I think that attitude is the most important point made here. I didn't realize how much the reputation and self-identification with a certain image affected me and how I interacted throughout college until after I graduated. We all have stories of women in "Top" houses with bloated egos, but equally as common is the woman in a smaller house who believes she always has to prove herself.

I recently visited a chapter who suffered from a slight lack of self-esteem, and I was amazed how obvious the "we're not worthy" rhetoric was to me. Any of those women would probably have defended their comments and attitude as simply telling the truth or being realistic, but this was exactly the attitude that hurts them during rush.

I think the weight of any image sorority women buy into affects them during recruitment just as much, or more than, the reputation itself. How many recruitment stories have we read where the PNM heard something negative about a house, but wound up really liking the chapter? I think most PNMs are still basing most of their decisions on their personal experience at the chapter, and dropping houses because they got an awkward (probably nervous/defeatist) vibe from the women.

Other things I've noticed about smaller chapters from various campuses: defense mechanism to drop some of the red hot PNMs because you feel they wouldn't accept your chapter, don't want your chapter, or are judging your chapter. Also distrust and meanness to the 'hotter' PNMs. I've seen small houses that pride themselves on how small they are, and not always for legitimate/healthy reasons.

Moral of the story / Sophia Loren Quotes:
"Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go so much further than people with vastly superior talent. "

"Sex appeal is fifty percent what you've got and fifty percent what people think you've got. "

This reminds me of my chapter being goggle-eyed when instead of PNMs being torn between us and our "traditional" rival, they were instead torn between us and the top/hottest/most popular chapter on campus. Most of them did pick the other chapter, but just being in that "company" did wonders for our esteem, and looking back I think it contributed to us having 2 huge (for us/the school) pledge classes in a row.

thats so true the less popular sorority at my school was good until one year at rush the power went out in their house at night right before round 1 and no one woke up in time and were not at all ready when the first parties got there. it was sad and now they are not a great house anymore. but they are still nice and panhellenic loves them!!!:)

lmao! this cannot be true!

I wouldn't put too much weight on anything that girl says. :rolleyes:

tsk! But OTW! She's SO pretty!!

Happens everywhere. We don't have anything nearly as bad as that going on on our campus, but there are a couple of chapters that PNM's talk down about between parties due to past members and untrue rumors...something our recruitment team did this year was to let their girls know that they were not allowed to say anything negative about any chapter, even if they hated it. They could only offer their own opinions. Of course, you can't police that when they aren't with you, but you CAN before they make their choices night by night, and I think this year it did help...for both chapters. It's not fair for some chapters to get behind without a chance.

Don't you mean we are SO intimidated by her HOTNESS? ;):rolleyes:

Yes, THAT is what I meant! :D

And Jill, how appropriate your "location" still is! (unfortunately) ;):p

Please. Get up, put on your clothes, and recruit. There has to be alot more to their decline than that. When I went thru, I was at one house & the girl that took me was laughing her head off. She said that she had taken a nap and overslept. She heard everyone singing, pulled on her dress, and flew down the stairs. I told her that considering the circumstances, she looked great. We laughed, and I pledged that house. Recruitment means being able to deal with almost anything for a short period of time. One of my sisters cut her honeymoon short to be there with us. :)

gammaphi88... you wouldn't happen to be at UCLA would you?? There's a house on our row that matches your description exactly. Word on the street (which means take it with a grain of salt) is that house is likely going to be pulled after this year. I personally hope that's not true... I can't imagine how devastating that would be for the girls in the house!

why would i lie about that??? i was only contributing to the topic i thought it was interesting.:o
and good for that one girl forgetting to get ready and then getting ready so fast but almost this entire house was late getting up so all the girls who didnt live in the house woke them up that morning!:eek:

Remember, the "worst" house on campus is HOME to some women. These women find their place there, and any talk from any fraternity OR sorority that refers to one group as "least popular" further disrespects those women. Such talk is, IMHO, unacceptable.

To get over this, we can take steps that will, gradually, likely overcome it. Not gonna happen, but it could. We (collectively) seem to prefer the status quo.

Still, none of us should be discussing "least popular" or "worst" houses - we should be discussing personalities and character of each house, at most.

At your campus you only have one party each round? What you are saying could mean one party was terrible, I suppose, but unless everyone on your campus was so superficial that they went back and mentally erased any positive experience related to that chapter from before and after that incident, it seems really unlikely that one incident of everyone oversleeping would destroy a chapter.

I think that's what some of us are having a hard time with. You're basically claiming that a chapter went down the popularity tubes for oversleeping for one party. If they were a well regarded chapter before, it seems a little unlikely.

I think what you are saying has merit, but since more national groups won't let a struggling chapter stay on campus forever, popularity does figure in to the survival of the chapter at some point.

And I think there's a big different between talking about it here with no chapter names mentioned that talking about specific chapters on your campus in real life.