Non-Texan attending UT-Austin
 

I have read a number of threads that suggest that getting into a number of sororities at Texas depends in part on where you went to high school in Texas. My daughter is attending UT next year, but she is not from Texas, but from another state in the mid-West. How will this affect her chances? I guess I'm concerned that it will effectively eliminate her chances for a lot of the sororities because she won't know anyone, won't have Texas recs (recs will be from home state), etc.

There are a couple of threads on here about Texas recruitment. I recently asked a similar question as I am writing a rec for a student who is going to Texas and is also a non-Texan. The main thing I have learned is to make sure that she has recs for EVERY house. In theory, where the recs are from should not matter as long as they are from the specific sorority. Of course that being said if she knows someone that is active in a chapter that helps. Also it helps if she can go to any of the sponsored pre-recruitment events.

I thought it might be helpful to add to my earlier post for the benefit of future non-Texas pnms at Texas. Out-of-state candidates almost by definition have to be incredibly smart and active in high school to even gain admission to UT Austin. There is no automatic admission for being at the top of the class. And there is a large applicant pool and a very limited number of spots. So, they are all going to have much to offer and be strong candidates. Nevertheless, being from out of state will be a significant detriment during rush, because you don't have friends in the sororities to advocate for you. Plus, you are just different. You haven't grown up in the Texas culture. And that's not a slight to Texas. It's just a nod to the fact that every place is a little different. And 95% or more of the freshman at UT are from Texas and have that relatively (because it is a big state!) common background.
Maybe if the out-of-state pnm has done something truly extraordinary or has some other amazing attribute or background, but for very strong candidates—smart, active, popular, pretty--there is little to any point in participating. Multiple recs--that doesn't matter, either. I think it's helpful not to sugarcoat it for future students who want an honest assessment. There are better ways to spend your first days on campus. In hindsight, the deafening silence in response to my initial query on this website should have told me what I needed to know, but for the benefit of future pnms, I will lay it out for you—don’t bother. Sure, some out-of-state students probably receive bids to a sorority they would like to join, but they are going to be the extreme exceptions. And I’m sure there will be the responses saying that I can’t possibly know what transpires in the decision-making process because I wasn’t there, but don’t be fooled by those who want to hide behind the sorority-created lack of transparency. I haven’t seen sausage made, either, but I listen to what people say about it and I have a sense of what goes into it. The same is true here. It’s not rocket science; it’s common sense. All else being equal, friends choose friends; girls look for girls similar to the ones who are already there. The good news is that you probably didn’t choose the school for its sororities. Remember that, and skip the part that will just leave a bad taste in your mouth.

have i completely misinterpreted your post? are you seriously telling out of state students at UT "not to bother" with recruitment? that is absolutely ridiculous. i know many out of state girls who have had VERY successful recruitment at UT. of course, they are at a disadvantage because of the lack of connections, but the fact that they are out of state DOES make them stand out, as the out of state contingent at UT is very minimal. of course, these girls especially need to go in with an open mind, and be prepared to look into other options if they do not receive a bid. the girls who do well from out of state do usually have somewhat of an idea of what they are getting themselves into. but why would you tell someone not to even bother? i am not coming from the angle that you have no idea what goes on behind the curtains, i'm not sure if you are a PNM, active, mother, whatever, but i would never discourage anyone from atleast giving recruitment a CHANCE if they have any interest in joining a sorority.

She's a mom (she's the OP in this thread) who posted months ago looking for advice. Now it sounds like her daughter was cut ONLY because she was out of state. I mean, there's obviously NO other reason her darling daughter would be cut, right? The mean Texans cut her because she's from the Midwest. Shame, shame.:rolleyes:

I agree with the concept of giving recruitment a chance, no matter where you are from. Yes, at many schools, especially UT, being from out of state can be a disadvantage, but not an insurmountable one.

The young woman I wrote a rec for from my state (Midwest) who just finished recruitment at UT, did receive a bid. She was cut from my house, but got her first choice because she kept her options open along the way.

Could this have been the problem with your daughter? Did she get her heart set on one house and did not give consideration to others?

I think we must encourage girls to go through recruitment but also let them know the reality of what they are doing. I believe GC does a very good job of being honest and open about recruitment when they advise others.

Ooh i see now that she is the OP. well i am so sorry to hear that your daughter did not have a successful recruitment. i believe that her being from out of state may have had an effect on her recruitment. i strongly urge you not to come on the internet and give very biased "advice" to PNM's when you clearly are not familiar with UT recruitment outside of your daughter's experience. just wondering because i am truly curious-- was she actually dropped from EVERY house or did she drop out when she wasn't happy with her options/suicide/etc? i wish your daughter the best in college and hope she finds her niche outside of the greek system. i strongly urge PNM's who read this thread to disregard the OP's advice. i would be sad to see girls who could have wound up being very happy in greek life not give it a try because they think there is no chance for them, when this is in fact not the case.

There were 100+ girls from out of state at UT this year of the almost 800 going through. Many of them pledged chapters. We pledged several. Biggest issue for them was that a lot of them did not have references and cut themselves by not taking care of that before they left home. I'm sure there are some groups that pledged none, but very few.

Also, mpmo, there were plenty of Texas girls who didn't have successful recruitments at UT either, as evidenced by a couple of posters on gc (and some I know from Houston). It's can just be a tough time!

But, your daughter met many new people and probably made new friends by going through the process, so she has definitely gained something from the experience.

I hope she has a great 4 years at UT - Austin is an amazing place to go to college, and greek life is not the only way to have a great time, just ask the 85% out of 40,000 people who are not in it...

What deafening silence? You got a response, and there's a search function if it didn't satisfy you. Don't make it sound like Greek Chat is in cahoots with UT to keep out of state girls out of the sororities.

I can completely understand the feelings of distaste you may be having for the recruitment system at UT. Rush at UT is incredibly competitive and very emotional for both mother and daughter. You are a caring and loving mother and you are hurting for your daughter - all of which is natural.

That being said, I still cannot agree with your assessment that no out of state PNM's should bother with rush. My daughter went through rush as a freshman at UT last year and there were some out-of-stater's accepted into her sorority in her pledge class and also in the (just completed) pledge class for this year. As a matter of fact, her roommate this year at the sorority house is from the west coast. In spite of this, I would say that it may be true that someone from out of state probably needs to be outstanding to overcome the fact that she has no direct connections/friends or acquaintances from high school to pull for her within a sorority during recruitment. There are so many factors that come into play at UT when rushing, not just for girls from out-of-state, but for EVERYONE. One of the things that my daughter learned after pledging is that there is definitely a lot of emphasis put on zip codes and what high school an individual went to, particularly in some of the sororities that are considered to be the more "elite" ones on campus. Once she had pledged, people were very open in discussing this... and there was a lot of discussion about it during preparation for recruitment this year. It is apparently no secret - it is just the way things have been done for years. I am not going to comment on what I think about this method of qualifying PNM's - it is what it is, and what I think is not going to change a thing. However, my daughter did laughingly say at one point that it can actually be advantageous to be from out of state because it forces those sororities who employ this method to really look at the girl as an individual based on her academic performance, leadership and talents rather than as the stereotype associated with where she lived and went to school. Bottom line is that there are factors that affect everyone, not just those individuals who happen to be from out of state.

I'm so sorry about your daughter. Rush is a brutal process. But I don't want any PNM reading this thread to not attempt rushing based on your comment. My daughter is so incredibly thrilled with her house and is surrounded by the most amazing and accomplished sisters. The process was hard, there were some tears along the way, but the end result was well worth it. The main thing that any girl planning to rush needs to do is be realistic about her prospects, open to the process, really work on connecting with the women she meets during rush, and not get her heart set on one particular house. The main thing that any mother needs to do as her daughter goes through this process is to stay unemotional and supportive... be there to applaud if there is a happy ending... and be there to tell her that it is not the end of the world if things don't work out... because it REALLY IS NOT the end of the world. UT is an amazing school, Austin is a fun place to live... and I know your daughter will have an incredible life changing experience there! Best of luck to her!

Did you really just compare sorority membership selection to the making of sausage?????

This bears repeating.

Thank you.

I think it's incorrect to tell out of state pnm's not to bother with rush.

Yea, Texas recruitment can be pretty nutty, but it's not any crazier than, say recruitment at Bama - and there were PLENTY of out of state girls who got bids. IIRC, there were many girls from the DFW area that apparently got bids there.

I love when non-members try to tell us what our membership criteria are.

I love when they tell us that "It's ok I understand MS, it's just like making sausage."

I've made sausage, if you don't do it right the end result can be food poisoning. Also it is a really hands on and sometimes time consuming and disgusting process. I don't like the comparison of e.coli to membership selection at all.

Now I am craving reindeer sausage, GRRRRR!

It's just so funny because people often think just one thing was the reason they got cut. OK, sometimes that's true. I mean, if you pick your nose and wipe your booger on the wall and half the sorority sees you chances are you aren't getting a bid.

Other than that, most of the time even members of that chapter can't say (because they don't know) why a particular PNM was cut. This goes for UT-Austin as well. Just because an out-of-state PNM may be at a disadvantage does not mean she's automatically going to be released. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever, given the nature of the formal recruitment process.

Sorry your child didn't receive a bid, I know that's tough. That doesn't mean out-of-state students should skip recruitment if that's what they want to do. It also doesn't mean you know ANYTHING about membership selection, and it's highly inappropriate to assume you do. It's private. Why can't people seem to get over that?

ETA: VS I can't speak for reindeer but I can tell you that I almost hit a white tail deer tonight in my 13 hours of driving that would have made some mighty tasty sausages had I had a shotgun instead of a car for a method of bringin' home the bacon. Sadly, hitting it with my car would have upped the chances of e.coli.

I've never hit a big animal with a vehicle, but I think this is the year I will hit a college student, I had three close calls in two blocks. All were actively engaged in cell phone, texting, or iPod. I did freak out my guy the other night when we watched Planet Earth on Discovery and many of the featured critters I said I had eaten or wanted to eat, and which were tasty (caribou/reindeer especially). The nearest town to where I was working in Alaska had a restaurant with reindeer and buffalo on the menu, and the meat company had yak and elk as well. I could get fresh stuff to have a cook out or cured meat for snacks, but I had to lock it up in the Conex or some carnivore would be all up in my snacks.

http://www.deltameat.com/

I'd say if you're not a member actively involved in the MS process at the chapter at that point in time, you will never know the particulars of why a PNM was or was not invited back, period. Even if you're an alumna, advisor, or someone else who thinks they are important.

Sometimes even if you are in the room you don't know.

Then even if you know exactly why a PNM was released, you can't tell anyone. Membership selection is confidential for a reason.

Actually, we are in Cahoots with ALL universities. The point of GC is to make sure that every single out of stater doesn't get a bid at their school in the hopes that some day the greek system will be totally defunct. Duh.

PNMs need to know and be reminded that they could have been the first person on the list to return and would have returned if one more person ahead of them on the list had chosen not to return. So much of the time it is not that the PNM was dropped as that they were not near enough to the top of the list to return.

I lived in Texas for 20 years. I was heavily involved with Alumnae Panhellenic in the Richardson/Plano area and even though I moved back to my home state of Florida five years ago, I still remember the pressure the girls went through and the anxiety their Mothers suffered!

First of all, whoever started the myth that you don't need to worry so much about recs should be drawn and quartered. Plain and simple. Maybe up north. ANY where in the south, that is simply not true. If it's 3 A.M. and Susie from San Anton has recs and it's between you and her and you're from Pittsburgh with no rec, it's a no brainer. Let's not kid ourselves.

If you're going out of state, as my daughter did when she went to an out of Texas school, you need to be so prepared. And if you're an out of state person going to any school in Texas, you need to be super prepared. That's just a statement of fact.

What is "prepared"? Recs to every single house. Two or three is not overkill. And support letters aren't bad either. Professional photos. You should have seen some of the portfolios I saw as Rec Coordinator for Alumnae Panhellenic. The "activity" sheet was a professional resume.

Why? Because every Texas girl has them, even if she is a double legacy to five houses. I'm not exaggerating. It is brutal at UT. Some of the houses have already cut before ice waters. They have so many legacies in one year the number would exceed a quota of 50 or 55 new members. That's why some girls, especially Highland Park legacies to certain groups go to certain SEC schools (sorry, y'all), pledge certain houses, and then transfer back to a Texas school so that they are members of a house they could not get into at UT, but their Mama and their Grandmama will be happy that she is now a member of THEIR sorority.

I could not make this up. I wouldn't want to!

Love this! Anyone who has sat through a MS session taking place at 3 am can relate...

My roommate in the house was from Austin, and she had friends in almost every group on campus. Trust me, what AnchorAlum says was true then and is true today. I know lots of stories about "pledge here and transfer there" from the old days. One pnm, or rushee as they were called then, asked where we had chapters because she intended to join on our campus and then transfer to school "x".

Just curious. How did the chapter handle that? I would find that completely offensive that someone would want to pledge my house just so they could get in at the "better" school.

Well, we just didn't invite her back. Neither did some of the other groups when word spread. I don't remember what happened to her. She just wasn't our problem.

it's not necessarily a "better" school-sometimes it's a better, more prestigious chapter.

I love this. I haven't seen this in so long, but she's spot on. I'll never forget a friend of mine who started at another Texas college because it was SO much easier for her to get into her sorority there than it was at UT. She transferred back over her sophomore year, no problem. She was smart about it, though, and told them the reason she transferred was because of a better program. I can't imagine rush being EASIER in the SEC. I know my sister-in-law went through it in Alabama, and toe to toe, I'm glad I was at Texas.

Years ago one of the chapters at UAB was known as a "feeder" chapter for the one at Alabama. I know several people who went there their freshman year, got initiated into that group and then transferred to the chapter at Alabama. It evidently was well known for that.