I am not familiar with Penn State (other than lots of work colleagues WHO ARE .. PENN STATE). : )

The party times are short. How does this compare to, say, Indiana or Illinois? Is a lot of time spent "herding" PNMs (thank you, Clemsongirl) between parties? I assume that the suites are in close proximity to one another, but then again envisioning herding in Littlejohn makes me think the same may be true here?

At Indiana, open house rounds are 30 minutes with 15 minutes between houses!

Haha thank you! I didn't want to make anyone mad but I was reading another thread and I don't want any chance of a sorority figuring out who I am so I want to wait longer and put less specific details. Hopefully I can add more insight at the end of the process.

You're right! 19 open houses, max 13 first, max 8 second, max 3 pref.

We are! There is a lot of herding. We have 10 minutes to get to the next party (so far has been 10 for open house and first rounds). I would say by the time I get to the next suite I have 3-4 minutes before the party starts (we line up in order in that time). Obviously it depends on how far everything is.

If me answering questions/responding (real time) is annoying since there won't be new content for a day or two, I wont post until an update! Like I said, after reading a sticky I reconsidered what I was posting and the timeline of it.

Nittanyville -- post however you see fit! : )

I appreciate your answering questions.

Until the next post, have fun!

What I find interesting about how it works at Penn State is that IT WORKS. They end up with great girls who turn into successful leaders in the chapters, the university and in later life. They are able to make significant cuts, minus mountains of recs, and not accidentally end up with girls with horns or rap sheets. They don't have massive multi-million dollar chapter houses to sway girls. What they have is a sisterhood and a chapter room. And it works!

I don't want to get into another discussion about recs, and how they discriminate against girls who aren't from the kind of middle class families where sororities are the thing to do.

But Amen, DubaiSis - Penn State sororities get great girls without much in the way of recs and without everyone memorizing their (photo studio) glamour shots over the summer. It can work!

Doesn't it work this way at most schools outside the SEC or the "absolutely positively need eighteen years of social acclimatization" schools?

I don't think DS's comment was meant to enable an SEC pile-on. I'm sure that there are some girls at Penn State who are jealous every single day of the huge chapter houses they see online and would gladly wade through recs and everything else to have them. The plain fact of the matter is that Penn State doesn't have sorority houses not because they think it's better or enables them to conduct rush on a higher moral plane - it's because there was not room left to build them.

My intention was to point out that there are a lot of different ways to have a Greek system at your school. Even very large schools can have very low key rushes. Competitive? Yes, but minus a lot of the drama that many schools think is just part of the game. I think what Penn State does is pretty unusual. I can't think of any other schools with this many chapters that don't have chapter houses, don't require recs, don't require months of prep work, etc. I haven't seen it first hand, but it does seem like a beacon of hope for turning down the crazy with large rushes.

The Penn State system is probably as good as it can be given the number of sororities and rushees.

One of my friends has a freshman daughter who is rushing there now. Before recruitment, a guy friend from high school who is in a fraternity sent her a list of the four sororities he considered the "hot" ones who partied at his house, and Mom pointed out that it was far more important that she ask herself "Who do I want to eat dinner with for the next four years?" rather than "Is this one of the 'hot' groups who party with XYZ?". She reminded her daughter that mom is still getting together with her sorority sisters, and suggested that when she's talking to people, she ask herself if she would still want to be hanging out with them 30 years later. Good advice!

We like the way we do recruitment down south. We like our big houses. We like sitting down to dinner nightly with our sisters in our big dining rooms. It doesn't seem crazy to us. Getting recs. for recruitment is no more a nuisance than getting a rec. for a job. If recs. aren't needed at Iowa or Penn State or NYU, that's fine. Who am I to criticize what works at those schools? I trust my sisters there to take care of business in the way they are familiar. Because it is different does not mean it is dramatic or crazy or wrong.

Co-sign!

In need of an update. :)

Hey guys!


Sorry for making you wait! Right now, in real-time, I'm getting ready for the first day of second rounds! But here's the last day of open houses for you! It's still written in present tense but if that bugs y'all let me know!

Finally the last day of open houses! Everyone was really excited to be done.

Also can I just say I loooveeee my Pi Chis!!

Finding Nemo - This one was sort of awkward. They really seemed to like the girl I was rushing with because I got little eye contact which is always really annoying.

The Incredibles - The girls were very pretty and had not bad convos. One of the girls I talked to I knew. Once again they seemed more into the girl I was rushing with and I definitely felt awkward.

Enchanted - Another really awkward one. The first girl we talked to just didn't know how to carry a conversation. The next few we talked to were fine though, but I was feeling pretty beat at this point to care much.

Tangled - I don't remember much but I don't think I was really feeling it. I think the girls were nice though.

Wreck-It Ralph - This was a great one to have on my last day! The girls were so nice and we had really fun convos. Nothing too deep or interesting but different from the typical major/live/why you came/why do you want to rush kind of conversations.

So after we were all done we got to rank our least favorite five. 1 was one you would mind least getting back and 5 you didn't really want to get back. In my opinion, the PNM has really no say after this round; it's more about what sororities want you back. You could get a maximum 13 back (usually it's 14 but one chapter is recruiting differently).

My five lowest were:
1. The Nightmare Before Christmas
2. Peter Pan
3. Lilo & Stitch
4. Hercules
5. Enchanted

(hahah typing some of these as my lowest makes me so sad because I actually love the movies!)

I've asked around and people say you usually get 7-10 back. I'm not sure what I'm expecting. I do want good ones back obviously (good in the sense that I liked them or were neutral), but I'm afraid to want it too much because I don't want to be disappointed. But I guess I shouldn't think like that (I don't really like failure).

Ah, well, we'll see what I get back tomorrow! Picked out my outfit again after I got back and now I'm doing homework hahaha.

- Nittanyville 

Thanks for the updates and looking forward to hearing more!
Wishing you the best!