The 141 probably decided they wanted their top choice or they would drop out and go through DG colonization.

Just speculating, but it may be that SDT was counted in the 2006 total -- for whatever reason, SDT's new members were listed in the press release that immediately followed formal recruitment, though as far as I know, SDT has not participated in formal recruitment in some time.


That's certainly possible -- it seems as if the numbers of "did not receive bids" increase dramatically on the years when a colonizing sorority held recruitment immediately following formal recruitment.

It may be that more than the usual number of PNMs did not maximize their options at pref knowing that (and being interested in) an option available following formal recruitment.

The numbers seem to be updated for % of women pledged (who participated in formal recruitment), for the years a new sorority came on, but not retrospectively for the number "not receiving bids" in the same year (presumably this number would drop).

I think the take away here is 78 girls were released completely out of 1710, which is 4 1/2%. This needs to be kept in mind when people talk about Bama being super competitive. If you want to be in a house you are ALMOST guaranteed a spot. 4 1/2% isn't zero, but when we have to assume at least a few girls who didn't want to be there and behaved appallingly or showed up with bad breath and gym clothes - or in otherwords intentionally torpedoed their own rush - then you end up with an extremely small number of girls who have all the desire in the world and it just doesn't work out.

This is where I think there could be discussion of going back over those 10 girls after philanthropy round and see if 1 or 2 chapters can't give them a second chance. Quota additions, if you will. Not mandatory, but requested. If each chapter took 2 girls who were released completely (maybe in order of where they fell on the flex lists), maybe that 10 would be cut down to 1 or 2 girls who were just snotty and deserve to be denied. I really think this is something that could be done by the computer with no muss/no fuss to the chapters. There would just have to be a line on the list of "we absolutely do not want back any girl below this point on our list" and they wouldn't be stuck taking a girl who they really think could harm the chapter.

I was a little surprised by that number myself -- it does seem lower than I would have expected (especially considering the super competitive manner in which rush is often depicted at Bama).

I also thought the withdrawal numbers, compared to the release numbers, were interesting. I wonder if withdrawal numbers are higher among in-state PNMs. Just speculating -- but OOS girls may be more open-minded than the in-state girls who are disappointed over being released from certain chapters. Pre-conceived ideas are difficult to dispel -- especially in large high schools -- when the PNMs know where older girls pledged.


Large high schools in Birmingham alone, for instance, may each have 60+ girls participating in recruitment. PNMs may not understand that no one chapter is likely to pledge 15 girls just from their own high school (possible I suppose, but not likely). Being from a large high school in a nearby metropolitan area can actually be a competitive disadvantage in some respects, especially if a PNM has her heart set on certain chapters.



And there also may be upperclassmen in that number -- who were at a disadvantage out-of-the-gate due to their graduation date.

No doubt that many PNMs who are released are great girls who deserve a Greek home -- which sort of blends into the conversation on the UGA quota thread regarding the threshold for expansion. I would also like to see sufficient expansion to reduce the size of the pledge classes -- probably questions for more knowledgeable and statistically-savvy minds than mine!

Something like this was done back in the early 1970s. A certain percentage of girls were released by everybody after first round. Panhel asked that they be invited back "one more time" on a purely voluntary basis. Sometimes it worked - a PNM actually was invited back for third round and subsequently pledged. Nobody except the rush chairman and board knew exactly who that was.
Now...as far as adding them to the pledge list...I think that's going too far.

From what I remember of this year's recruitment, this was the case 9.8 out of 10 times.

But that was different, that was when chapters had, effectively, as many invitations as they wanted to issue. If you weren't invited, they didn't see you as a fit. We are now talking about women who may have been #101 on a list of 100.

There are always going to be those women who are released because they don't meet the gpa recruitment, have a no rec, etc. But they always think they'll somehow get thru...she's so special that they'll overlook the 2.5 gpa or no one really knew about the drug arrest, or they'll understand that there really weren't any activities to volunteer for in her little town.

Ditto Titchou above. Some of the grades I saw....I wondered why in the world did they think they had a chance? Then I remembered that if you sign up for recruitment, you can move into the dorm a week early...and presumably start your partying a week early.:rolleyes:

No, it wasn't different.
We had quotas and no such thing as quota additions or snap bids. Quotas back then were between 30 and 40 (roughly), but we only had 500 women going through, not 2,000.

As I recall, the UofA's site does not specify a minimum GPA, but does recommend a 3.0 or better. Since there are girls with less than 3.0s (and not because they took AP classes) who are offered bids by sororities at Bama, that may be why they take a chance.

Certainly less-than-stellar grades will limit a PNM's opportunities, but perhaps there is still a chance.

Remember that a number of chapters at Bama have chapter GPAs and NM GPAs that fall below those of undergrad women in general and also below non-greek undergrad women. Individual chapters determine their own definitions of "grade risk."

Oh, I didn't mean at the quota stage, I meant in earlier rounds, like we'd talked about in another thread. Yes, more women got dropped then, at the end, hence the rumors for years about being "cross-cut".