That's interesting, I hadn't head that about the number of sophs going through. This is purely anecdotal, I don't have any stats to back it up, but it seems like Greek Life at UW has a high percentage of out of staters (e.g., "Coasties" LOL) participating, compared to the overall percentage at UW overall. Is that true? My hope is that it would be a good mix of kids from both and and out of state and not a divisive thing. Just curious.

This is SO far off from the truth!

I went to a very large suburban Chicago high school with a graduating class of over 600. At least 20 people from my class went to UW-Madison and many of them went through recruitment. There were also plenty of girls from years before us that were already in chapters. Many of the girls who went to UW-Madison were friends and they went through recruitment together. They didn't all join the same chapter, but a lot did. It also happened to be a chapter where a number of girls from our HS were already members.

This same scenario is quite common when looking at a number of the suburban Chicago schools.

Also please realize that there are a TON of Badger alums in the Chicago area. A number of my 'not rich' friends went to UW-Madison because it's where their parents went and where they had a family tradition. One of my friends worked 2 work study jobs and got a large outside scholarship, without which she could never have afforded to attend.

Please don't assume that because kids are OOS that they are all well-off. Yes, they pay more to attend than someone in-state, but that doesn't mean they are 'well-off'. Some of their parents put away money so they could attend college anywhere they wanted, even if that meant living a more simple life.

It depends on how you look at out of state, too. I went to a different college in Wisconsin, but the majority of the students were from WI or neighboring states- Minnesota, Illinois, and Indiana mostly. There were like three of us in my class of ~400 from the Seattle area, maybe a dozen from the west coast states. So there were a lot of out of staters- but most were still in drive-home-for-the-weekend distance.

Yeah, I'd have trouble calling Chicago suburbs oos for Wisconsin. Although it's technically true, it is closer to Madison than Champaign. It's just really not the same as the kids coming in from New York or California. The Chicago kids are going to have friends, family, familiarity with the campus, the city, the culture, etc. and not feel out there on their own, like the REALLY out of staters.

There's A LOT of students from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida and California. And most of them choose to rush. But there are also a lot of girls from Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota that rush as well. As a rule of thumb, I would say that OOS students (and that includes Illinois and Minnesota) are more likely to go through recruitment than Wisconsin students. I'm from Wisconsin originally, and that was definitely true of my experience being greek at Wisconsin. All of the sororities on campus have members from all over the United States, but each attracts women from certain regions more than others. I'm not sure if I worded that correctly...Does that make sense?

Makes sense to me! My chapter had a large percentage of west coasters compared to the other groups. It's similar to having a group of swimmers, runners, or musicians- like often attracts like, to a point.

At Wisconsin, if you only have one house for pref are you guaranteed a bid to that house?

Guaranteed is a strong word but you are highly likely to receive a bid to that one house. There are exceptions (the chapter finds out something horrible about you between inviting you to preference and ending preference that makes them desperately not want you), but one can assume you will be placed in that chapter.

I was an advisor for our chapter at UW and I would agree that it seems like most of the girls going through recruitment are from out of state. This includes the Chicago suburbs. When I was advising, our chapter had girls from all over the US, but didn't seem to have many from WI. K, the Gamma Phi advisor, who, if she is who I think she is, can give better insight since she's from WI originally and is in the trenches right now. UW is a land-grant school that has a lot of students from small towns where there is not a tradition of Greek life. Girls from the coasts, Chicago, and the Twin Cities are usually more familiar with Greek Life because they have friends already at UW or at other schools with vibrant Greek communities.

It is pretty much the same at U of Iowa too...

That doesn't surprise me. I have been living in northern Wisconsin since January and I haven't met anyone who is Greek, and I have only seen letters once. That was on a trip to Door County.

I've been asked to find recommendations for girls going to Southern schools and it's almost impossible to find alumnae from certain chapters around here.

I agree with a lot that has been said here. For a couple of reasons, there are a lot of women (and traditionally have been) coming to Wisconsin from the Twin Cities and Chicago areas, as well as the east and west coasts (particularly Bay Area & southern CA, NJ/Philly, NJ/NY/CT areas). So, if you strictly look at non-Wisconsinites, there are a lot. But, again, many are just from MN or IL.
The OOSers that come from certain MSP or Chi schools likely WILL know people in various chapters, as it seems a lot of those women do go through Formal Recruitment. When I think of the women who've participated in FR in the past several years, there have been a lot from larger cities/suburbs, and fewer from more rural areas of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, etc, but, in the end, those areas are more sparsely populated, too. I mean, of the women at UW, what percentage are from rural/small town Wisconsin in the first place? There are certainly some, but I don't know that they've been as interested in being part of Greek Life.
I don't believe there's any stigma against taking OOS (either MN/IL or the coasts) women here at WI in FR. But, as it works at most schools, if you're a PNM from a popular suburb or high school, you might go into FR knowing more Greek women.
I hope that answers some questions.

Also, bid day was today and quota was 52. :D
Yay! Congrats to all the new members!



And I should really be doing laundry, homework, cleaning, etc after a busy week of Recruitment, but I'm not. I'm on GreekChat. Haha :o

Per an advisor there, Kappa is welcoming 53 new members! They apparently have a bouncy house in their lawn too.