I believe the original idea (during Bush's stint as governor) of Texas's law was to encourage minority participation. It happened to occur at the same time as a down turn in the economy and more qualified students decided to stay in state. I think I remember reading that overall UT has seen small increases in minority participation but larger increases in accessibility for students from rural areas (which tend to have a higher percentage of first generation students). These students are also the students that are less likely to have had college prep Or AP classes or to know how to deal With a 450 person Chem 101 class?

(And unfortunately not all AP classes are created equal?)

Did it maybe have to do with what he wanted to major in? I know that was a factor getting into branch campus vs. main campus at Penn State.

Hmm...it might have, and that's a point I didn't consider. He wanted to do some kind of engineering, I don't know what specifically. He was fully accepted and given scholarship money to Auburn for engineering, which I consider similarly competitive to Clemson. Ultimately he's doing a similar transfer program that will have him spend two years at the University of North Georgia, and then if he's successful he gets automatically accepted to transfer to Georgia Tech.

It seems like more schools overall are doing these transfer programs that let them "gamble", so to speak, on students they thought were qualified but not quite enough so to fully accept. Obviously that's not the case for every school, especially those constrained by state laws that limit acceptances, but I'd call it a general trend among state schools with the resources to partner with a second school nearby.

I don't normally comment, but I noticed there is some misinformation on here regarding admissions. There are two guaranteed admission methods: auto admits ( top 10% rank, TX resident) and academic admit (top 25%, 1300 SAT/ 30 ACT (with score min.), any residency category).

Currently, roughly 70% of admissions are guaranteed admissions, 30% are review admits. Review admits are evaluated on everything (rank,scores, essays, recs, EC, etc). They are primarily offered: full admission, gateway (summer at A&M probationary to full admission), PSA ( a year at another A&M location then transfer), Blinn Team ( co-enroll A&M and Blinn CC, then transfer) or rejection. There is also a feeder program for certain majors at participating CCs (PTA). All the alternate programs include an academic requirement be met for the transfer to occur.

Regarding the sororities wanting BT members to participate - maybe at the leadership of Panhellenic, but it is not a grass roots campaign by the members themselves. Most were annoyed by the prospect, these students were not able to attain full time status for admissions & they still have to academically qualify, so it makes no sense to them. If they are looking to grow Greek Life, they should put more emphasis on recruitment at NSC (new student conferences) and inspire more full time students to consider joining. The university sponsored club fair is a few weeks after sorority recruitment ends freshman year, so many do not consider joining when they have to wait a full year or try for a few spring bids.

Who are these most you speak of?

And from what's been presented, it seems the majority of BT students are completely academically, socially and otherwise good candidates for sorority membership at a competitive rush school. They just happened to go to HS with lots of other people who were similarly stellar.

And call me cuckoo, but I really don't think the majority of people interested kn Greek life at TAMU need to attend a club fair to be aware of it. If we were talking Maine A&M, it might be a different story.

Regarding my post the word 'most' refers to the quantitative evaluation of chatter against the idea. No, there's no formal poll nor head count, just an observation as school ended and the membership rules were changed.

BT students I'm sure are socially wonderful, however they do attend a CC for 45 units and A&M for 15 units of classes. It can take 2 years to become a full A&M student (although they can apply as a transfer student earlier). I was not evaluating their character, nor ability to be a good candidate - the only issue is that normally CC students are not allowed to join, but they have become exceptions.

Since my daughter has worked the club fair, I know that the method/process for joining sororities is not as well known to all students as it could be at this school. That's why I mentioned it.

They ARE exceptions. They're not normal CC students. They're students who have to squeeze through the eye of a needle to get into a school that normally they wouldn't have any problem getting into if there wasn't a ridiculous arbitrary state regulation in place.

We can discuss this until we are "blue in the face" but the ultimate decision belongs to each chapter to determine their membership. How they deal with the Blinn girls is up to them. Aggiemom14 is referring to the fact that the chapters were blindsided with this decision at the end of the year. There was no vote but a change in their bylaws (which was needed) a matter of semantics and a request from the University.
We will see what each chapter decides to do. This is a slippery slope and it remains to be seen how it will all play out.

I understand that they have to "academically qualify" to get into A&M after a year or two but I wanted to comment because I've already met with 2 BT students for recs and I'm sure I'll be meeting with a few more. The first girl came out of an "academy" program in HS, took multiple AP courses that she got credit for and currently has over a 3.4 at Blinn/A&M. She missed automatic admit last year by 20 SAT points since she wasn't in the top 10% of her HS. The other girl went to a private school that doesn't qualify for automatic admit (I don't think) because it's either private or doesn't rank but she had a 3.89 GPA, was in the top quartile of her HS but was 3 points low on her ACT (even though she had a 1710 SAT). We live in an ultra-competitive area so I'm thrilled these girls will have the opportunity to join a sorority and be an involved member for 4 years (instead of having to wait a year or two) even though they didn't automatically get in to A&M. I've shared with both of them that I'm glad they are giving it a shot BUT that we don't know yet how it's going to play out with each chapter making their membership decision. They both already knew that the sororities will know who is at A&M and who is BT. As for promoting it at NSC in the summer, they must have some kind of info session or table because we end up getting quite a few girls who don't register with our panhellenic until after they come back from NSC where they have heard more about Greek life.

The chapters will know which PNMs are Texas A&M admits and which PNMs are Blinn PNMs. However - and maybe I missed it - will there be a separate quota for the Blinn PNMs?

No, there is no separate quota for them.

Yes, there have been information sessions at NSC. However, the years that I attended you had to forego another activity/session to attend. Hopefully that has changed.

Does anyone know how this will affect a chapter's GPA? Will all hours count or just the ones at A&M?

Given that some groups may not care at all that someone is BT, some may not take BT per their national bylaws, and some might prefer not to take BT, but not have a hard and fast rule against it, I'm pretty sure you can just about throw RFM out the window this year.

I think this is what 33girl meant upthread...this is going to be clusterf*ck. I predict notably lower placement rates than previous years.

ETA:

To give an example, let's say there are 1000 freshman women and 200 BT women rushing. For a WRC, they might be able to, per RFM, invite all 1200 women back for first invitational. But let's say their national bylaws prevent them from taking BT women. Are they going to invite back only 1000? Well, *their* best move is not the most panhellenic: invite back all 1200 so that they have full parties and look cool to PNM's, knowing full well they can't take 200 of those women, and then go ahead and drop those women right before pref.

Would depend on the University's policy, is my guess. For example, some UofA freshmen will take classes at the local CC; the hours transfer, but not the grades (those aren't factored in to the semester or overall GPA). I believe (not positive) that is the policy elsewhere - credit hours transfer, but not grades.

I've ordered up extra popcorn. This is already a mess. Someone didn't think this all the way through.

I thought that you were guaranteed placement if you went to all parties you are invited to (up to the maximum) per day. So, if girls get cut from all houses, what happens?

They don't get any group. It happens.

Well then, you aren't going to "all parties" as you weren't invited to "any" parties.

You are guaranteed placement if you attend all parties to which you are invited, are invited to preference round at one or more chapters, and list all chapters to which you are invited to pref on your preference card.

It is possible, in any invitational round, to receive no invitations. At most large scary recruitments, it's pretty rare to receive no invitations, because the number of invitations handed out by each chapter is carefully calculated based on the number of PNM's and the predicted number of invitations to each chapter that will be accepted.

What we are saying is that, this year, instead of a pool of PNM's divided up among twelve chapters (which is roughly how quota is calculated), there may be some chapters that can't take certain PNM's and so on...in short, it could be a total mess in which last year's data doesn't allow for good prediction of what would happen this year.

As another extreme example, let's say there are 300 BT women and 300 TAMU women. 600 PNM's/12 chapters gives a quota of 50. But let's say that there are 8 chapters that can't take BT. Now you have 8 chapters chasing 300 women, which is 38/chapter, at most.

To be clear, I know nothing about TAMU or whether chapters will take BT women, and I'm totally making up numbers, I'm just saying that there could very well be some math issues, here.

ETA: If you have a daughter who is rushing this year, either BT or not, this is not something you should be too worried about. If formal recruitment happens to shake out badly, then chapters will snap bid or COB afterwards and it should all work out in the end.

Yes - it is also possible that we would see another situation where 1 or 2 chapters would wind up with a larger number of quota additions. It would be easy to tell if that was because of the BT girls

The risk that poses is that the chapters that take these BT students could quickly rack up a lot of desirable, smart, attractive women that will improve their standing on campus. I doubt seriously that fraternity men will care that the beautiful pledge class for ABC is half BT vs the less stellar looks of the XYZ pledge class made up 100% of TAMU students. If it hurts competitiveness, chapters will change.

I don't understand, if A&M changed the wording in their bylaws to agree with NPC policy and they consider these BT students to be just like freshman A&M students, why would some chapters not be able to offer bids to them? I realize each chapter still has a choice on membership selection like always so if they aren't able or unable to offer a bid to them, wouldn't they just release them after first round just like they do for girls who don't have grades or references?

Thank you!

I don't think there will be many Blinn girls to make much of a difference in RFM. My understanding is that there may be 50 or a few more at the most going through. They will be evaluated like all girls going through recruitment. I think the girls going through from Blinn are well aware of the issues and what might happen. They are willing to take the risk and are to be commended. I wish them luck as they are dipping in uncharted waters.

Totally agree with this. I bet there's plenty of "openness to interpretation" here on the part of each (inter)national organization, and individual chapters may be able to petition their way out of the regulation if they so desire.

My guess is that WRCs that have a national policy prohibiting them from taking BT girls will be scrambling to get a special approval figured out this summer. At least, if I were the advisor of a chapter in such a situation, it would be my top priority. It's a no-brainer.

I expect that SRCs with this policy will feel a lot less pressure to get the prohibition lifted, especially if there is any kind of subtle bias against BT girls (concerns about retention or grades, etc).

All that said, I would not be surprised if all the chapters were accepting BT girls within a year or two.

Maybe I am missing something here. Just because a girl is not accepted to UT because of the Top 10% rule and is accepted to Blinn doesn't mean she will be a grade risk. Having been a teacher for almost 20 years, I have seen many quality students not be in the Top 10% but still be highly academic. There are many reasons a student might not be able to take AP or weighted classes that they would need to be in that elite category. For example, she might be artistic or musical and have all As but but many AP courses, so she would have a 4.0 but not a 5.0 or 6.0.

I think this Blinn designation might be being blown up more than it should be. These girls will still have good GPAs and might have more leadership or community service opportunities than the UT admits.

Ditto to what IndianaSigKap said!

Hey, Carnation -- I think this is the first mention of Blinn on GC!

[Carnation and I both lived in Brenham, where Blinn's flagship campus is located. In the decades since Blinn has expanded and has a campus in Bryan (next to College Station, home of TAMU.]

Yes! Who would have thought that Blinn would expand like this?

Oh, I was actually thinking of retention as a bigger issue than grade risks. In any case, I hope the chapters have some aggregate data they can look at. If neither of those things are an issue, the BT women would be well-served by the university showing some numbers to prove it.

I just finished my A & M recs - including several Blinn Team girls. Their high school records were exemplary - and with one exception, their college grades were great. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out over the course of recruitment.

I am quoting this from something sent to my daughter who will be rushing at TAMU this fall. I have no idea if this is accurate but it's what the PNMs are being told.

This is straight from NPC and national sorority headquarters : All sororities are eligible to take Blinn Team girls. Now, local advisors, alums and the chapters can decide they aren't taking them but it's not a national thing. Membership selection is private so you will never know the local decision until you are a full member.

While I'm sure this is technically true... By the day after Bid Day, it will be glaringly apparent to all of campus which chapters declined to extend bids to the BT girls. Right? Or even by 1st period when the heaviest RFM cuts come down?

Conversely it will become apparent which house(s) The Blinn Women, in their own form of wisdom, chose not to join/attend.

I'm pretty sure the Blinn girls are not required to wear a scarlet "B", so unless someone has absolutely no life and is going to try and figure out which school each pledge attends (which would be quite the trick, given the fact A&M doesn't release bid lists) I think it will not be "glaringly apparent". There might be gossip, but we all know how accurate THAT is.

This whole idea is new to me so I apologize if my deduction is off-base (although the bulk of the thread has been along the lines of wondering how Blinn Team students will fare in recruitment, based on the OP's question).

I just assumed it would be apparent on those resumes or indicated otherwise in their recruitment registration, and therefore the sororities would be aware, even if the PNMs or campus at large were not.

FWIW I don't have an opinion either way on Blinn Team membership invitations, and I agree from what I know that they would be a competitive asset to any chapter.

Within the chapters, the recruitment chair and her committee would of course know. It might be brought up during membership selection, and if so, the chapter as a whole would know. Given the numbers of pnms, I doubt that anyone is going to remember which of another chapter's new members are Blinn members and which are not. Young women who are Blinn when they pledge may well transition to A&M the next semester, further confusing the issue. I always want to see as many quality pnms find a home, so I hope the majority of chapters are open to Blinn girls.

Registration closes at A&M on the 15th I believe So far they are at 1300 and expect close to 100 more. It's going to be interesting because a lot of Blinn Team girls are risking it and have registered. (both freshman and sophomores) Expectations are that quota will be around 85-89 if the % from last year holds of the number of girls who began the process finished it.

How does that compare to last year's numbers? I'm wondering how much of a difference the Blinn Team girls made in the numbers? I've written a few references so I'll be eager to hear some good news!

As per another thread, the numbers last year were around 900, but according to Just_interested, Blinn Team girls are not making up the significant increase. I think registration is just up overall