I know 4 girls going through. Only heard about 1 that got 10 invites back. No idea on the other three. Were cuts this rough this early last year?

With events running after the game yesterday, I wondered if anyone would be silly enough to tailgate before events and then show up tipsy to recruitment. Who knows?! Either way, an unfortunate way to begin your college experience. :cool:

You mean rushing as in the active chapter member was pregnant and rushing PNM??? Wow....I'm speechless.:confused:

A chapter had a girl rushing who is pregnant. Have you EVER heard of that before? Why on earth wouldn't they put her on a behind the scenes task?[/QUOTE]

This reminds me of the movie " the house bunny". They had an active who was visibly pregnant!

My co-workers daughter got back 5 invites and was happy.

I also wouldn't doubt that the drinking was tied directly to the game day festivities.

OK, well rush events after a football game would explain that. Still, it shows lack of forethought, but at least it's not COMPLETELY random.

It occurred to me that since they are going down to just 2 at pref that they might be making steeper cuts early.

Interestingly for my rec girl, the chapters she liked most were a mix of "top" and "bottom" houses. But she's a very independent thinker. Too rich looking, too cookie cutter, too fancy, all of that would turn her off. And, she was asked A LOT about her grades and study habits. I don't know if she shared with the girls that her mom was scholarship chair, but grades are NOT going to be her problem.

Yes that is the total 907. Up from 872 last year

I just abhor the "top/bottom" tier vocabulary. What makes one chapter "better" than another? I would love to see a study done... Show a photo of a chapter, no definable letters or colors lay them all out and have people rank.. I'll bet, based in looks, most chapters are very similar, but there are some "cookie cutter" houses out there. And I suppose tiers also play into other facets of the college community. I remember way back I went to a state school. There was a sorority, probably a mid to low "tier". But! Their claim to fame? They had the current miss Illinois in the house! She put her crown and sash on display during rush. You never know what type of girls are in the sea of smiling faces!

I heard the reason why preference round is only 2 chapters instead of 3 is because one chapter is only doing the first round of recruitment. So, there are 13 chapters that are giving bids through formal recruitment. Which is why they lowered the numbers to even things out.

Just chiming in...

I am a chapter advisor and was on campus yesterday for part of the Welcome Back round. The chapter is enthused with the overall registration numbers and hope that we don't lose too many with this weird broken up schedule.

Three cheers for Iowa Greek Life! :)

I'm still hoping to see a good recruitment story!!! Anyone..... Crickets.... With all this action!

I know scheduling can be difficult, but they really didn't do the PNMs or actives any favors with having rounds the same weekend as a home FB game and then the ISU/Iowa game.

Agreed, it's a mess. Our seniors are especially annoyed with the football situation. ;)

Talked to my daughter last night. She already has a rush crush who is a legacy at another chapter. We'll see. Hope everything goes well for 3rd Round and Prefs. Good luck to all!

The football games were a terrible bit of timing! Next Saturday the big rivalry is an away game I believe.

Yes, the game is in Ames. Kickoff isn't until 5pm, which is rather late for that game. I hope girls don't drop out just because they would rather tailgate in Ames. Or, tailgate and then drive back to IC and try to attempt attending parties (I'm not sure what the schedule is for Saturday).

If my math is right, its Preference. Since they're only having 2, being completely done before gametime shouldn't be a problem. Although roadtripping would be out of the question.

Wow...that might have been a serious deal breaker for me at 18. I am a huge sports fan. I hope it doesn't impact the chapters too greatly.

THIS is exactly what I think will happen. Girls who aren't 100 percent committed to the idea of a sorority or who aren't thrilled with their invites will drop out of recruitment and head to Ames.

I could be wrong (and I hope I am). But, I feel like I'm pretty in tune with the general U of Iowa freshman girl vibe -- since I live in Iowa and am the mom of a recent Iowa high school graduate (who decided to head out of state for college). I've also got two rec girls at Iowa and two of my daughter's best friends are Iowa PNMs (but declined my repeated offers to write them recs :rolleyes:).

According to the information in Iowa's Greek life brochure (online), Preference isn't until Sunday. Friday and Saturday are both the Sisterhood round. If my rec girls are giving me correct information, they can be invited to up to 6 chapters for that round -- but I don't know how many parties are scheduled for Friday evening/night and how many are scheduled for Saturday. I think the scheduling is really unfortunate and hope it doesn't cause havoc with retention rates.

I know the girls who it really will impact are the ones who have to travel -cheer, poms etc... Horrible planning two football weekends in a row but such is the nature of fall football in a big 10 world!

Hahahahahahha, so laughing out loud at you !!!!:D

The Iowa/Iowa State game pretty much shuts down the state, even in years when neither team is worth squat. My sister has a mixed marriage. She is (correctly) a Hawkeye and her husband is a cyclone. The result is a HUGE weekend.

One thing, if you don't already have season tickets at ISU, you really aren't getting tickets to the game, so it really is just about the tailgating. And if they have round 3 over 2 days, they're not having that many parties each day. So I still contend they can get all the rush events done plenty early, at least for the girls to get their party on in Iowa City, without any trouble. For the cheerleaders, poms, etc., there probably aren't enough of them in any given chapter to negatively impact them, and I'm not sure that freshmen would be traveling with those teams. Does anyone know if freshmen cheerleaders would already be going to away games? When do they make the team? But marching band is a different story.

I concur that the timing is bad at best and potentially deadly for several girls, where rush applies anyway. I think the slightly delayed rush is working at Iowa, but they have to be more in tune with the school schedule!

The ISU/Iowa game is always the second weekend in September (or maybe the second Saturday after Labor Day, I'm not sure which). I thought that recruitment started earlier in previous years and was completed by the rivalry game. If they keep the current schedule, they will always run into issues. I know they can almost guarantee there will be football games on the first 3-4 weekends after school starts, and at least half, if not more, will be home games for Iowa. Tailgating -- I mean football (;)) -- is a pretty big deal, why alienate part of your student body from attending?

Iowa seems to be one big petri dish of sorority rush experimentation. They'll try something else next year! If they want to split up rush, they may have to start rush a few days before school starts and then do the rest over Labor Day weekend. That would at least keep them away from football weekends.

School did start later this year. I know when my kid had her bid day it was on Labor Day ( I think that's really good planning!). I did see on the rush schedule that pic is planning a group game viewing. I also like to think that girls who are invested in the process will make smart choices and continue. The numbers will show the effects of the game.

But, with a dry recruitment, the fun of tailgating or going to bars even in Iowa City is diminished. Any sorority woman or PNM could be penalized/fined if seen or caught drinking during the recruitment period.

My daughter going through recruitment echoed the harsh cutting stories. It was far more than I expected!! I know grades were a factor in her case (3.08 Official HS GPA but Iowa rescaled to 2.98...grrrr...) but not for most in her group. I have a relatively good understanding of quota/release and the cuts still seem steep.

I'm wondering if the RFM specialist is a little sharp with the pencil. If they loosened up on the cuts, could quota be a bit larger? I mean we don't want the Polly Perfects inviting another 50 girls to round 2 if the result is they still don't get to invite more girls to pledge but it seems like EVERYONE is having to make oddly large cuts.
RFM experts out there, is there a line beyond which the proscribed numbers are too harsh? How can you tell and how do you resolve it?

I know just enough about Iowa recruitment to be dangerous...that being said, keep in mind that it's really hard to know which women were released and which dropped out. Not everyone is up front about which category they fall into. And there are always groups which pretty much can invite whomever they want - due to their stats from previous years. It's not a matter of the RFM specialist lightening up. The stats drive the numbers. But it's possible for every woman to be invited back. Some get released from groups A and B and some from only C. But grade releases are usually the first cut.
And the U's vetted GPA is gospel.

I know the reality of the numbers is ugly...I am from Indianas greek system. I do think, and this is only my opinion, that when you have such harsh cuts after the first round girls who might otherwise stick out future rounds become so discouraged they just drop and this is a detriment to the whole system. The strong well established houses continue to flourish, others miss out on great girls and the system as a whole doesn't grow.

In my perfect world I'd love to see a delayed recruitment where grade evaluation is potentially a more fair comparison..Iowa collegiate work compared to Iowa collegiate work. It also is far more reflective of which students are able to transition to work at a collegiate level. My daughter came from an extremely rigorous independent college prep school and had a great education. However, my heart was breaking for her and i certainly felt a great deal of frustration as my daughter is crying saying she wishes she hadn't done honors and ap so she would have had an easier course load and therefore better GPA.

No easy answers here

One of the places that is talked about as being most competitive is Alabama. And every year during recruitment women come here complaining about the deep cuts and all the women released from recruitment. But in the final analysis, Bama usually places about 89-91% of the women who register for recruitment. That's a stellar stat when looking at 2000 PNMs...and the vast majority of the 200 or so who are released are the grade risks and along a handful of QRs and those you drop out because they don't like the invites they got.

The sororities should see what the college sees: the HS TRANSCRIPT (not just GPA) and test scores. The GPA is meaningless on its own when you're trying to compare young women who were in AP classes at New Trier and those who were one of 6 graduates at Teenytown Nebraska-Border Agricultural High.

I understand it is frustrating but as a chapter advisor and professional in college admissions, there just has to be an equalizer. A formula to be able to look through thousands of transcripts and test scores through the same scope. At Iowa, it's their recalculated GPA.

Chapters don't have the capacity to individually review each PNM's transcripts and test scores. Nor should that private student information be available for any and all to see (http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/f...rpa/index.html).

Any thoughts on what quota will be?

Many schools vet the PNMs GPA and pass that information on to the chapters. And it's the GPA the college accepts for admissions purposes. So it puts everyone on equal footing with admissions and recruitment. I know it's hard to differentiate between high schools but there has to be an equalizer, as GolfersLady said.

Of course not -- no more or less than the GPA. The PNMs voluntarily share that info with Panhellenic when they want to rush. Any student has the right to waive FERPA. We're not talking about putting their ACTs on their name tags.

The U of Iowa gives admissions decisions within two business days based on a transcript and ACT. It's a single page of data. You'd only need to glance at them to locate the PNMs whose GPAs understate their academic potential. Is it that different from looking at a rec?

I know it's time-consuming work. I just think there's a perverse incentive to PNMs to coast in HS if they know the GPA is all that matters. No college freshman should feel (accurately, in this case) that she's hurt herself by doing harder work in HS. If there has to be a single equalizer, using the ACT would come closer to being fair; it's actually the same test given in every high school.

Working at a high school, I can tell you that I see many high ACT-scoring students who are lazy and aren't successful, and others that aren't great standardized test takers but are some of our most successful students and leaders. So, I don't think an ACT score would be a great equalizer.

IIRC, the chapters were given a binder full of transcripts for each PNM a decade ago-at least for one or two recruitments I assisted with. It was an enormous amount of information to go through, and too much personal information (I'm pretty sure SSN and other information was blacked out, but still...) was made available. It was overwhelming, and in the grand scheme of things where I advised, didn't make much of a difference. I'm glad it's just GPAs now, even if they aren't always a true indication of academic ability.

My hubby's family is from teenytiny town... My nephew showed such great promise he was #2 in his class... So impressive...out of a class of 18. He didn't get into u of Wisconsin, his parents couldn't believe it! Several years ago the local LIons club was unable to give out their academic scholarship to a graduate...the top student only had a 3.0. Gpa, the scholarship requires a 3.5,

EXACTLY! Last year when we were having the post recruitment Panhellenic workshop, the game schedule was a big bone of contention. Tailgating is important in Iowa :)