And that is probably because of release figures. :)

beebadger, please check your private messages! :)

You're right, drolefille! I think I'll head out to Target -- that could keep me occupied for hours!

Is there a thread where release figures is discussed....? This sounds new to me and I was a Rho Gamma (and I only graduated 3 years ago!)

Release figures have been around for a little while, but have become more popular. Here is a link to the information from the wonderful FSUZeta.
http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=22514

Yep, if a groups are more limited in who they invite back and especially invite back to pref, a girl has a much better chance matching to her to choices than she did back in the days when all groups invited more than three times quota back to prefs. (I mean at schools with three pref. parties.)

No group ought to be carrying a lot of extra girls today at pref.

But I'd still recommend people try to be open to all groups they pref and list all they'd be willing to join on the bid card. There are still a bunch of girls who match to their second or third choice, and had they SIPed they wouldn't be Greek today. Only SIP if you know you'd rather not be Greek than join that group. In most cases, you don't really increase your options to join by holding out for COB or re-rushing. (exceptions of course for campuses with weirdly high total.)

I think I was trying to point out that your chances are the same of getting your first choice regardless if you SIP or not, regardless of any other PNM. You're counting on being either on the 1st bid list or high enough on the 2nd to slide into your first choice's NM class.

If you SIP and match, you would have matched your first choice even if you hadn't SIP.

We're saying the exact same thing!;)

I think suicide is a dangerous game of roulette. We had a sorority on campus (I just finished recruitment last night) that "dirty rushed" a lot of girls, telling them to suicide sorority "A" and they would pick that PNM. Out of about 20-25 girls... they only took 6. They knew going in that they could only take 6...

Well when everyone plays by the rules, suicide can be good if you'd rather have no bid if you can't be ABC. It doesn't work when there are unPanhellenic things going on!

I personally advocate suicide. Okay that sounds so wrong! I pesonally advocate SIP. Don't take up a space that someone else really may have wanted or lead another group on thinking you're jumping off stage on bid day to them when you would rather eat dirt and run crying down the street after opening the envelope!

I think that advocating SIP is not realistic. Of course with the release figures, most when are getting their first choice. Recruitment is a confusing time. If a PNM gets stuck on one group and basically ignores the attributes of another group, how would she know that she'd rather shoot herself than become a member. Giving a group the chance to convince you after your released from your favorite group is the basis of the release figures concept. Not SIPing and giving a group a chance after bid is essentially the same. You have until inititation to really decide if it is truly not for you! The majority of the time, the NM will fit in. There are very few groups out there that people would rather die than be a part of if they actually knew what that group was about. I think we do the NPC chapters and the sisters in those chapters a disservice by implying that they aren't worth peoples' time. Every NPC national organization has a rich history that would benefit anyone! Go Panhellenic!!!

I agree with your post if the chapters are fairly big (90 or more). There are usually enough women that you can find at least a few that you connect with. But with smaller chapters, sometimes there IS such a difference that you WOULD rather die than be a part of that group.

Also, the time till initiation is increasingly short - and as we've seen here, sometimes the amount of "real life" the NMs are exposed to is somewhat limited. Everything's great for 6 weeks and then boom - you HAVE to go to everything, you find out the chapter politics and it isn't Happy Pony Rainbow Land anymore.

That is definitely true...but do you think you have a better chance of figuring these things out in under a week? Giving NM orientation a chance gives you a much, much, much more realistic idea of a chapter than a few rush parties. As for the size of a group, sure large chapters should be easy for anyone to fit into, but even 30 girls can't be all exactly the same. You get that many women together, and the group will be diverse just because of the way each woman was raised. Assuming you know everything about every member of a group because you talked to three people during rush is RIDICULOUS!

Well, in some cases, smaller schools have deferred rush too, so (if the campus doesn't have a lot of stupid silence rules that are contrary to the whole point of deferred) she's gotten to know some of the chapter members in a non-rush setting. I know that there were some chapters at my school (total was 50) that I would have not felt comfortable being a part of and would have refused a bid from. Not to say I didn't like some of the girls, that doesn't mean I want to be their sister. I don't think I'd be out of line if I said that probably a third (if not more) of the girls at our school suicided - just because they knew the sororities and the women beforehand.

I agree that you do have till initiation and should give it a chance, I just wonder how much of a "real taste" NMs get sometimes.

my campus seems similar to 33girl's.

we have a deferred rush with only 3 chapters and silence rules only during formal recruitment with each chapter having their own personality. while you can see some girls going between two chapters, you pretty much know where a girl wants to go by the time it comes to formal recruitment. who she has been hanging out with since september, and by her personality who she seems to fit in with.

so we have a lot of girls suicide, and with pledge classes of about 18, and total at 40 (which should be higher because all groups have about 50ish girls in the fall and 65ish in the spring) and most of the girls in my sorority suicided zta, including me. i went to my other preference party, just to see what it was like, even though i had no intentions of putting them on my preference card. so it depends on the campus culture and would you rather be greek or a member of one sorority.