As in an alum or parents sent them, on behalf of their daughter who was rushing? Yikes.

Personally, I loved skit round. Seeing Theta portrayed in "KATS" was what sealed the deal for me when I went through. Then in years after, we did a "Broadway" theme. It was always a big hit. But I can see how it was/would be a pain if you didn't have many singers/dancers. My college no longer does a skit round at all.

I was at a VERY laid back school, and some of the chapters were still giving gifts in the mid 80s, although it was not a "must." It wasn't anything like a pearl necklace though - just little stuff like notepads with the sorority's name on, potpourri bundles, etc.

As far as cost, I'm sure there was a chapter member with parents who owned a print shop or whatever else the gift was. The gifts were nice, but they didn't "sway" me in any way.

Somewhere on GC I posted about the stuffed owls that Chi O gave out as their pref gift the year I rushed. They were handmade; a Chi O roommate years later told me that they were never sure whose bright idea that was but that they were sent home for the summer with the owl parts and instructions. Most of the girls paid someone else to do it.

IrishLake, the chapter "bribes" I knew about came from alum clubs. They often came on behalf of girls who were at risk of being cut right before prefs. Many were on behalf of rushees whose parents who were in some way influential in their town and the clubs thought that the chapters might not realize this. Or there would be 10 more or less equal rushees from 1 high school and the clubs wanted to make certain ones stand out.

We had open house, philanthropy, skit, then pref. Sisterhood has since replaced skit round.

We used to do two skit days- one was more fun, the other more serious. Philanthropy day replaced the less serious skit day. Now, I believe there are only 3 days of recruitment at my school.

Ha ha... I don't remember that well. Luckily, that party was phased out after I pledged. We changed to AOII House the next year (a play on Animal House...cuter than it sounds.) Our other party was Christmas Party which had all your favorite Christmas songs changed to AOII words (I'm still unable to sing the real words!) because "The feeling you get in AOII is like Christmas everyday!" GAG! Luckily, everyone who went through recruitment at our school was generally Christian so we didn't have a problem with turning people off with the theme.

Favors were alive and well in 1984 when I went through rush at Eastern Michigan. For pref, we gave out ring pillows made of white felt with our letters on them (in our colors, of course). We made them ourselves. Our favors generally followed the theme of that party. We also made very very fancy name tags for each party and had food and beverage at every party, every round. It was so much work...

I saw an article a long time ago about the Adelphians and the Philomatheans competing for girls once upon a time...they talked about grabbing girls as soon as they got off of the train on their first day.

Not urban legend. In Texas this was done through at least the early 90s while I was in school. It was typically the alum chapters, with some packages much more elaborate than others. (yes, Houston, I am looking squarely at you). While we would occaisionally get flowers, it was mostly in the form of food. Pizza, cakes, popcorn tins, you name it. They often came with those corny play-on-names to ensure that we would remember the precious rushees from their area.

I don't remember getting anything from a specific alum on behalf of her daughter, but that could have been possible. I tried to stay a little naive to the whole thing, just eating the food and ignoring the names/faces glaring at me!

Did this ever work? Did you guys ever cave and push a PNM farther along than she would have gone or her own, or bid her even though it's doubtful she would have received a bid otherwise?

Since that is part of membership selection I won't directly answer the question. However, just know that while the tasty goodies were very much appreciated during a stressful week, the manner in which these poor girls had their faces sprawled across food gave us some good laughs.

Also, on occasion, our rush advisors were known to separate the names/faces from the food when possible so that we would not feel pressure based on the gifts. The items would be set up with a note that they were from the ____ alum chapter, but not listing any specific rushees. However, other times (when they were busy with something else or it arrived exactly at break time) there was Rhonda Rushee's big head glaring back at you when you opened the popcorn tin can. Yes, speaking from personal experience there. Quite scary.

Some of it is more about remembering the rushee than about favoring the rushee. When you have hundreds of women coming through, I think something like that would stand out.

I can beat that. I think an alumnae group sent it. We once got a cake that had the pnm's portrait airbrushed in the icing. It was pretty weird taking a bite out of someone you don't know's face but when you're exhausted and starving from recruitment you will eat almost everything. The funny thing was she was a really desirable pnm who had her choice of chapters even without the cake. She was "the cake girl" for our chapter so it worked because we definitely remembered her.