As a PNM that was cut from a big SEC recruitment just about a week ago, I can tell you there are very few things that can make us feel better. I told my mom a few minutes after I got that unwanted phone call from my Pi Chi, and a few hours later I had a delivery for some lovely flowers with a little note that said "Don't worry, there is something wonderful just around the corner. Love, Mom." It made me smile, but I was still rather upset for a few days. My friends, brother, boyfriend all said the things we don't want to hear:

"I never pictured you as a sorority girl anyway." "You'll make better friends somewhere else." "You can always join a club or a 'professional' fraternity." "I told you; you were probably cut because you're a sophomore." (this one obviously hurt the most)

But at least they were there for me, that's probably the best thing. Don't say anything, anything that has to do with Greek life. Go out to a nice dinner, indulge in retail therapy, or something that will get the PNM's mind off of recruitment. Give them a few days, maybe even a week, to be sad, and just be there for them.

If she's still determined to join Greek life (I still am!) then let her know she'll have a better chance at informal/formal recruitments if she meets sorority women, gets involved, and keeps her grades up, and gets those recs.

This is good advice, and the fact that your realize this is going to help you as people you love get hit with major life setbacks (serious illness, job loss, divorce, etc.). I know that getting released from rush sucks so bad right now, but it sounds like you are able to put it in perspective.

Reading this discussion made me drag out my folder from formal recruitment (I save everything. But it's all organized! haha).

I read through it again and found the following statements in Tips for PNM's.
"Do not interpret any remark made at an event as an assurance of an invitation to another event or a bid."
"Chapters are not required to offer bids to legacies and may extend invitations to events as a matter of courtesy"

Included in the folder was a short description of each sororities activites and philanthropy, the Pennsylvania hazing law, a list of the benefits of greek life, recrutiment guidelines, and the four pillars of greek life.

It does not say anywhere in our folder that a girl may not be able to attend pref. parties due to GPA. My friend L got invited back to two parties (out of four), and had been going through formal recruitment with us when she was called into the greek life office and told she was not elligible to go to the parties or recieve a bid the next morning. She was absolutely devestated, and wished that they had done something about her GPA earlier. It turned out happy, she got a COB bid from Chi Omega and is now one of my sisters, and she is very happy. It so turned out we were her first choice. No one had explained to her that being cut from pref due to grades was a possibility. She had assumed that her grades were fine since she had been allowed to attend every other night of recruitment.

That is because the University and Panhellenic can NOT prohibit a PNM with low grades from rushing. I bet that the conversation that the Greek Life office had with L was that she had been cut from rush, not that she was ineligible to participate at all.

GPA minimums are a requirement of the individual chapters. It is also part of our private membership selection criterion. Every sorority may have a DIFFERENT mimimum. I am sure that in your information packet somewhere, it says that a low GPA may negatively affect the PNMs chances of getting a bid or even participating in recruitment.

This is confusing. How can her GPA be too low to be able to complete formal recruitment but she got a COB bid right after?

ThetaLady: I am very confused by the whole situation. She was in my group, and attended all parties until preference, which she told me she couldn't. She may not have been invited back at all, but that is what she told me, although now that does not make sense.

I don't quite understand how she got a COB bid with a GPA too low to participate in formal recrutiment either. My chapter is known for having a high GPA and we have faith that she can bring hers up while here, but it didn't make sense to me either. I love her to death though and her GPA here at midterm is where it needs to be so that works out now. *shrugs*

The Panhellenic on the campus where I teach and advise has established a minimum 2.6 GPA for sophomores+ and transfers, as a condition of recruitment registration, and they do require a grade release to look up a PNM's grades. They also state that this is the minimum to participate, but chapters may privately require or look for higher GPAs. All freshman are considered to be in good standing/eligible for fall recruitment. They will make exceptions for lower GPA students with a learning or medical disability that is documented in writing by the PNM's physician, but again they specify that individual chapters may still require or look for a higher GPA during membership selection.

It sounds to me like like Panhellenic:

1) has a minimum, didn't realize until later on that the PNM didn't meet it, and was letting her know. This doesn't seem likely, since she later received a bid, but if they called her in (which also seems odd...usually a released PNM is contacted by her Rho Chi/Gamma, but this may be handled differently on your campus), it might have been their error to not catch it, and they decided to make an exception and allow her to accept a bid through COB, or
2) she was released from recruitment and they were trying to let her down gently ("it's your grades, not that you weren't liked"), the reason(s) for which they'd have no way of knowing since membership selection is private, and
3) COB resulted because some chapter(s) didn't make quota/total or had someone decline to accept a bid, and were eligible to COB, so they went back to the pool and decided to make an exception and extend a bid to this PNM.

That's my best guess. In the end, it sounds like it all worked out, and everyone is happy! Congratulations to her and to you on joining Chi Omega!

Hat tip to Titchou for posting this information in another thread:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~

Please see the MOI (Green Book) 17th edition, Unanimous Agreement #II, Jurisdiction of Panhellenic Associations, Item 1 College Panhellenic Associations, page 29:

C. A College Panhellenic Council shall take no action that infringes on the sovereignty, rights, or privileges of the individual NPC fraternities. Infringements include but are not limited to the following:

i. Requiring fraternity chapters to maintain a specific scholastic grade point average.

ii. Requiring a scholastic grade point average as a condition for a chapter’s participation in membership recruitment.

iii. Requiring a scholastic grade point average as a condition for a woman’s participation in the membership recruitment process.

iv. Requiring a scholastic grade point average as a qualification for pledging or initiation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

She also pointed out that a chapter may pledge a woman without any interference or involvement of CPC via COB.

But we all know that sometimes University administrations make rules that don't follow NPC agreements too.

You are right... who knows?

The on-line recruitment FAQs state "Panhellenic has established..." twice, but who knows? The university has also established a minimum 2.5 GPA for new members during the "pledging" semester, with a mandated advisor meeting and academic improvement seminar for those below. Chapter are fined $50 for any new member who is below a 2.5 and does not follow through with these requirements. We have questioned/challenged this policy, but it still stands for now. The 2.6 minimum for recruitment may be related to the other policy.

Can anyone who knows more about the MOI comment on this? Is it common for a university or the CPC to put rules in place that violate the MOI or is there more "flexibility" in the agreement than I naively think there is?

It's not common, but sometimes it happens. For example, Tufts guarantees a bid to any woman who signs up for recruitment, per the university's policy. The NPC groups don't like it, but go along with it.

And there are schools that demand a shortened new member period (think... 3 weeks). They say that first semester freshmen can't join a sorority/fraternity.

In the "near" future, it's gonna be Pref Day, Bid Day, New Member ceremony, Initiation Day in the same week.:rolleyes:

Some fraternities already do this, and it's worked out very well for some chapters. I would love to see more groups doing things along the lines of Sig Ep's Balanced Man program.

I sincerely hope not.

Umm - while that would eliminate big/lil drama - wouldn't that mean that all the little chickadees that dont "feel the love" on the first day would have to quit bid day or right after initiation? :eek:

can you imagine all the special snowflakes complaining that they can't join a different group because they were initiated on bid day? or the questions of "even though I was initiated, I just didn't understand what was going on, so can I join another sorority???"

it's bad enough when it is a 6 week new member program...

It kinda seems like a failing of NPC rush that it works for the men but would never work for the women.

AMEN!!!

These girls need to understand and appreciate the meaning of our sisterhood and what they are joining. That takes time.

Fraternity rush vs. NPC is so incredibly different, that I don't know that it is fair to compare the two. Apples & pineapples...

Right, right, I was just thinking about why it works for some of their groups. ZBT also goes straight to initiation, AFAIK.

I'm not really suggesting the elimination of pledge periods, but I would like to see less of an emphasis on "you're initiated now, the learning is over". Even among NPC orgs, some do a better job of others in making sure there is continuous development throughout your time as a member.

ABSOLUTELY!

Here, the guys might spend a year (or two!) getting to know someone before they invite them to the house or to a rush event. On the one hand, they really get to know them before they offer them a bid, and so it is more reasonable to have the short pledge period - on the other, they are somewhat limited to men they already know from church, camp, or school. The big get bigger and the small have to work at it to bring in new men.

If women went to completely real unstructured informal recruitment at some of these big state schools, it would be all recruitment all the time, and quickly devolve to very cliquey. Y'all would all be mad at us for not taking enough OOS women, rural women, and first generation college women. ( Hey, it might get pledge classes at Arkansas down to manageble size? :rolleyes:)

Who says it works for the men? It would be interesting to compare rentention rates for a number of decades. Not saying NPC would beat IFC, just that it might reveal...something.
Plus, most fraternities have some kind of inactive membership status, while many NPC groups don't.

I absolutely agree with this. You can always learn something new, or be reminded of something you've forgotten.

[QUOTE=AnchorAlumna;2185970]Who says it works for the men? It would be interesting to compare rentention rates for a number of decades. Not saying NPC would beat IFC, just that it might reveal...something.
Plus, most fraternities have some kind of inactive membership status, while many NPC groups don't.
QUOTE]

Exactly. I think that while NPC chapter numbers may be much higher bid day -many individual IFC chapter groups would beat their comparable campus NPC groups both in graduate rates and long-term retention.

And I think it's only a relative handful of IFC/NIC (or similar) fraternities that have no pledge period and go straight to full initiation. Most fraternities do have some sort of pledge period, though they may not call it that.

Just my 2 cents worth.... My experience is limited to large SEC NPC recruitments with hundreds and hundreds, even 1000+, women rushing. I don't know of any fraternity rush that approaches the numbers of women wanting to join NPC oranizations. I think that the sheer volume of PNMs dictate a lot of the process that is in place. I cannot see getting to know 1000+ women well enough for members to offer bids and initiate within a week or two.

Our Alpha Gamma Delta Experience is also about continuous member development. I think it's great :)

I only wish I had seen this thread a few months ago, it would have helped me out a lot! My best friend was going through Formal Recruitment at her school, just to give some background on her she has a 4.16 GPA, is in the Honors program at her school, is about to be the president of her Honors GLO as a sophomore, has a full academic scholarship that is extremely hard to obtain, and didn't go through Recruitment as a freshman because she won a HUGE pageant back home that had her coming home every weekend for different events she had to be present for as the holder of that title. She has never not been mentioned for interview in ANY of the pageants she has been in, has held over 30 different titles, won State in GISA extemporaneous speaking when we were in high school, was a cheerleader, competitive dancer, One Act play member, Beta club president, Miss Southwest Georgia Academy (teacher selected head female senior superlative), and our valedictorian. Needless to say I NEVER thought that the morning of her Pref I would get a call from her saying she got that infamous Pi Chi call. I had no clue what to say. And her Pi Chi didn't do a whole lot to help. I just don't want her to be completely turned off to Greek life, because she would be an asset to ANY chapter of any sorority, and I have no double interest because my organization doesn't have a chapter at her school. Any advice to get her to try COB?

Honestly, I'd just let it go and let her do her own thing. I'm sure your friend is wonderful, beautiful, smart, and accomplished, but it seems quite strange that someone with that many accolades and attributes would be dropped. Perhaps she rubbed some people the wrong way during her freshman year. Feel free to mention COB, but she sounds like she has a lot of great things going on and she'll do well at her school with or without sorority life.

She also might be at a school with a competitive recruitment and ranked some chapters more highly than chapters she was more suited for in reality. Some chapters may have felt she was too involved in other organizations and may not have much time to devote to the chapter. Some chapters do not take sophomores to keep their classes even. Who knows? You could let her know about COB and what it's like, but ultimately it's her decision.

Thank you all! I really appreciate the advice and its nice to hear explanations from more "recruitment seasoned" sorority members. I have only just gotten through my first as a sister this fall.

I thought I would bump this, having heard some sad stories recently. It started out quite awhile back but some things never change.

One thing to NOT say is, "So, when will you be allowed to go thru rush again?".

Long stories about how you or other women got over the same event and did just fine may NOT help, unless you are asked to specifically provide such examples.

When I was dropped as a freshman, my Rho Chi said, "Oh my goodness!! This never happens!!" Well...that made me feel just great. :eek: Yeah...don't say that.


(I am happy to report that I recovered well and got involved in many wonderful campus experiences.)

Some PNMs are so fabulous that I think they get dropped because everybody thought their sorority would never have a chance with her.