I am so in favor of using older alums in the "cut room"! Some of y'all may remember that when I got my job as assistant Greek advisor at Mississippi State, the advisor had a Caesarean a week later and I had to conduct rush with only the help of the PH officers. Of course, I had to be in charge of the cut room and I was only 4 or 5 years older than the PNMs. It was terrible; many of them were hysterical, especially when a certain sorority cut them and I can remember thinking, "I can't do this! I'm not that much older than they are!" Plus nobody had warned me about how the PNMs would probably react when they were cut by that one group, even if they had invitations from the other 8 groups. By halfway through the day, I was crying too.

What's a cut room? :confused:

The room where the PNMs go to get their invitations and it's probably called different things on different campuses.

That's what I suspected. What a pessimistic term, though - seems to me it would focus the PNMs' attention on the fact that some (or all) sororities are cutting them, rather than on the fact that (hopefully) some sororities have invited them back.

Hopefully the PNMs didn't know that we referred to it as that! They only knew it as the room in the Union where they went to get invitations!

But realistically, it was the cut room.:(

EXACTLY! That's not an official term by any means...more like a realistic description!

My college didn't have a cut room. Because all of the women were staying on campus in a dorm, envelopes with invites back were slipped under the doors. If you received an invite back to a group, your invites were in a large envelope with your name on it. If a woman didn't recieve any invites, I think she received a regret letter, or her Ro Chi came to talk to her personally. I don't remember exactly how they handled it. What I do remember is that women who were far from home who may have been cut were the only ones allowed to leave campus...they couldn't move into their dorm room yet, and still had to stay around. Kind of tough to watch other girls get ready for Prefs!

Not sure if they still do it the same way now...

Oh wow, I forgot about that one. One of my daughters dropped out of recruitment and so did several other PNMs we know. Most were too far from home to go home so they had to sit there in their rooms on campuses they didn't know without anything to do but watch the "successful" PNMs get ready for all their parties. They didn't even want to go to meals they'd already paid for because they had to sit and listen to all the happy girls go on about the hard choices they had to make.

Something *definitely* should be done on each campus for the women who drop out but must stay in the dorm anyway.

At Otterbein, if you didn't match, you recieve a phone call that night. No phone call before 5, you've recieved a bid. So Monday all girls have a meeting with their Rho Chi's to recieve their bids. That was the best day of my Rho Chi period. So many jumping and screaming girls in the campus center...but I was just remembering how great it felt to get my bid. But I think I lost 10 lbs wearing my letter tshirt and letter hoodie underneath another hoodie and zipped up under a parka so I could reveal myself. Everyone who was coming into the CC for dinner thought I was NUTS...or really fat.

The problem with this system is that it creates a REALLY long silent period. From the last recrutiment party to the closing ceremony, there's NO interaction between PNMs and actives. It was really hard for me to draw the line because as a PX I was allowed to go to our final round and wear my pin/be part of the action, but not allowed to vote...and there were several girls in my group who I KEPT SEEING the next day, and I could only wave and smile, even though I was going NUTS saying HOLY CRAP I CANT WAIT TILL YOU"RE A DELTA! or PUT US FIRST PUT US FIRST PUT US FIRST in my mind.

:D Hehehe, you make me smile.

Jocelyn, great idea.

What would I change... I would either enforce that EVERYONE follows the rules, or get rid of them!
We are not 'allowed' to say anything along the lines of "I really want you here" "You would be a great attribute to this chapter"
Pretty much, we are not allowed to tell the PNM's that we (by we I mean as individuals speaking for ourselves) even like them.
We followed this rule to a T, and ended up losing at least one girl (that we would have had otherwise and dropped during pledging in hopes she can join our chapter this year) because another chapter told her "We want you here" They also wrote letters to each individual PNM, and told them they would get to keep them if they joined the sorority. They got in no trouble, but the year before, we had an infraction filed against us (but it was dropped) because one of our girls told another girl that she was a really good friend and could see her fitting in really well. Just doesn't seem right.

Well, I wouldn't call it sulking. Every case I've seen involved nonstop, brokenhearted crying and the former rushee questioning her worth.

The only problem with that at my college was that this particular dorm was the only one open. I don't think the other dorms were open yet--they opened the dorms the Saturday which was also Bid Day. One thing I do remember--the PNMS who were still going through couldn't leave campus unless they lived in that area. So..you have about 225 girls going through Rush and the only ones who can leave campus are those who were cut. I remember girls getting cut who were sweet enough to go grab McDonald's food, etc for PNMs tired of cafeteria food. They were happy enough to get away from the dorm for a little bit. Usually though, it was even worse on Bid Day. Those girls didn't have any place to go, they see their roomies get bids, and hear all the girls squealing, then running down the stairs out to the quad where the different groups have their letters set up, the balloons, singing and waiting for their girls. What was even worse was that for the girls who had to move into their dorms--the new PNMS had their sorority sisters to help out. Not usually much help for the others.


This is so true. I remember how I felt..and it was awful, especially since, at the time, I didn't know how the rec thing worked. It took me until the second day to call my mom and tell her.

i'll just say i'm glad i work at a campus where recruitment is not so competitive. references/recs and being a legacy are not really an issue here. if there is a legacy, it's most likely b/c her sister is in the sorority. we have lots of first generation students, so not much opportunity for legacies.

i wish it were possible to give each PNM their first choice (given she is on the chapter's bid list) and for each chapter to get their first bid list, although i know those two things collide! maybe each PNM could get more than one bid and then pick which one she wants.