Most of the time these guys that tell women to join the "hottest" sorority are underclassmen, in my experience. By the time they get to be juniors or seniors, they aren't quite as shallow (or have gotten shafted by the "hot" sisters) and give better advice.

Not only that...if it's a guy telling his girlfriend that, the last thing he's thinking of is her...he wants to impress everyone with the fact that he's dating an XYZ.

I think its important to cultivate positive relationships with all the fraternities on your campus, but whether or not you want to focus all your effort on what the XYs think, I'm not so sure it matters that much.

On my campus all the sororities were roughly equal in size, but only 3-4 out of 10 or so fraternities had memberships equal to the sororities. The biggest fraternities were the most popular to have an exchange with, but they couldn't have 7 exchanges every semester. So there was some competition amongst the sororities to lock up a social with those groups.

One of my vivid memories is my roommate the Social chair jumping up and down trying to get everyone psyched up to try to get a social with the XYs...and about half the chapter responding with "Yes! We need to have a social with XY!!" and half the chapter responding "Who cares about XY! I'm dating an AB" or "My boyfriend's not in a fraternity. Let's have another date party!"

EW - Texas, not Arizona. Currently in Tennessee. I've visited Arizona, but never lived there. Heck, I thought my screen name might give you a head's up. Or a quick look at my postings. Whatever. You really shouldn't comment on what I might or might not know about southern sorority rush without doing a little research. That would mean knowing where I got my undergraduate degree, and my graduate, and where I was an advisor, where I've had sorority training, which Alumnae Panhellenics I was active in, and which chapters of other NPCs I've helped on which campuses. Whew. And let me point out the op on this thread has NOTHING to do with north, south, east and west.

And now that I've been clued into a little more about you, I really don't think I'm interested in proving anything to you. Those whose opinion I care about here know enough about me, and you - well, I think your screen name is most appropriate. So let's just drop the personal bickering here and get back on topic.

BACK ON TOPIC - The inability to mix with some fraternities is a real problem for struggling chapters. Fraternities hold a lot of sway with the ability to mix, and all other considerations aside, a fraternity chapter of 80+ is not going to be interested in having a mixer with a sorority of 20 - 30. PNMs going through rush will notice social pictures during recruitment - again, contributing to the inability of the group to successfully recruit enough quality pledges to turn it around.
It's amazing how who you date can impact a sorority's abilitly to mix with certain fraternities. If you are dating the right member (or members if we are talking about several girls) you may well be able to plan a social event with a fraternity you might otherwise not get to - but that's a very singular situation.
One change for the better I've noticed since I was an active back when dinosaurs roamed the earth is there are more sorority sponsored social events - so instead of having to wait for a fraternity to invite you the sororities are throwing more of their own events. This can result in good p.r. with a variety of fraternities - if you have a cross-section of fraternity men invited, and they get to see the sorority sisters in a good light it can help with their perception. I know of at least one instance when a non-top tier sorority ended up having a mixer with a top tier fraternity simply because several of the fraternity members had been at a sorority event and had a really good time. That's the kind of thing that can help build momentum in changing a chapter's reputation.
One of the toughest things to fight is the feeling of defeatism a poor recruitment can give a chapter.

[quote=SWTXBelle;1608578]BACK ON TOPIC - The inability to mix with some fraternities is a real problem for struggling chapters. Fraternities hold a lot of sway with the ability to mix, and all other considerations aside, a fraternity chapter of 80+ is not going to be interested in having a mixer with a sorority of 20 - 30. PNMs going through rush will notice social pictures during recruitment - again, contributing to the inability of the group to successfully recruit enough quality pledges to turn it around.quote]

That is so true it is really awkward when a sorority is trying to have a social with a fraternity and only 15 of the girls show up and 30 guys come. Also you would be surprise how big of an impact fraternities have on recruitment. For instance, this year the " least popular" sorority had a really bad recruitment this year mainly due to a problem they had with the most popular fraternity. The guys invited a lot of pnms to a party before rush started and told a lot of the girls what ever you do dont pledge the "least popular" sorority. Of course girls are going to listen to these guys. Although the guys may not have meant any harm it didnt help that sorority's appeal to pnms. A lot of pnms were crying if they got a bid from the "least popular" sorority.

I have a question - what if there is a situation where you have a "top" house who has taken a lesser pledge class (I think the term that the fraternities use is, "There are a lot of legacies in that pledge class."):rolleyes: Do you think that this can detrimentally effect the status of being on "top"?

Southwest Texas is Arizona...hardly real Texas or Southern. Mind as well be Mexico, actually. I read SWTx and then looked up the Theta Tau chapter of Sigma Chi and it was only talking about Arizona State.

So again, you're not necessarily qualified to talk about something which is not on your radar screen or shoot my opinions down. Southern greek life is simply different. Texas State is not Southern. Unless you mean like Mexico. Then, yes it's very Southern. Texas States' KA chapter is home to Scott Grifo, but that's about as far as it goes.

Not really...in fact the term "there are alot of legacies in that pledge class" means that they don't ever expect that from the sorority and would continue having functions with them regardless of their looks...they're still a top sorority. It still looks good to have their letters with yours on the back of a shirt. Perhaps a continued poor rush could spell disaster but certainly not one....you would need at least four years of very poor rush to bring a top house down. And that just doesn't happen.

To the topic at hand,

Fraternities opinion is hard to come by when rush was before school. Now that it is after school starts, it matters alot more. The sorority which I was discussing previously happened to take a girl who was not up to....fraternity traditional standards, to put it nicely. I'm not specifically talking about looks. It drove away fraternities from having partys because no one wanted to have a party with that sort of girl. Rumor spread of this girl and things went downhill from there. My fraternity and sorority friends who went to school at the time acknowledge this.

I think that it is an unfortunate truth that while one bad pledge class can sink a lower-status sorority, it really won't affect a higher-status one. I can think of one pledge of the top sorority on my campus who we cut - she was fat, ugly and rude. Her nickname was "Ape" - she had the whole unibrow thing working. But her being a member of the top sorority didn't hurt her group at all - she was indeed a legacy, and they were strong enough (in terms of numbers) to be able to absorb a few not-so-great pledges. 6 "bad" pledges don't show up in a pledge class of 30 - 40 the way they do in one of 10 - 15.


eta - It's a shame Tennessee is no longer in the south. I'll inform my APH . . . .

As to the first thing - that's what double and triple mixers are for.

As far as sorority sponsored social activities (this is back in dino times as well), we used to hold a bid day party instead of having a bid day mixer (i.e. the sisters & PNMs could invite anyone special, instead of just being at a mixer w/ fraternity guys you never met who mean nothing to you) and we held our own parties and happy hours at our house often. The other sororities did the same thing. This is one of the reasons I hate and resent the dry policies NPC imposes - it doesn't give the sororities any ability to create their own social space. They have to rely on the guys.

So this is one girl who is (insert hideous social deformity of your choice here) - would they really not want to party with the WHOLE sorority, even if the rest of the sorority was hot and awesome and fun? I mean, didn't y'all ever see that M*A*S*H* episode where they drew straws and the loser had to take out the klutzy girl? Couldn't you do that?

Or are you trying to say that the girl in question was working the other side of the hot dog stand? Guys, your mojo will not go limp because there happens to be a lesbian in the room.

I mean, if we had refused to mix with this or that fraternity because of ONE a-hole, we would have never had mixers.

Oh boy. I guess I am guilty... well sort of. Over the summer before my sophomore year, I was asked by five incoming female freshmen (fresh-women? fresh-people?) from my high school about the chapters at UK. (At different times - I was kind of speaking more like their big brother because at the time, not many from my high school went to The University of Kentucky)

In my defense, I really don't think I ever said one negative thing about any chapter. However, I am fairly certain that I would have spoken "more highly" of some chapters - especially ones that I would have had personal experience with from the previous year. (i.e. mixers with etc.) Most likely, I regurgitated superficial data like "last year's homecoming queen is an ABC" or "there are two XYZs cheerleaders". I am happy to report that "my girls" (all of which were part of the same friendship/social circle as it were) made their decisions based on what was best for them. Between the five of them, they pledged four different chapters. I would say they were all good fits with their chapters. And that all five of them are still friends to this day.

I totally agree. What I told my friends (the summer between my freshman and sophomore years) was based on my own personal - and at that time - limited experience and observations.

And just for the record, I was never shafted by the "hot" (or hot-challenged) sisters :cool:

I think this may be where I have been questing the sway that fraternities (in general) might have. When I was at UK, (and I think it is still the case now) most of the sororities had more members per chapter than most of the fraternities. With there being 22 fraternities and 13 sororities, it was "easier" for every sorority to be "matched" with a fraternity at any given time.

I would add that it isn't just who you date, but also who you (i.e. members of the chapter) know socially. Generally speaking, the more friendships (contacts) chapter members have with members of other chapters, the more "popular" that chapter is viewed.

I think this happens with Sigma Chi chapters because of our Derby Days. Generally speaking, we are exposed to all the sorority chapters in a fun and social way. The same can be said for any sorority or fraternity that hosts a Greek wide event. Simply put, the more positive exposure you have with more chapters, then a more likely "better" (for lack of a better word) social standing.

33girl, you've made me laugh - and were it not so cliche, I would tell you about almost spitting diet Coke on my keyboard.

Stupid.

I'll spell it out for you...

She was a certain race which one does not usually associate oneself with in social occasions.

Jesus christ.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That didn't even come to my mind. Probably because I'm not a racist asshole.

That's a different M*A*S*H* episode - where the guy wants to make sure he gets the "right color" blood.

Funny?

No, not really. It's unfortunate it happens.

But this is the South...where tradition matters (as I have said over and over again). Where the appropriate rush/pledging tactics can set you up or pull your chapter eventually. They were idiots about this and it turned out poorly for them.

ok, I'm asking this, SERIOUSLY.

If Beyonce Knowles came through rush at your school, and an NPC sorority pledged her, would they be shunned socially?