I had to do that too...the girl went absolutely white until I explained that we're not allowed to let them leave with anything.

Re: Re: What's rush like at your school?
 

My high school didn't allow balloons on campus because of allergies.

Rush at my school is pretty simple. It's free, you don't sign up, you just show up at a pre-approved meeting place, the Rho Chi's take you to whatever sorority is holding an event that night (sometimes it's ABC, sometimes it's XYZ, sometimes they hold back-to-back events on the same night), nobody is cut from individual rounds, and everyone gets invited to pref, however, you can only pref one sorority, since there are only two. After pref, there's a 24 or 30-hour silence period until you either get your bid, or get told you DIDN'T get a bid (always done in person, in private, either in the rushee's room, or in a quiet place around campus), at which point the silence is over, and the rushees can talk to the sorority people if they want. Informal rush works pretty much the same way, minus the Rho Chi's and the preference ceremony, and C.O.B. is sort of like informal, except there's no specific time frame. Oh, and I've honestly never heard of a group withholding a bid from anyone unless they seriously felt that it wouldn't be good for that girl.....in my situation, the XYZ girls liked me, but believed that I had a full schedule of activities already and wouldn't be able to take on the time commitment that pledging required, which was completely true. But that's okay, my school isn't a huge Greek school, and Greeks and independents are encouraged to mix freely (well, come on, imagine how boring it'd be if you were ONLY allowed to talk to the same 20 girls all the time), so I didn't lose any friends just because the Greek thing didn't work out for me.

Re: Re: Re: What's rush like at your school?
 

Helium filled balloons have been discouraged where large amounts of them could be released and then potentially injure animals when they fall back down. Perhaps there was an environmental aspect to why they were not allowed.

Rush at my school takes place during the week before school, and all sororities move a week before that to prepare for Rush.

We have all of the same basic rules has Alabama...

There are no rules against balloons though. All of the sororities fill up balloons in their colors and put them on the ceiling of their house...

I'm not sure about the exact dollars amount of the fines for running over the time restrictions for getting the lists of girl who were invited back. But most of the sororities here have specific funds for these fines because they run over every year... During Rush we didn't get our lists of the houses we were invited back to until 11pm-1am the night before. We ALWAYS got our lists in person. Our Gamma Chi would talk to us one at a time to give us our lists and answer any questions/ concerns we had about the next day.

Also, on Pref Night all Pref Cards are signed in the Student Union. Once you have signed your card you go to a compleetly seperate floor of the Union so that you don't influence the girls who have not yet Prefed. All PNMs are required to stay in the Union until all of the sororities have given their final lists to Panhellenic. I didn't get back to my room until 3am that morning. Not only is there a no talking rule, but cell phones are strictly prohibited and while girls are in the Pref Ceremonies the Gamma Chis look in their bags, and confiscate any cell phones that they find.

Our recruitment have a lot of rule. There is a 7-10 page package for each chapter with the rules of rush that each member must sign prior to recruitment. The Gamma Chi's are forbidden to wear letter or have any contact with their chapter during this time.

Day 1: Open House (6 houses) - there can be hardly any decoration. The house must look as is always does. We like to get matching shirt for this day.

Day 2: Philanthropy Day (4 houses)- we show the PNM's what our philantropy is about. We get matching stitches for this day.

Day 3: Theme Day (3 house)- we select a theme. Each chapter has a differnt one like Vegas Day, Hawaii Day, Mardi Gras, etc.

Day 4: Pref. (2 houses) - we have our ceremony. First round we have cheese cake. The second round we just have drinks since they would have eaten at the other house.

Day 5: Bid Day - This year Bid Day is on a separte day. We usally had it the night of Pref.

We are not allow to talk to any PNM about our sorority during recruitment while we are in class. If they ask us we are to say go thru recruitment, but we are allow to tell them what sorority we are in.

There is a strick silence period between Pref. and Bid Day. We can not talk to any one outside of our chapter.

There are more rules just can't remember all of them right now.

It gets really tricky when your biological sister is a PNM. I remember getting a slap on the wrist because I was talking to my sister before Rush. The other sororities had a problem with it and my chapter thought it looked bad. Now come on - do you really think a 5 minute conversation in the cafe is going to pursuade her to join/not join my sorority. And I think it looks even worse - not to mention down right stupid - to ignore your sister when she's brand new to a school. I was a senior that year so she had already heard all about it for the 3 years prior.

This same thing happened to me! The last place on earth my sister wanted to be was left at college by my parents (she was an "it" thing in HS apparently!). It took 2 hours for her to stop crying.....amazingly she did in my room in the arms of a another sister and I. Yes, broken rules, but I was NOT about to leave my crying sister by herself....my parents would have killed me if I had!!! Anyway, it was still days before recruitment and as the post above said....she had already been listening to me for 2 years!

I have an Alpha Xi Delta friend who actually elected NOT to participate in rush during the rounds when her younger sister came through. She felt that her presence would create a bias. In the end, she ended up an Alpha Xi anyway. :)