futuregreek?'s rush at Nebraska!
 

I've already mentioned my college in some posts, so why not put it in the title? However, because of that, I will have to exercise extra-special discretion. It may not be a story-story, but more a general overview of what is happening at UNL this week.

All of us girls moved in on monday and had powerpoints/chapter house tours (not the insides, just their location on campus). Then we saw a video about the Friendship Home, just for a taste of what philanthropy is. We then got invites from between 8 and 13 of the chapter houses (everyone was guarenteed 8 invites according to word on the sidewalk) and selected the parties we wanted to attend.

Today (tuesday) we went to 3 parties then had lunch, then 5 more parties. I'd love to give specific details, but don't want to disadvantage myself. I'll just say there was a house or two that I absolutely loved. A house or two that I wouldn't picture myself joining. And the other four were all great. I'm very interested in them and looking forward to learning more about them.

We get invites to up to 5 parties tomorrow at 7:30...

I'm most nervous for this round of cuts, because we aren't guarenteed a minimum number of invites. I especially hope to see 2 houses, would really like to see at least three of the others, so that I have some say in the houses I get to go to.

Well, that's all for now. I'd love to give more details, but am scared to reveal too much. Perhaps I'll fill in some of the gray area after my greek fate is final (a.k.a. in a house or not in a house)!

Thanks for all of the amazing support here at greek chat!

There is no place like Nebraska, Good Ol' Nebraska U,
Where the girls are the fairest,
the boys are the squarest,
of any old place that I knew...

Good Luck in Lincoln! There are some great old single letter chapters there.

I am confused, and maybe someone familiar with today's recruitment at Nebraska can answer if the pnm is too busy... do the pnms physically visit all of the chapters in round one before the first cuts are made, or do they gather in one space and view powerpoint/virtual tours, then receive a minimum of 8 invites? Are there some women who never visit some chapters in round one? The latter is almost what it sounds like.

Yesterday we were in an Auditorium and the President and VP/Chair of Recuitment had 3 minute powerpoints. There were 14 ppts, but only 13 houses that do formal recruitment; one chapter doesn't have a house so they do COR starting next week. After the ppts, we waited outside of the houses and the President and VP/Chair of Recruitment were there and had 30 seconds to say some variation of "We hope you have a great week! We want to see you tomorrow." But, as far as actually going in the houses we only got to go into a maximum of eight today.

And, I have yet to meet anyone that had less than 8 invites. So in case the rumor is true, I am nervous about all of the cuts that will happen tomorrow if there isn't a minnimum number of invites.

Also I've heard that there are 733 girls going through from one source and 835 girls going through from another source. I know that they really try to match everyone to a house, but because of the high number this year, there are doubts that all the girls will get into a house. However, I've already heard people on sidewalks talk about dropping if they don't get into certain houses.

Wow, I have never heard of that method of first rounds. Live and learn. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

Best of luck to you. Try not to worry about the number going through. More women, higher quota, I believe, but NUBlue&Blue knows about Nebraska recruitment. Maybe she will weigh in.

Have fun at the parties!!

Good luck, Futuregreek! My daughter is an alumni from the greek system there. I am glad to see some one writing about Nebraska! They have a beautiful Greek Row with lots of pretty, grand houses with lots of history!

And yes, they all get a full card today. Tomorrow is the 5 party and Thursday is 3. Friday is Bid Day.

I wrote some recs for UNL so am anxious to see how they do!

Well, 5 party invites were distributed early this morning. We were warned that there were a lot of cuts and most of us wouldn't even be invited to a full 5 houses. Given that warning I was fairly satisfied with my invites. Parties start after lunch.

Good luck, Future Greek...and don't worry, the sun is coming out where I live west of Lincoln so I think you will have a good day! My friend's daughter had a great day yesterday and is also happy with the houses she is going to today. Go Big Red!

Oh, and I forgot to mention, RAIN is in the forcast for today. :-( It will be hard to have an up-beat attitude in such gloomy weather, but I will try my best.

There is so much I'd love to say, little tidbits and sidenotes, so this whole discretion thing is killing me. Waiting anxiously for Friday evening when I will know for sure!

I just saw this thread! Old AOPi and I come out of the woodwork every year about this time!

When I was in college, we went to all the houses. At that time it was even more difficult because Phi Mu and ADPi were located away from greek row behind Harper Schramm Smith. Now, all the sorority houses are on the same side of the street right next to each other (except ADPi, which is not housed). I've mentioned here before that almost all the chapters at Nebraska are single letter chapters and mine is 125 years old! I think only Phi Mu and ADPi are under 100 years old, and they may be getting close.

In 2007, my younger daughter visited Nebraska for a Red Letter Day and we went to the Greek Life session. Two things that are different at Nebraska than a lot of places--fraternity rush is during the summer and guys can get out of their housing contracts and move right in to the house; and the sororities do not use a quota system....and I couldn't tell you exactly how they come up with the numbers of the pledge classes because all I remember is that it was some magical number having to do with room in the house/number of Lincoln girls and some kind of fairy dust.

I will admit that I was one of those slacker sorority girls who really had no clue what was going on most of the time, so until it was pointed out here at greekchat that Nebraska doesn't have a "quota", I was wondering where my mind was all those years ago (besides on my high maintenance boyfriend) and why I'd never heard a thing about a quota.

Best of luck.....maybe there are keys and fleur de lis in your future???

Maybe roses and pandas instead...LOL..and my son did join a fraternity and yes, he is moving in tomorrow! I might add comparing parental communications between fraternities and sororities are like apples and oranges or boys and girls or ....

We took our son (he just started his senior year) on an official visit to Nebraska this summer. Unlike the girls, though, he will not have a prayer of qualifying for that Legacy scholarship--the one where you pay in state tuition if you're the child of an alumni. He's just now realizing that he probably should've paid attention once in awhile and handed in his homework in the last three years. He did like the fraternity houses, though, and that was the only thing that interested him besides football games.

What house is your son in? Mr NU's chapter is no longer active on campus, but his younger brother was an SAE.

AGR, he is an East Campus boy :) yee haw

Old AOPi, remember that discussion we had in the Big 12 Recruitment thread a couple years ago about the house next door to Kappa that is now Phi Mu? For some reason I thought it was Beta Sig. No clue where that came from.

We were cleaning out some stuff and found an old greek yearbook from 1979. That was the year before I went to college (it was Mr.NUB&B, I married an older man ;)) and we saw that it was Theta Chi who had just moved in to that house in 1978. And the book said it was the old Sigma Kappa house. I never even knew we had SK at Nebraska. Zeta left my freshman year, but otherwise, things stay pretty much the same.

And since we had that fraternity next door, I never noticed that now all the sororities are on one side of the street and the fraternities are on the other. I guess if that was originally the SK house, it was supposed to be that way.

futuregreek?, I did find a long discussion about Nebraska's rush on a Big 12 Recruitment thread from 2007. If you haven't seen it yet, it does contain a lot of information.

Well they are almost all on one side. Union side has the corner houses of Gamma Phi, Theta, AOII and APhi. They get the short walk to the union! I noticed they are building in the parking lot btw APhi and the Union for a multi cutural center...that will close up some more space. Those houses are really land locked. Beautiful houses, all of them!

I don't think the houses have changed much in awhile. I saw some threads that had all the colleges in NE and all the houses that were there then and now - that's always interesting!

University of Nebraska Lincoln, NE: August 17-21, 2009
Chapters set individual quotas & total based on available beds in chapter houses
************************************************** **********
Kappa Kappa Gamma Sigma 1884
Kappa Alpha Theta Rho 1887-1891/1896
Delta Gamma Kappa 1888
Delta Delta Delta Kappa 1894
Pi Beta Phi Nebraska Beta 1895
Alpha Omicron Pi Zeta 1903
Chi Omega Kappa 1903
Alpha Phi Nu 1906
Alpha Chi Omega Xi 1907
Delta Zeta Zeta 1910-1971
Phi Omega Pi Alpha (Founding chapter) 1910-1935 National absorbed by Delta Zeta
Alpha Xi Delta Rho 1912
Gamma Phi Beta Pi 1914
Alpha Delta Pi Alpha Epsilon 1915-1932/1963
Kappa Delta Pi 1920
Phi Mu Zeta Gamma 1921-?/?
Zeta Tau Alpha Beta Eta 1922-1962/?-1980
Alpha Delta Theta Zeta 1923-1939 National merger with Phi Mu
Sigma Kappa Alpha Kappa 1923-1972
Theta Phi Alpha Mu 1924-1937
Sigma Delta Tau Theta 1925-1970

Are the 8 parties to which PNMs initially invited luck of the draw, or do the sororities rank them based on resumes and recommendations?

Also, I always assumed that the quota system was by NPC unanimous agreement. Is that incorrect?

There are schools where there's nothing but COBing and therefore a quota never exists - just bidding up to total. In other words, there isn't a unanimous agreement that every school must use a formal rush and quota system. I think settling on a total may be what you're thinking of.

Quota/Total system is not a unanimous agreement. I know that Indiana and Nebraska do not use quota/total. They take as many, or as few, as they desire. There may be other big schools that don't use a quota system, but I don't know of them offhand.

I am a fairly recent UNL Alum where I was a member of one of the sororities on campus. The sororities at Nebraska do use a quota/total system. It is not based on the number of empty beds in a house. Most women do not move in until their sophomore year. A few will move in at semester but not very many.
Each year Greek Affairs reviews the number of women registered for recruitment and the number of active members in each chapter. I'm not exactly sure how it is done, but a campus total is determined. The quota for each chapter is then the number of women they must bid to reach total but not more. They try to make total a number that each chapter can reach through Formal Recruitment. They do have "bonus girls" or quota additions which can move a chapter over total but this is usually only a handful per chapter at the most. By doing this, all of the chapters have the same amount of members. If women graduate at semester or drop out, the chapter can COR up to total.

5 party day is over. We lucked out--no rain! Clouds are just starting to roll in and we are in a thunderstorm watch until 2 a.m. There were a ton of cuts for some girls and no cuts for others. I know several girls have dropped out and more were very close to dropping.

There was a pizza party at the Union after all the parties.

3 party invites are handed out bright and early tomorrow.

I knew it was related to total and Lincoln girls opened up more spots back in the day (1980's). Other schools do have "bed quota" but we never used it. However, we were required to live in after freshman year. The only way to get out of it was to get married!

i stand corrected! thank you

Thanks for putting that up, Irish, I knew I had just read that! I read the one that had all the colleges in NE on it and was surprised at some that had disappeared. Even AOII used to be at Morningside in Sioux City, right? And Chadron, a long time ago?

I had heard that bed rumor for years, Superfan but you did a great job of explaining the system. Thanks for clearing that up. NU, my older daughter did not have to live in senior year. I think she said they were required if they were still an officer.

Futuregreek - good luck tomorrow! What time do you find out your parties at? It was
7:30 8 ish today, right?

I believe Ohio State doesn't have a "bed rush" but each chapter is only allowed to bid up to 100 no matter what.

Can someone familiar with UNL recruitment answer this?

We just got invites for 3 party day.

Hopefully this isn't too much information, but my favorite house dropped me. There is another house that has been a front runner all week and I am very, very interested in it. Another house that has girls I like and really get along with (but I'm worried about their gpa), and a third that I can't picture myself in. I would half to think long and hard about signing a bid card for the third house.

Hope you have a terrific day, Futuregreek - remember what you thought was your fav was based on a few days impression. Relax and have a good time- the sun is shining and there is NO rain today! I'll be thinking of you as we move our son down!

The Greek System at UNL is a ton of fun and friends, with many many strong houses with good national reps - no matter where you end up. My daughter had a tough time her bid day but looking back four years later, she said she would have done fine in any of the three on her card that day, when her original comment was "I am only going to take XYZ or nothing"...she now has friends in many of the houses - and could have seen herself in any of those others as well.

I am not familiar with UNL rush, but their website says that the girls fill out an application which is the way that the chapters decide which girls to invite to the 8-party round. It's in the Q&A section of the webpage.

Even though I got my first choice, there were at least 5 or 6 where I would've been happy and were full of people who are still good friends! In fact, I didn't have a single Kappa as a bridesmaid, but I did have one AOPi and one Theta. And I definitely could've been happy in any of the three I went to for Pref. Once you get involved in campus activities and once rush is over and you see where things shake out on your dorm floor, you will have friends in many different houses and you may find that your best college friends in the end aren't even in your own sorority (although you love them, too!)

Good luck and we'll be waiting to hear how you find your home!

I am always so pleased to hear of a Big Eight rush story. The schools of the old big eight conference have very old and established greek systems with beautiful, gracious houses. These schools, like Nebraska, often have many strong chapters rather than one or two "top tier" groups and then "everyone else".

FutureGreek, best of luck, you will have a wonderful time. My parents moved to Nebraska while I was in school at a different Big Eight school. One year, about 40 of our sisters from Lincoln came down for a game. Even though you guys cleaned our clocks, we had a terrific time.

Have fun and let us know how it all turns out. We are rooting for you to find a great home!

Shouldn't futuregreek? be getting a bid tonight? I want to hear what happened! Update pleaaaaseeeeee :)

They handed them out yesterday at two-ish I think ...the girls are with them most of the day and evening...hopefully she had a fun night!

Great Big 12 (or Big 8 for us older folks!) story. I'm love to learn more details about her recruitment following bid day if futuregreek? feels comfortable enough to share.

AOII is still at Morningside. Yes, we used to have a chapter at Chadron but there are no greeks there now. You can see the whole list here.

Thanks, Irishpipes, I saw it. I always think things like that are interesting, no matter what the chapter is! That is an amazing list!

Yep they have a very high GPA required.....doesn't seem to hurt them in recruitment though.

Evidently not! Browsing the website, they look like a terrific chapter. Very active and very cute! Obviously, very smart as well.

I hope that FutureGreek? can come back and share good news with us.

Maybe her absence means she's busy enjoying herself with her new sisters? *fingers crossed*