I refuse to argue my advice or statements. I will only say that I am not a clueless ΡΓ as should be obvious by the fact that the VP of Recruitment and I are very close (see above posting) and she would never tolerate a clueless Recruitment Counselor.

Perhaps the OP misinterpreted what the Greek Life person said or the Greek Life person misinterpreted that campus' policy? There are campuses that guarantee a bid to PNMs who participate in good faith and maximize their options during every round. Each campus that does this has specific rules/policies and criteria that must be met for this to apply.

Ultimately though PNMs need to know/remember Recruitment is a mutual selection process. PNMs have to want a chapter and a chapter has to want a PNM. I don't know of a single campus where every PNM is absolutely guaranteed a bid no matter what just because she showed up.

If you are not willing to discuss, and if necessary, clarify and "argue" your advice or statements, you shouldn't post them.

Also, if you will take the time to read some recruitment stories you will see that clueless Recruitment Counselors do in fact exist, and the fact that you are "close" to the VP of Recruitment does not give you the standing or breadth of knowledge that many alumnae here have, based on their years of dedicated service. I will also say that until you are an alumna working on the other side you probably have no idea of everything that is involved. The point should be to give those with questions the most accurate information possible, and not to get your cyber-ego involved.

The way you have described quota makes it sound as though quota always works against pnms. If you are addressing the op, perhaps you may wish to clarify. Certainly it may mean that there are not enough spaces in a particular chapter, but for most campuses quota does mean that there is space for every pnm who is interested in joining - just not perhaps the chapter which is her first choice. Of course, campuses with "bed rush" and those who require everyone to get a bid are a different story.

To the op - there are many informative threads here on GC. No, with a few highly unusual exceptions, you are not guaranteed a bid. Also, you may get a bid but not from your first choice. Your best bet is to read as much as you can here, secure recommendations to all chapters at your school, and do your best during recruitment to put your best foot forward. Don't worry too much about the behind-the-scenes-numbers - you can't do anything about them, and they really don't impact you personally too much unless they mean a chapter you are interested in has to make cuts. Check out recruitment stories for an insider's view. Good luck.

You reminded me of a time when I had a go around with our Panhellenic VP of Recruitment. I argued that something wasn't NPC policy. She wouldn't listen. She knew everything there was to know because she had gone through "training". My years of experience didn't mean squat. I appealed to the Greek Advisor with my Green Book in hand and won.

roraem, you are still in college. most of us posting are very active alumnae who have been involved with multiple chapters during recruitment . we are not experts, but we have had the opportunity to see many different scenarios that can crop up during the recruitment process, including the training of rho gammas. while you may not be "clueless" you have not had the opportunity to have as many experiences we have had. i too was a rho gamma back in the day, and i can promise you i know far more now about recruitment, than i did from 2 or 3 years of rushing in college or rho gamma training i participated in under the guidance of another collegian.

trust us when we ask you to not tell your pnms anything about recruitment is scary. recruitment should not be scary. they are scared enough as it is, without you telling them other things they should worry about. please try to calm their fears, not fan the flames.

quota is set to benefit the chapters and the pnms-nothing scary about that. it is just the number of women each chapter can pledge. most often they take the number of women attending parties on a certain day, and divide that number by the number of chapters on campus. 60 women attend parties on day "x" of recruitment. there are 3 chapters on campus. 60 divided by 3 equals 20. 20 is quota.

I just thought Roraem was using the word "scary" as a lighthearted adjective to further describe the quota system.

I am guessing that the person at the office over simplified the process in explaining it OR the pnm only heard the part where she was told that the girl who maximized her choices on pref was guaranteed a bid at one of those houses.

livingmydreams:

If you are at Texas A & M per your other post, they may have a policy like Zillini talked about; however, if that is the case, the Greek Life office should have said that everyone who COMPLETES recruitment and maximizes their options (i.e. goes to all the events they are invited to and put the maximum available number of groups on their invite cards throughout the week) gets a bid. However, it may be to a chapter you have no interest in.

There is also the chance you can be cut by all the sororities there before recruitment ends - hence my use of the word "completes."

The only campus that I think is still using the "everyone gets to join no one gets completely cut" method is Tufts.

Found the whole Tufts guarantees a bid thing interesting. Their site reads as though this may still not be true. Am I reading it wrong?

http://ase.tufts.edu/greek/eligibility.asp

I think they put that "generally" in there in case someone has a criminal record or something. You will get a bid, it just might not be to the group you want.

Yeah, let us not forget some of the colorful PNMs we learned about in the "Weird Rush Stories" thread. Even the least competitive sorority on the least competitive campus isn't that desperate for members.

Can't we all just get along? The squabbles in this thread are ridiculous and getting a bit mean and personal.

To answer your question, you did the right thing by asking your Greek Life/Student Activities office; however, I would take their answer worth a grain of salt and ask the question again if you have decided to go through recruitment. There should be an orientation session prior to the parties where you will meet with panhel and your recruitment counselors. If you persist enough with your question, you should be able to verify a response. Without knowing anything about the particular school or their situation I doubt that anyone on this board will be able to give you a 100% accurate answer ... it's all just our personal best guesses.

Good luck with recruitment.

Hahahahahaha. n00bs. They're so cute.

Ridiculous? Um, no.
Mean? Still not seeing it.
Personal? Hardly.

Misinformation will not be allowed to be put forward without correction because it might hurt someone's feelings. If a poster is foolish enough to post something silly, they can expect to be called on it.

You are looking for Happy Pony Rainbow Land.

This is not Happy Pony Rainbow Land.

Might I suggest that if you, after your whopping 27 posts, don't like it here, you hie you to HPRL and leave the rest of us to wallow in our ridiculous, mean and personal "squabbles". (I've read, and re-read this thread, and I really don't see anything "mean". Am I missing something?)

Being told to behave as though GCers are a bunch of unruly kindergarteners . . . thanks, but no. We've got it handled, I think.

Is it just me, or are there more newbies who feel obligated to play referee now? It's getting on my last nerve . . .

OTW...please don't post the picture of the weirdly muscular pony with the rainbow coming out of his butt! I can't take it!!:p