Soooo...

-This wasn't decided until May 1 leaving BT girls less time to find recs.

-The school is saying there are chapters who can't take BT girls.

Is it just me or does this sound like a hot ass mess waiting to happen?

It would be one thing if this was a school with a laid back rush that requires little money investment (both in rush oufits and fees) and where you don't really need recs. Since this is neither, it doesn't seem fair to use these girls as guinea pigs before all the kinks are worked out.

First of all, you can't spit in Texas and not hit an alum of all the groups at A & M. So getting recs in Texas is not that difficult. Second, there are always groups who can't take a segment of the PNMs who are allowed to participate(GPA - remember?).

Do you purposely take the negative side just to stir things up or do you just see the glass half empty? Maybe you just like to play devil's advocate. At least you're consistent.

I think it was done due to parent pressure, just like that formal spring rush that UGa did about 5 years ago for the same reason. Tons of smart and fabulous girls coming in at midterm due to numbers and then being cut in the fall bc they were sophomores.

Well, I was "hearing" about BT girls being able to rush before May 1, so even though the OP said A&M CPC said they decided on May 1, I'm a little skeptical.

I'm not Nancy-in-the-know about A&M, so I think they've been talking about it for awhile... And I do think (for the most part) these BT girls know they will likely face hard cuts, but they are just grateful to participate in the process.

I was generalizing again, but I'm sure Sally Snowflake who barely made BT and doesn't know anyone, but is SURE she's going to be the top rushee is out there...

I have had many friends do Blinn team and unless they tell someone they are blinn team no one knows. I realize the sororities will know they are BT. BT students can now do everything a direct admit can. Including living on campus, dining, sports pass, rec center, medical center and more. Also many students take basics at blinn even when fully accepted at TAMU. I think its a great move. In fact the rumor is by 2025 there will be no direct admit freshmen, bli n will be the freshmen campus. Blinn just purchased facilitiesto begin this process .

NPC Rule
 

NPC does not have a policy stating you must be a full time student. They just say you have to be enrolled.

Each NPC organization however has differing policies on whether they accept part time students or not.

ETA: I noticed the College Panhellenic says they have to be full time, which is interesting. Again, because that is not an NPC policy. But they clearly are considering Blinn students to be full time due to the dual enrollment.

"To be eligible to participate in Panhellenic recruitment and pledge an NPC fraternity, a woman shall:
A. Not be simultaneously enrolled in high school and attending college.
B. Be regularly matriculated according to the definition of matriculation established by that institution."

I stand partially corrected. The above is from the NPC MOI (aka Green Book), 19th edition, pulled from the NPC web site. The onus would seem to fall on the institution's back to determine this.

I'm consistently negative? Seriously?? I hope it works, it just sounds like some things weren't thought through and that's not fair to the rushees or the chapters or the alumnae who spend their time writing recs.

ETA: I completely agree with carnation's post.

Recruitment Update at A&M for BlinnTeam
 

I just heard from our local panhellenic president that A&M has revised their bylaws or policies to clear up any confusion on whether BlinnTeam students are considered fully part of A&M's student body. It appears A&M fully supports this change to allow Blinn girls to rush and it was due, in part, from the sororities requesting it since so many girls were having to wait until sophomore year to go through recruitment. However, the sororities will know which girls are A&M freshman and which are Blinn so how each sorority chooses to handle it during voting (and if Blinn students will have heavier cuts) remains to be seen.

E-mail clarification
 

Here's some of an e-mail I received clarifying everything:
This morning I received a note from a confused mom. This led me to email Texas A&M’s Panhellenic to ask some questions about Recruitment for Blinn Team students. That resulted in a conference call this afternoon with Melissa Williams, CPC Advisor/Risk Management Specialist, Office of Fraternity & Sorority Life, Department of Student Activities, Texas A&M University. (That’s a long title!) Jennifer Ginn joined me on the call, and we want to share a few highlights with you. Please feel free to pass along to your alumnae as you wish, and let us know if you have additional questions about this.



First, to ensure we are all on the same page, I want to highlight this statement from NPC’s (thesororitylife.com) website: “To join a sorority, you must be a fully matriculated undergraduate student, as defined by the college or university you attend.”



In our conference call, we learned the following from Melissa:

·A&M Blinn Team (BT) students, although still currently called part-time students on the Blinn Team website, are now defined as “fully matriculated” by A&M’s Office of Fraternity & Sorority Life.

·A&M’s bylaws weren’t in accordance with NPC so A&M made changes to their bylaws to comply with NPC requirements. Including the “fully matriculated” language was one of the changes.

·The NPC Area Advisor, Donna, is okay with A&M’s BT recruitment plans. Julie Johnson of NPC gave her blessing as well.

·Melissa said Blinn Team program will show on a student’s permanent ICS record, so sororities will know who is in the program.

·NPC has asked A&M to identify BT women throughout the process so they will be identified.

·Everyone will visit all houses for first round; then they will be released as normal after that.

·According to Melissa, 250 sophomores went through recruitment last year and 1/3 were from Blinn Team. One of their goals is to get more freshmen to go through recruitment. Melissa hopes to be able to gauge success toward meeting this goal by year 2 of adding Blinn Team to recruitment.

·The Blinn Team program has about 250 new freshmen students each year, and Melissa expect about 50 to go through recruitment this year.

·Melissa noted that A&M is only the third campus to navigate through a program like this. (I presume that makes UT the second. Wonder who the first was?)

I hope this information is helpful. Please let me know if you hear any other information regarding this program from your respective sororities.

Thanks, for clarifying the issue directly from Texas A&M Panhellenic. The only comment I think may be misleading a bit from CMDelta is that some chapters requested this to take place. I know, I can only speak for my own, but I think this is more hearsay. I do believe this came as a result from a "request" of the University than from the chapters themselves. Again, this is just from those I know in the know on that campus.

What is retention like for Blinn team students, as compared to traditional freshmen? I would think that would factor into an NPC's decision.

Actually the University of South Carolina has a program just like this called Gamecock Gateway. Students are accepted provisionally and they live in dorms on campus but, attend the local community college. After a year, if they have made the grade, they are eligible to be full-time South Carolina students. They even get South Carolina ID cards. I would really like to see them allow the students in that program to go through recruitment but, that is set by the school and it has never, to my knowledge, been brought to the attention of the campus Panhellenic. I think it helps lessen the stigma of being in one of these special programs.

Clemson has the same concept program, called Bridge To Clemson or something like that. There are currently on-campus dorms being built to house students in this program but as of right now we have a good deal of girls go through recruitment as sophomores facing a much tougher GPA requirement because they weren't allowed to go through recruitment as freshmen. I'm not sure if fraternities can recruit or choose to recruit these students on the down low but I know that sororities can't. There's also a lot of friction between students in this program and full-time Clemson students re: whether they truly go to Clemson or not, which allowing Bridge students to join Greek life might ease.

Soooo... let me see if I have this right. The 250 or so Blinn Team freshmen take some or most classes at A&M but count as Blinn students. Clemson is even building dorms on campus for the their version of these students. How many of their classes do they take at the CC, and how many at the main campus?

Seems like the university is playing games with the numbers? They get to say they are staying more selective and not growing the overall size of the university by keeping within a certain range of acceptances, but then they have this waitlist of students who will go through the Blinn program in the hopes of getting into A&M next year. (Die hard Aggies one would assume.) At that point, they can replace other previously higher ranked students who transfer or drop out or fail out or if they fail out of Blinn they don't count against the university's 4 or 6 year graduation rates?

HQWest hit the nail on the head. So, here we are. Every Greek system on a campus with this type of program will have to deal with this situation at some point. A&M and Texas just happen to be among the 1st to test the waters.

I had to look it up since I didn't know these numbers off the top of my head, but the Bridge To Clemson page says that students in this program are enrolled at Tri-County Technical College for a year and are required to complete 30 credits there before automatically being enrolled at Clemson. This phrasing makes it sound like they're not Clemson students since they take no classes at Clemson and are required to reapply for admission to Clemson if they don't meet the 30 credit requirement. In this regard I suppose Clemson's program is different from the Blinn Team program.

ETA: Found this on the Bridge Program FAQ:

I think the reason the Blinn program and others like it in the state of Texas exist is because there's state laws on the books saying that they can only accept the top X percentage of high schoolers from any high school, thus forcing still-qualified students who didn't make that percentage for whatever reason to gain acceptance through these Texas programs. I think it's a better alternative than not letting qualified applicants in to the school at all, but it probably does make their overall graduation numbers look better if they calculate them a certain way.

It seems like it's a little bit different in Texas as the main reason many of these students end up in Blinn and similar programs are because of the top 10% rule, not because their academics aren't quite up to snuff.

Oh, the Top 10% Rule has everything to do with it! Here are these outstanding kids who want to be part of one of the big Texas universities and they can't get in, while some of the Top 10% grads who did get in are hugely unprepared for even community college. Does the state of Texas win with this program? No, they lose massive numbers of outstanding grads to nearby state universities--and they may not come back to Texas after they graduate.

Georgia Southern University has a program in which prospective students who don't quite qualify for admission attend East Georgia College but their classes are on the Southern campus. Last I knew, they couldn't live on campus, pledge a social fraternity or sorority, or play varsity athletics but they can join anything else. The high school grade factor would probably keep them from pledging anyway.

With a certain GPA after 30 hours, they can become regular Southern students.

And if I'm a very good student in the top 15% of my competitive HS class, I could pay in-state tuition at a school like Arkansas, and fully participate as a "real" university student without any stigma or being treated as a second-class citizen.

^^^^
Or if you were at one of those competitive schools or an elite private school, you could try for one of those scholarships at Alabama or Arkansas or Auburn and take advantage of their top notch Honors college programs.

The Clemson program sounds just like Gamecock Gateway at University of South Carolina. I know that those students who are accepted, and it's a smaller number like 90-100, still receive the same acceptance envelope as undergraduates at USC who are accepted fully into the university with the Gamecock logo saying, "YES!" That way, it doesn't feel like an outright rejection because it isn't. The students live in the dorms, eat on campus, and also attend various campus sporting events and activities. Like you feel about Clemson, I would really like to see University of South Carolina eventually allow students in this program to go Greek because I think it would help them feel more like students.

As far as universities trying to mess with their enrollment numbers, I was under the impression that the ones in Gamecock Gateway and Clemson's Bridge Program were also top students who slightly missed out and got cut for some reason like lack of being prepared for college. I'd love to see my other alma maters do something like this also.

But the South Carolina schools don't have a 10% rule (or something similar) like Texas, do they? Clemson and USC don't have especially rigorous admissions standards, so if those transitional students were college-ready, they would have gotten in. I would think they would not be great candidates for Greek life, and may have difficulty making it through recruitment because they may be viewed as grade risks. Or, if they did get bids, the time commitment of Greek life could derail their admissions goals.

University of South Carolina has an acceptance rate of 60.6% and Clemson has a 57.9% acceptance rate. Texas A&M has a 67.1% acceptance rate while University of Alabama accepts 53.1% and University of Texas-Austin accepts 46.8%. I'd say that University of South Carolina and Clemson are definitely on par with some of these other schools. Even other schools in the SEC like UGA (56.1% acceptance) and Tennessee (67.3% acceptance) are comparable to South Carolina while other schools in the ACC like Syracuse (51.3% acceptance) and Pitt (56.1% acceptance) are comparable to Clemson. These are all really good schools, in my mind.

I will have to respectfully disagree with you on this one irishpipes (even though you always have so much great insight on stuff). I don't think Gamecock Gateway or Clemson's Bridge students would be less attractive as members in terms of sorority recruitment. I only say this because I know the programs that are currently and being put in place for these types of students at these schools to maintain high academic standards and help retention.

Although I love data, in this case those acceptance numbers don't tell the whole story. The top 10% acceptance rule is so widely publicized that I suspect Texas high school seniors who are well outside the top 10% are strongly discouraged by their guidance counselors from even applying to UT or A&M. So although TAMU's acceptance rate looks high relative to USC or Clemson, the overall pool of applicants has much higher qualifications. Again, this is just because a lot of applicants already know they don't have a snow ball's chance and don't bother to apply there.

Around here - and by extrapolation, surely just about everywhere else - often more than 10% of the seniors in large suburban high schools have a 4.0 (often above a 4.0 if AP courses are given extra weight in the GPA). And in excess of 10% also have high college entrance scores. Example:

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2014/05/...ccept_166.html

If our state universities used a top 10% criteria, for example, many very academically strong students from these large high schools would not be admitted.


I don't know a thing about admission to Texas public universities, but having a program to buffer this reality seems like a good idea. Isn't it possible that some of the students in whatever bridge program exists have overall better academic credentials than some who were admitted to the university in question?

This is my thinking about the bridge programs. I will say that while advising some undergraduate students, I was shocked at how many came to college with tons of AP courses. Students actually come to college, where I am currently living, with almost a full year's worth of courses from AP. They are also involved in so much. Some of them seem to be on the brink of curing world hunger (exaggeration) and make me feel like I must have been a real slacker in high school. It sure has gotten competitive, in general, for these new undergraduate and graduate students. I don't envy them one bit. Instead, I applaud them.

I think one way our more competitive private schools in Texas get around the 10% rule (now 8%, I think) is not to rank their students.
The inequity in the public school system in Texas can be dramatic and some of these students are not as well prepared for a large University experience. HIgh Schools matter when looking at potential members for this very reason. I think these programs are a way around the rules and as someone said not to lose them to out of state schools.
My Reference Board sends more references to Arkansas than to Texas Tech and they are closing in on A&M(Although A&M's numbers are WAY UP this year)

But none of the Texas schools only admit 10%ers, do they? I know that makes up a large part of admissions, but the entire freshman class doesn't fill with them, does it?

Of course they do. That's why letting BT students rush makes sense.

That probably depends on how many people decide they want to take advantage of the 10% rule. At some point you have to say the class is full. Those in the know - is there any sort of "if you're top 10% you have to let us know by x date" restriction?

Yes,you are right. It is my understanding that that is the case at A&M and Texas. I don't know exactly how it works. It is a large part of admissions but not the be all and end all. It is good objective way to start things out similar to 1st cuts for pnms during recruitment being for grades. I have no clue how it works from there. None at all. I do know girls who are not in the top 10% do get into Texas from Dallas.

Here is info that helps explain the Automatic Admission Law in Texas (since 2009):

http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/freshm...atic-admission

And for those applicants admitted who did not fall under automatic admission -- the holistic review process used to fill the class:

http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/freshmen/decisions/review

Thanks! The 75% part was what I was curious about.

This was our experience. Out-of-state honors programs showed real interest, and Univ of Texas did not. (Disappointing because TXGreekDad and I were both Longhorns, but in the end you want your kid to be happy, so we are learning how to be SEC parents!)

Friends of mine who are either NPC advisors or admissions staff at schools outside of Texas say their campuses and Panhellenics are all taking advantage of the influx of competitive Texas applicants. It will be interesting to see what the impact to the state is, in 5-10 years when fewer of these kids bring their educations home.

I think that some of the Bridge program students were absolutely academically ready for Clemson while others weren't. My boyfriend's younger brother got accepted to the Bridge program, and I was angry because IMO there's no reason (that I know of) that he shouldn't have been accepted to Clemson outright.

I think that if students at Clemson and USC were actually enrolled at the school, they would have a better case for being allowed to go through recruitment and placing the onus of accepting them or not on the individual chapters. Since they don't take classes at these schools during their freshman year, it's much harder to justify letting them go through recruitment at schools they're technically not matriculated at. This is the big difference between the transitional programs for students in South Carolina and the transitional programs for students in Texas.

I hope it leads to more diverse hiring in Texas companies.

Am not a regular, DeltaBetaBaby, so please forgive me if I am missing some context here, but...

Is your implication that the Texas students leaving en masse because there are more opportunities at out-of-state schools, thanks to the automatic admissions law at TX public universities (which ranges from top-10% up to top-7% depending on the campus), are disproportionately white?

Yes, that is my assumption.

This study actually reviewed a large urban school district over six years of graduates, and found that students eligible for automatic admission under the Texas law are more likely to be white and female, and less likely to be low-income.

Other findings: "eligibility for automatic admission appears to have little effect on college enrollment and choice for the most-disadvantaged urban high schools."

The point they appear to be making is that socioeconomic and diversity impacts aren't presenting, and that the only clear result is that more top-ranked kids (many of whom already have their choice of schools) are choosing state over private/out-of-state. There doesn't seem to be a demonstrated result of increasing matriculation among under-represented students. That's just my read.

All this is only to say: I am no higher ed expert, but it seems counter-intuitive to me that we can know that automatic admissions is keeping more non-white students "at home" in Texas public universities, or that we can assume that it will create a more diverse Texas workforce.

It looks like TTP is indeed putting more low-income students and students of color into the flagships, but they are students who would have gone on to a University anyway, just a different one. So it is meeting the goal of increasing diversity at UT and TAMU, but we don't know who, if anyone, actually benefits from that.