I'm going to get into trouble for this, but the same is true for Indiana and Wisconsin, as well. For a large number of popular programs, their standards aren't as high as Illinois. It's gotten worse over the years as Illinois has really stopped giving preference to in-state students when it comes to admissions.

Anyway, besides having a bunch of freshmen with excellent grades, it's almost silly to try to judge anyone on a high school GPA. The Chicago area contains some of the top high schools in the country, and you can't compare a GPA at New Trier to a GPA at Strawn High. Not to mention that some schools do GPA's out of 5 points or 6 points or whatever, so the number you are looking at is, pretty much, nonsense.

If you really want to judge someone on academics, probably the best bet would be to ferret out the girls who came in through the back door (i.e. a major with lower standards) and who plan to switch in a year or two.

All that said, though, typically, EVERY NPC GROUP has a higher GPA than the all-women's GPA. When even the lowest sorority GPA beats the all-women's, you can see that it's just not something to worry about.

Another reason I'm happy my daughter is only 12 right now :)! It's normal to feel this way and one important thing to remember is that in 2 days the members are meeting over 1,200 girls. I can only speak for my house, but we were not allowed to say anything negative at any time during discussions. I remember how personal it felt getting my invite card back, but when I was on the other side it never seemed personal and I worry that some girls forget how many girls we are meeting the first 2 days. From reading here it seems like some schools have a much harder recruitment, but ours always seemed very friendly and not as cut throat. From my experience, the girls who kept their hearts open and did not drop out received a bid.
I cannot promise that or have actual knowledge, but what I recall is the girls that were upset were the ones who dropped out believing the sororites remaining on their bid card were not good enough for them.
My mom's bid card had her #2 sorority on it and she told me she felt really sad that day but in the end it was exactly where she belonged. My mom and I were in 2 different houses and both my sisters were in different houses as well, so when people say there are a lot of houses to love they are not kidding. Please feel free to pm me anytime!

It seems to me that Illinois wants to be like Michigan or UVA when it comes to admissions rather than a state university. My mom said she would of never gotten in now and I would of been one of the very last to make it through the door and I thought I was smart back then. The numbers these kids are getting back on their ACT's and SAT's are insane and with all the AP classes kids are applying with GPA's above their 4 or 5 point. While I'm proud to say I went there I do miss Illinois being more realistic to get into. I like that the state universities etc offer an education for our kids who do very well but aren't always the top 5% of their class. Some of my very best friends ended up at Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana and loved it and I loved it when I visited them. I would of been happy at any Big 10 school or probably anywhere as I was amazed by the college experience and felt very fortunate my parents were so generous paying for it and I didn't have to take out a student loan.
I need to figure out the quote message in reply because even with my stellar education I'm not smart enough to figure that out :)!

My daughter looked at both Illinois and Iowa. She wanted the Big 10 experience. Of course in-state would've been great, but she just loved the feel of Iowa. Illinois (forgive me UofI grads) is getting to be almost Ivy League in their admissions. Really, really good students are not able to get into Illinois flagship university. In my opinion, UofI loves out of state kids, and in-state kids are getting shafted. So that's why I think Iowa, Michigan, Indiana are getting boat loads of kids from Illinois. At my daughters high school, Iowa was the number two choice of college. Right behind UofI!

The University of Michigan is a state school too. It's simply the state school that is highly selective. There are other state schools that are much less competitive. I think state schools should vary in this regard.

To quote a message, click on the "Quote" and it will take you right to the message. If you want to quote multiple messages, click on the ditto marks icon for all them and then when you click Post Reply at the bottom of the thread, it will quote all of them.

I believe that Illinois has one other public university listed as an R1, and two other public universities considered to be R2. So, it is not as though raising the admissions standards at Urbana prevents other in-state students from getting a great education.

U of I is a good school, but it's not the bargain it used to be. If tuition keeps rising, a lot more top in state kids will start looking at other schools.

My daughter has been too busy to talk to me, but I did get the following texts:

Mom: How was last night?
Daughter: It was okay.
Mom: Did you visit any houses you'd want to go back to?
Daughter: Ehh. I didn't really love everything about any one yet.
Mom: That's actually good.

I'm right, right? Also, I like the way she put "yet" at the end of her "I didn't really love everything about any one yet."

I think that's a good sign. They move so quickly through the houses. My daughter is a bit of a freak with note taking. She wrote all sorts of notes about each house. I also wonder if the girls think "what the heck am I looking for?" It's such an intangible thing. It moves so fast, and then "poof" it's over.

I totally sympathize with your lack of info from your daughter. I felt like I was dealing in telegraphic speech for a few days. As a mom I want to hear each and every detail! Skype worked for me when I finally nailed my daughter down.

Scrapcat, I'm glad to hear that I am not the only mom for whom getting information about this is like pulling teeth. There are so many moms on GC posting their daughter's recruitment stories, right down to the tiniest detail. I was starting to think there was something wrong with our mother/daughter relationship!

Complete opposite over her, my girl thinks she has found her favorite. She is trying to go through very open-minded but I can tell right now she is in love with a particular house. I'm interested to hear what she thinks after tonight when she has been to all of them. There is just that sound in her voice that gives it away. Her talk with her Mom was much more neutral though so sometimes I think our kids try and keep it calm because they are worried we are so worried about them.

It's just really tough to have opinions about 18 houses, or even to keep them all straight. Sure, you can make notes, but at the end of two days, everything is jumbled on both sides. It's almost easier just to really start weighing your options in round 2. When I went through, they were still doing invites first (instead of ranking), and I think it was probably easier for the PNM's.

You are so right! I found my rush booklet from the early 80s, how funny it was to look through. When I went through, there were (apparently, according to my rush book) 24 houses we went to first round. I remember our rush counselors telling us to take notes or we'd never remember all of them. So of course, I dutifully did that. But as I looked over my booklet, I had to laugh because most of my comments were about the houses: "Great house!" "Beautiful house!" "Such a pretty house!" That couldn't have helped me remember them much later! :) I had never been in a sorority house before, and clearly I was enthralled by the whole thing. But I did do a rudimentary "yes", "maybe", "no" that may have helped a little. I was sort of surprised to see we had gone from 24 first stage to only 8 second stage (then 5, then 3 for pref). I didn't remember that big dropoff after 1st stage.

We went 24-10-5-3 when I went through (in '99), but in the first round, we visited a few non-NPC chapters, so it was really 19-10-5-3. I'm guessing you did the same...4-H, for example, is a full member of the CPH, and they have a house, so everyone goes there, but just for informational purposes. Dropping to 8 would still be a big drop-off, though.

OK, someone who knows the IL campus, please tell me what the KD house looks like.... the photo of the KD house as compared to all of those gorgeous tudors and colonials with turrets and columns and verandas looks a tad forbiding. Was it a bad camera angle or is it a modern building?

Looks like we visited 25 houses, but two appear to have been non-NPC sororities: 4-H (who did not participate in formal rush) and Phi Beta Chi (not sure but don't think it was NPC). The other 23 were:

Alpha Chi Omega
Alpha Delta Pi
Alpha Epsilon Phi
Alpha Gamma Delta
Alpha Omicron Pi
Alpha Phi
Alpha Xi Delta
Chi Omega
Delta Delta Delta
Delta Gamma
Delta Phi Epsilon
Delta Zeta
Gamma Phi Beta
Kappa Alpha Theta
Kappa Delta
Kappa Kappa Gamma
Phi Mu
Phi Sigma Sigma
Pi Beta Phi
Sigma Delta Tau
Sigma Kappa
Sigma Sigma Sigma
Zeta Tau Alpha

So - we did go from 24 (including Phi Beta Chi - there was no note stating they were not participating in formal rush, unlike 4H's note) to 8. :)