Does anyone know how many actual bids were given out during Spring Rush at UGA (UGAmoutaineer I hope you got one) ?

Also does the fact that a girl had a rec at a house in the fall help her at all during Spring ?

Just curious..I thought it was interesting the way it was done. You never knew about the parties or how many their were ?

Also what are anyones thoughts about going through rush as a sophomore..if you went through as a freshmen and did not get a bid ?
Especially if you are from out of state.

Good luck...? :o

Thanks for sharing such a great story.

Unfortunately the recruitment process that my daughter went through did not come out with a happy ending.

Was your daughter invited to parties but didn't receive a bid, hollywin?

I'm sorry her ending wasn't a happy one...what happened?

Hollywin, I'm sure your daughter knows plenty of sorority women by now. Could she mention her interest in a sorority to them? Maybe she could be picked up informally this semester. Did she register for spring recruitment and not get any invites?

All this is my opinion based on my own observations, not anything official in any way.

It's more difficult but not impossible to get a bid as a sophomore

Some groups won't really look seriously at sophomores.

There's another set of groups who might be open to sophomores who are already close friends with a group of members and are extremely well qualified PNMs but this set of groups isn't really going to look at sophomores that they don't know and/or aren't spectacular.

Then there are groups that have sophomores as a part of the pledge class every year.

The cuts after first round for anyone who isn't a freshman will probably hurt badly, and there's like to be another set of painful cuts right after bid lists are made when groups look at chapter inventories and see that they can't afford to take as many sophomores as perhaps they'd like to bring back.

But a well qualified sophomore PNM with good character can often find a place in a GLO at UGA.

However, girls need to keep in mind that the pool of groups they have open to them is not likely to expand in sophomore year unless they've made some deep friendship with many girls in some of the GLOs that they didn't know anyone in the year before. The pool of groups interested in a particular PNM is likely to be a reduced number of the groups who were interested in her as a freshman.

You don't typically get cut as a freshman and then rush as a sophomore and get invited back more places.

If you rushed and dropped out freshman year, you're likely to be looking at the groups you had on your party list minus a couple when you dropped, not a new and expanded list. Be realistic. Make sure you are really rushing with an open mind or don't bother.

Thank you so much for your honest answers.
My daughter went through UGA rush in the fall and ended up dropping out, so she did not qualify for a snap bid.

I was in a sorority at UGA, I am so amazed at how things have changed. Legacies were so important in my day. After all if it were not for them the chapter would not be where they are today.

Recomendations were also important. We looked at each one. My daughter had at one house 3 recs and a sister rec and was still not invited to a Spring rush party !!
Courtesy was a huge part of my sorority in my day. How sad that times have changed.

The decision to participate in next years rush is up to her. I will not either encourage or discourage. She can make her own decision. She has a wonderful GPA and so many UGA activities. I am so proud of her.

If she dropped out, I have to assume it was because she did not get invited back to the houses she wanted. Numerous recruitment threads point to the fact that if you can keep an open mind and look again at houses you perhaps wouldn't have considered at first, you may in fact find your home. If she dropped out, that means she rejected some chapters - they didn't reject her. Of course that is her right, but I think it important to point out that her not getting a bid is because she chose to opt out of the system. That may have hurt her in terms of spring recruitment.
I was dropped by my legacy chapter during rush (after bursting into tears at a party after finding out my aunt had died of breast cancer) which I had gone into rush assuming I would pledge, but I figured out that I would rather be with a group that really wanted and loved me rather than one that took me because I was a legacy. I'm not being critical - I just want to give a different perspective.
I'm glad she has been active on campus, and hope she is happy no matter what course of action she decides to pursue.

She dropped out because she was only invited back to one house that she knew would probably not give her a bid. Religious reasons we assume.

She had recs at almost every house.

We are from out of state. She had a 4x legacy at one house and was dropped from many because they assumed she would pledge there.

The irony was that she was not interested at this house and they dropped her after 2nd round. The legacies were all from UGA !!

She was caught up in the system !!

I saw that highschools in GA. are already receiving information from UGA on rush. This gives the out of state girls such an unfair advantage. My daughter went to a great school (Charlotte Catholic Highschool), but there are almost no one from this school at UGA.

She is proud to be there from her parents legacy. She is now a Bulldog in her own right with or without a sorority.

I know that in Texas some high schools are practically feeders to certain chapters. It's tough for small private schools, like the one at which I taught in Houston.
I am so sorry your daughter got caught up in the cut-throat nature of rush at UGA - I'd love to hear that she found a home in a sorority there, but it sounds like she has a great attitude even if she doesn't.
And I'm with you as far as treatment of legacies - I'm always astounded when chapters seemingly fail to consider it. I have known of legacies being dropped for just the reason you state - it was assumed they would pledge their legacy house, when in fact they were not interested in it.

Legacies and recs are still a very important part of recruitment. DG strives to pledge a certain percentage of legacies every year. Also, just because you daughter had recs, does not necessarily guarantee that the recs endorsed her.

I don't know if this is true for UGA, but at UT a PNM who has dropped out of formal fall recruitment previously is much more likely to get cut in recruitment. If she does decide to rush next fall as a sophomore, she will have a very difficult time, but it is possible for her to get a bid.

UGA is an SEC school and let's face it, just about every chapter there is great. Instead of setting her sights on the "biggest and best" houses you should encourage her to keep an open mind through out recruitment. There is nothing better than being Greek and it's an experience that she will carry with her for the rest of her life.

Thank you..

My daughter has not found a home in a sorority, although she would love to.

I am not sure she will go through again. She has been hurt enough. One sorority that she loved did not even extend her an invitation to any parties during Spring rush even though she had 2 recs and several calls by alumni and a sister endorsement !!

Her best friend is a pledge this year and put her name on a party invite and she did not receive one.

Please understand, I know I am a mom who loves her daughter, but this is a girl who has done so much since arriving at UGA and had great highschool activities. Her fault is from being from out of state. I know from being a GA. girl that so many sororities set their sites on girls from the Atlanta highschools way before rush starts.

My daughter is a survivor and a great supporter of all philanthropies. She has already raised so much money for her charities this year. I am so proud of her.

Like I said, whatever she chooses to do with recruitment next year is her call. Her academics and activities speak for themselves.

If they invited her back, it is very doubtful that they wouldn't bid her for religious reasons.

Hollywin,

I'm sorry that your daughter's experience has been so bad.

I just wanted to note that I'm not sure your information about high schools in Georgia receiving recruitment information is actually correct.

It's possible that some do through their local alumnae panhellenics which could sponsor recruitment information sessions in any state, but I don't think the high school where I teach gets anything from UGA about recruitment, and if they do, they don't promote it. *

Anything that might come from the school probably goes directly from UGA to the admitted students through email or letter, I would guess, and goes to out of state girls as well.

Certainly, informally in-state hometown girls get information from from other UGA students from their hometowns, but this is probably the case at 90% of the colleges with Greek life. And I think it's the case that having hometown people pulling for you in the groups is an advantage, but it's an advantage that not even the in state girls have at all the chapters. Of 17 groups, the girls from the high school where I teach can be found in only five of them, I'm pretty sure. It's a difficult recruitment no matter where you are from.

I agree with you that it's a shame legacies get cut/ have to get cut. As you probably know though, UGA's Chi Omega chapter has more than a pledge classes worth of legacies going through in any given year. (Certainly, they aren't all 4 time legacies from the UGA chapter though.)And again, I'm sorry that your daughter hasn't found a home yet in the Greek system.

ETA: * I really don't think they get anything, but if they did, I really doubt the official word from Greek Life would really give a girl much of an advantage.

Wow. I'm sure they're all great and all their moms would love for them to be Chi Omegas, but it's just not possible. There was a sorority at my school that could fill over half of quota (which was only like 15) with legacies. So they naturally had to release some of them. PNM's and their families would be really upset over it, and it caused the chapter alot of stress.

The reality of it is that the chapters realistically cannot pledge them all, and I think parents should be cognizant of that fact. The chapters need to make room for others that may not have that legacy tie but would still make great sisters.

My daughter only had one invite back when she dropped out. She did not want to pledge a sorority that she did not feel comfortable in just to be in one. After round 1 she only had 3 invites back and after round 2 only 1. I really think she made a wise decision to drop out.
Yes she was cut by my sorority and I understand that they can in no way extend invites to all legacies as that would be impossible. Unfortunately being a 4X UGA legacy to this UGA chapter closed many doors for her at other sororities. When they have to make huge cuts after round one it is understandable that seeing her rec with such a legacy she would be an easy cut.

If she does go through again in the Fall should she not list her legacies ? Any thoughts..

We've discussed just this topic before - I can't find the thread - about whether or not you should list legacies. I think there was a feeling that the thing to do is NOT list your legacies on the general panhellenic forms, but of course DO let the legacy chapters know (via legacy introductions/recs). We always LOVED to poach legacies - but our system is not that competitive (nothing like UGA!)
I'd be really impressed if, given the number of pnms going through the system, any of the houses really remembered her and her legacies. It's tough enough to remember the girls as they are going through rush!

What I can't figure out...I've known several moms who send their daughters into competitive recruitments, planning that their daughters will pledge their legacy chapter and ignoring warnings of those in the know who tell them that if it's so important that their daughters be an ABC, they'd better try to rush at a smaller college. We've seen moms go ballistic when their daughters were cut by their highly competitive legacy chapters (those with maybe 4 times the number of legacies that they can pledge) when the daughter could have easily pledged the so-important legacy chapter at a smaller university.

And yes, I know that the important thing is the daughter's education but let's suppose she's going to be an education major, which most universities seem to offer. If it's so important that the girl be an ABC, what's the difference between her going to Huge U with 30,000 students and Smaller U with 15000?

There's a mom a town over who sent her younger daughter to a huge university, planning that she would join ABC since mom and older sister had done so at other schools. Younger daughter was cut right off by her legacy group. We have not heard the end of this from Mom for 4 years.

Some moms maybe yes. Others no. In my case my daughter chose her school from 4 she was accepted to. I was not devastated that she was cut by my sorority, my comment was that I felt bad actually that her strong legacy hurt her chances with the other 16 sororities.

My daughter approached rush with a very open mind. She new going in that being from out of state she would not know anyone in the sororities.
She knew it would be tough. While my sorority experience was wonderful it has been a very long time since college. Things change. All this mom wanted was for her daughter to be happy !! Rush was hard. Getting cut from all but 1 after the second round does hurt your self esteem . As a parent, many of you will find, seeing your child hurt is the most difficult thing you can go through.
Like I said my daughter has joined many wonderful organizations and is loving UGA. She did hope that she could enhance her experience by being in a sorority. If this is what she wants I will support her in every way. We come from a large family of greeks and she has many legacies not just mine.

My daughter chose Ga. first and foremost for the education that she knew she would receive and she grew up knowing UGA as a school not defined by the sorority her mom was in, but for the great school it is. I think from what I see Ga. has 17 wonderful sororities. If she wants to go through again I hope it will work out for her. That's all this mom wants for her child.

Oh, I wasn't talking about you! :) I was thinking of many, many cases I've seen in the last 9-10 years here in town. Some of these moms even bought ABC paraphernalia ahead of time because they were so confident their daughters would soon be their sisters.

Even if my older daughters had gone to school with Pi Phi chapters, I wouldn't have dared been so overconfident as to buy Pi Phi para ahead of time.:eek:

Hollywin, I'm impressed by what you say about your daughter! I wish the best for her!

uga rush
 

I was very fortunate to have my daughter pledge the same chapter I was in at UGA, but I must say that I did not realize until recently how competetive rush is there. A good friend was in another chapter at UGA, and when her daughter went through recruitment two years ago she was cut by the house where she was a legacy after round 1. After round 3 the house called the mother to get a rec on another girl from the same hometown. The mom was understandably furious that the chapter had been so insensitive to her feelings. When they realized what they had done they were apologetic, but hurt feelings are hard to undo. I think the system has simply grown so big that it is hard to manage all the information and even be aware of legacies and recommendations. My chapter released a girl I wrote a rec on after round 1, and that would never have happened when the system was smaller.

So much of the difficulty in getting a bid at UGa lies with, originally, the HOPE Grant. You guys of a certain age or older will remember that back in the day before it, anybody and his parakeet could get into Georgia. Now because of it, students with 1200 SATs often don't get in. You end up with hundreds of incredible women rushing, women with grades and test scores and activities that would get them into almost any sorority in a smaller system. Because Georgia is so selective in admissions and Auburn, Bama, and Ole Miss aren't quite as hard to get into, I'd rate Georgia as harder to get a bid at; the competition is staggering.

Also--back in the day, quota was often set early in recruitment, even as early as after the second parties. I've even heard of schools that set quota based on how many women signed up. This led to huge pledge classes for the "more selective" sororities and much smaller ones for the rest. When you couple that with the new release figures that most big schools use, you can see how rough UGa rush is and how different it is nowadays.

I can probably name 10 girls in my chapter that went to that school or another private school in Charlotte. We get numerous Charlotte girls each year. I'm sorry rush didn't work out for her!

It's interesting that you say this, and I hadn't really thought about it this way. It may be harder than it used to be to actually get any bid at all.

I think recruitment at UGA may be "easier" these days in one way: the old south elite groups are more open, I think.

Pre-HOPE grant, I think UGA rush was a very smaller-city, hometown based event. A good girl from Albany or Savannah or Macon, especially if she was from a private school, could expect to be heavily recruited by almost all chapters, but she would really expect to end up in one of maybe five or six GLOs because those were the groups with the girls from her hometown.

Now, with HOPE, a higher percentage of the kids at Georgia are from the Atlanta metro area and went to schools like Parkview, Walton, etc. I think the public school, suburban kids have started to play a much bigger role in the Greek system than they used to, and they're more open to relatively unknown girls from other suburbs, rather than sticking to the little sisters of girls they knew at Deerfield-Windsor or Savannah Country Day.

I'm not sure if it's a good or bad trend, but I think it's a bit of a different ball game.

I think it's definitely harder for the average girl or a legacy to get into the "more competitive" groups. Remember, there used to be a lot of girls cut for grades right off and that took out a lot of competition. Also--with release figures, so many girls get cut by tons of groups by second or third parties. This results in a lot of dropouts but there's still keen competition for certain sororities.

The release figures are working in some ways but if you have your heart set on certain groups, it's a good idea to think twice and maximize your options.

Are you from Savannah?

Nope. I'm from suburban Atlanta which is sort of like being from nowhere and everywhere at once. My parents aren't from Atlanta which adds to the vibe.

I know what you mean-everyone at UGA is "from Atlanta" which usually means Marietta or something else.

They also get information from adults. The standard question for many UGA alumnae in my area when a girl says she is going to UGA is "Are you rushing?" As they start to get acceptances, they start to compile rush advice and information. Think about it this way: I can think of women from 6 separate chapters in my department alone. Girls from the school at which I teach most certainly gain an advantage if they have us to give advice/recs. A girl from out of state might not have so many alumnae at her fingertips... and alumnae from out of state might not ask "Are you rushing?" the moment a girl states her college choice.

*Note: I know of a few high schools that have lists of alumnae who are willing to find/write recs for graduated seniors. I'd imagine that would be a very valuable resource, too.

It depends on the PNM. If we really liked her and she cut us, we'd have remembered her. If she was poorly behaved in a memorable way, we'd have remembered her. But otherwise... it's very hard to remember specific PNMs year to year. Then again, I graduated four years ago in May, so it's probably a different planet now.

A former student's mother told me that her daughter gained early admission to Georgia for next fall. She said, "I think she should wait until sophomore yeare to rush," and I sent the mom this thread with a note that if she wanted her child to have choices, maybe she shouldn't wait! (Mom isn't Greek and had no idea.)

Yes, we do...or at least my chapter does. If we get a rec on a girl, we definately remember her.

DGDramaDawg,

You are certainly right that some high schools are that way, in terms of almost a built in rec. system. My school doesn't seem to have that culture, and I think my reaction had to do with maybe misunderstanding what was expressed. I took the comment to mean that UGA sent recruitment info. to the in state girls, rather than high schools girls just getting advice and information. To be honest, I think the in-state value in terms of information is in the alumnae system, whether it's in the high school or not.

I can sometimes point people toward a few alumnae from other groups, and in the last year or so, I've come to fully appreciate what our local alumnae panhellenic does.

(They'll get a girl a rec for every house* on the campus where she is going, in-state, out-of-state, whatever AND they work really hard to find alumnae who personally know the girl, so it's not just info only. It's pretty amazing.)

*The local alumna panhellenic president even tries to find people from groups without current AP members. She's pretty spectacular and I don't know that all Alumnae Panhellenics do as much, but they do have them out of state.

Last year I went to the Atlanta Panhellenic Info session with my daughter (mainly to go with a friend who was going to UGA) and a mother asked if it might not be better to wait until she got used to school to go through rush.

I wanted to scream "NO! It's not a good idea to wait to go through rush at Georgia". But they just gave her some song and dance about how she should make the best decision for her, blah blah blah. In my opinion, it doesn't do any good to have those sessions if you are not going to tell people the truth. It's hard anyway, and it will be a lot harder if you wait. Can you handle that? Then you make the best decision for you. But at least you know.

The growth of suburban Atlanta has put an entirely different face on greek life at UGA. There are some chapters that are very heavy on Lassiter/Pope, some full of the North Fulton girls, and the Parkview/Brookwood/Gwinnett schools, which doesn't leave room for others when they've got a block pulling for even more girls from their particular school. Looking at that list that Panhellenic put out after recruitment was quite interesting and it was easy to see how our school's girls have been "shut out" in the past few years.

Thankfully, I don't think many, if any, of my younger daughter's friends graduating this year are going to UGA. My first relaxing rush in 3 years! ;)

I am so glad I found this forum! I am a transfer hopefully to UGA ( I have yet to hear back from them). I am from Northern VA, and didn't really have an idea about how rush worked in the south. This forum has given me sooo much information! Thanks so much

Get recs. And have an awesome GPA.