My school used to do recruitment prior to the start of school, but honestly, if they did that now, they'd have only 50 ladies going through recruitment. The University does not publicize recruitment AT ALL anymore, so many PNM's don't even know about it until the've moved into the dorms and received the mailbox stuffer.

On top of that, the University has class all day and all evening, so many PNM's end up with evening classes, if the day sessions are filled. It stinks, but our Panhellenic works around it as well as they can.

Frequently we will have a few PNM's on an "abbreviated" schedule, where they are only in each chapter's party for maybe 15 minutes, but at least that way each chapter gets to meet them and they get to meet the actives.

I guess there is no perfect answer. I think the advice given here has been great!

Dear SWTXBelle:

I posted the end of my daughter's rush on the thread as to why you may have been dropped..but here goes: Daughter has two houses the night before Pref. She, who knew nothing about rush and I only knew rush from eons ago, knew that all was well in the house that she wanted to join. President, Rush Chairman all came over numerous times to say Hi! There were numerous clues to the fact she was up in their estimation when....a sister, who was taking my daughter on a tour of the house, suddenly confessed that she hated parties, dating and everything. My daughter, no fool, said that she had lots of guy friends...knew how difficult it can be finding the "right" date (in her head the alarm bells started ringing) and she would be delighted to fix her up. Well...the long story short was the girl was "coming out" (and not in a debutante sort of way) and was devastated that she had said anything. Daughter was dropped from that house and wasn't interested in the other. It was really a shame.

(Before anyone flames me about the comingout/ debutante crack, I used that term to my mother in law at that time and she bristled and said, "Why would ......... care if she was coming out or not?! A debutante has nothing to do with a sorority!)

that was absolutely not your daughter's fault - if someone said that to me, I would have the exact same response (oh my friend Josh is really hot, etc etc). Did the whole house know she was in the process of coming out? If not, she probably gave a QUITE different story to the rest of the sorority about why she didn't want your daughter in.

And if they did know and blamed your daughter for making her feel uncomfy, then they're a bunch of idiots.

But back to the parties, was this a super competitive rush? If not, she should have gotten an invite to the next party. Perhaps Panhel didn't communicate to the chapters properly.

This makes the most sense and enhances the reputation of the GLOs. I think it would be highly risky for a PNM to tell a prof that s/he was going to miss class for a recruitment event. Many of my colleagues would go ballistic. Remember that there are a lot of profs who are very anti-Greek. Plus some profs actually cover important information at the beginning of the semester like descriptions of the course materials and assignments or form teams for team assignments.

33girl:

She went to the University of Southern California which has a very competitive rush. Her rho chi said that sororities felt that if she was willing to flake on rush for one night as a pnm (gosh, I keep wanting to say rush counselor and rushee) she would flake on other thing. (They obviously didn't know my daughter who is super dedicated to everything).

The girl stayed in the closet until graduation. She was the same major as my daughter. For graduation she chopped off her (previously) long hair to a buzz cut.................but said it was "comfortable".

This was the case at my campus. The school had record of your class schedule and would make arrangements if you had class. If you missed a single class you would be kicked out of recruitment. I would talk to the Panhellenic office on your campus and explain the situation.

You girls have given soooo sooo much helpful input. I am definitely going to find a way to work everything out! :)

Thanks!

Here's a suggestion that perhaps some Greek Life/Panhellenics might consider. Bama's Recruitment is prior to school starting but every year there is at least 1 University sponsored activity that conflicts with 1st round. Typically 10-20 +/- PNMs are affected. Panhellenic has a special "Meet & Greet" for those PNMs and each chapter sends 2-3 representatives. This eliminates automatic and uninformed cutting for University sponsored scheduling conflicts.

When UF had rush during school (this is no longer the case, thank heaven!), it was during drop/add week. Although girls were encouraged to go to class, no one did; they knew full well how competitive rush was, and that they'd be SOL if they missed parties to go to class. Because it was drop/add week, the professors didn't care anyway, since they'd never know if you just added the class after that first lecture.

:confused:

Wouldn't they just be able to check their rosters and figure this out? Usually professors have to sign forms to allow people to add anyway (I guess this could vary with university).

A prof would have to actually care about when you added the class to take the time to check the roster. The only time that I had to have a teacher sign a form is when I was crashing a class. Meaning, the class was already full but if there were extra seats available the teacher could chose to add more students.

At The University of Kentucky, "drop/add" was changed to "add/drop". The idea behind the name change being that you *added* a class before *dropping* one. As such, it was the norm to be signed up for a class yet miss the first one or two while you were trying to add another (different) class. So you would be on the roll but not present the first one or two classes (depending on when they met). And if you were unable to add the other class, then you kept the class (the one you missed) on your schedule. Basically, the first three days (UK starts classes on a Wednesday), attendance and assignments were minimal for many of the 101 (i.e. undergrad) type classes.

Most freshman classes have a few hundred people in them, and for the smaller lab/discussion sections, drop/add changes the composition by nearly half during that first week - people jockeying for better times, different days, etc. Scheduling is all online, done by students themselves, and during the drop/add period you don't need anyone's permission to change classes. That would only be an issue if you were trying to drop or add after the online registration (and official drop/add period) ended.

Yes, I teach these classes. A lot of times, even in the big freshmen sections, you DO need permission if the class fills up. That's not always the case... I'm trying to remember if we always had to get permission at W&L. I never dropped or added a class there. I think we may have had to get permission but of course that's a small school situation.

Let's just say from my perspective as a instructor of discussion sections, etc., I have a LOT more idea what's really going on with students dropping/adding than students seem to think I do. I pretty much know who added in late vs. who just skips class. The point's moot at UT since rush is before classes start... BUT

Every instructor I know at UT prints out their roster for the first day of class, whether they take roll or not. They will know if the roster changes vs. if you skip. Unless they never take roll. But if schools have photo rosters like UT they'll pretty soon figure out which faces they don't recognize from the roll. Again, not related to missing just once for recruitment. But don't underestimate the intelligence/preparation of your instructors.

I honestly never believed that any of my professors ever cared one whit about whether or not we showed up during drop/add. We certainly never did anything that week, in deference to the 1.5 billion students who'd be coming or leaving before the next week. Even without rush, it was a decent week to skip class. :p