used in a situation like this:

Patty PNM receives an invite to ABC's novelty party. ABC's novelty party is on Saturday from 12-2. Patty's neice is being baptized on saturday at 1pm. She's really interested in ABC's party, but she really wants to be at the baptism. This is where she marks "accept with regret" and may choose to list her reason on her reply. The reasoning being..."I accept your invitation and would love to come, BUT! i've got this thing that I must attend to and I regret that I cannot make it".

Girls who receive 6 invites MUST regret to 2 of their invites. Regret= cutting them. Girls who receive 5 must regret to 1 of their invites. You may check "accept" OR "accept w/ regret" to 4.