I don't have a good answer for your other question, but for this one:

Imagine this: You have 1000 women come through your house. You have to cut that list down to 600 after one 20 minute meeting. First obvious choice is grades - if someone has a 2.5, and your chapter requires a 3.0, that solves that problem. So maybe that elimiates 200 women, and you now have to find 200 more to cut. Well, you've got 700 freshmen left who will be able to give 4+ years to the sorority, and 100 misc. soph/jr/srs who may only have 2 or 3 years left on campus. Just mathmatically speaking, it's better for your numbers to take the women who will have more years to give to the sorority.
It's completely superficial, and I understand that, but there has to be some way to narrow it down.

They want to pledge freshmen so they will have a dues paying member for 4 years, rather than 3. Of course, if someone drops out of the sorority before senior year (or earlier) it's kind of a moot point.

Sororities used to have much longer pledge periods (the average now is 6 weeks and for a lot of groups it used to be double that) and often didn't initiate freshman women unless they made whatever the required GPA was. However, they're now under pressure from the schools to cut pledge time, theoretically to prevent hazing. The schools are not looking at the implications of initiating women so early, and the sororities can't get past the concept of freshmen being best. In other words, both sides need to get a clue.

Our recruitment isn't until the first week of October. It isn't that bad for the PNMs, but for actives, deciding prefs and bids usually runs until 2-3am. I can attest to staying up that late and then going to class in the morning. For lack of a better word, it sucks. :(

Mamasue, my daughter was in the same situation, but went to 2 pref parties and was dropped. She heard "this never happens" and "the computer messed up" but there it was - she was crushed, and I was devastated. (She got over it WAY quicker than I did:rolleyes:.) She did go ahead and sign up for COB, and about 3 weeks later, she was called by her top choice (NOT a top tier group, but the one she loved) to come to lunch. Soon she was a pledge...especially after 3 or 4 of the 56 they pledged quit.
So...it can happen.
Fast foward 4 years...I am helping out at the house during rush, and she comes upstairs during a break during their membership selection. She is mad...why? Because the sorority can only invite back X number, and they cannot invite back even close to the number of girls that they truly liked. So they were having to cut - blindly, across the board, just to get the number down.
So yes, it is entirely possible that it was not personal.
But believe me, I know exactly how you feel!

Not to mention all the rumors and "tent talk" and dirty rushing that proliferate before recruitment starts.:eek: And...it DOES happen!

I think that goes both ways...you know that the girls have heard the worst there is to hear and they won't be halfway through pledging and hear "oh, so you're pledging Nu Tau - did they tell you they almost lost their charter lasst year?" and freak out and depledge. Hopefully they've checked out the rumors themselves.

Plus, it seems like pre-freshman rush in a lot of cases does absolutely nothing to prevent "tent talk."

I'll even tell you myself that it happens. Our fall recruitment is completely informal. Rho Chi's don't have to disaffiliate; in fact, they wear letters when they're with their groups. Orgs aren't silenced to PNMs outside rush rooms. Sure it happens during formal recruitment as well, but it's a lot more discreet since it's "not permitted" then. Facebook, which as we all know, has been the latest issue.

Rumors float around school, but they're probably the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. We're a small school with Greek life not playing an extremely heavy role in the campus atmosphere. The PNMs we tend to get are those who come out alone and don't know much of the greek system other than people wearing letters around campus. The rumors are intimidating, but the attitude toward them is generally, "That's just ridiculous."

But that's not to say it's the same at every school, of course.