PNM's and future college facebook groups caution!
 

PNM's this is really important. I was looking at my own university's "official class of 2014" facebook group yesterday and I noticed A TON of PNM's posting things asking for reputations, talking about how much they "lyke OMG can't wait to get wAsTeD!!!", and worst of all saying things like "how many girls are planning on rushing ADPi or theta is one that I'm looking at!"

LADIES, ACTIVE SORORITY WOMEN (such as myself) ARE READING THESE. YOU ARE DOING YOURSELVES A SERIOUS DISSERVICE.

So, if you or any of your friends have posted ANYTHING questionable on such a group REMOVE IT IMMEDIATELY. Seriously, this can really screw you over.

I got a little capslock crazy, but this kind of stuff drives me crazy!

PNMS:

This is SOLID advice. Please take it to heart.

(Besides, no one really wants to see that you're a fan of "I do more blow than Whitney Houston.")

I've definitely seen some "Well I heard, XYZ, DEF and ABC are the best, and RST sucks!" in the past, but I just creeped and this year's group is pretty clean of that stuff, so yay (for now!)

I am, however, now extremely depressed that I'm really not going back this year...

This may end up being a hard life-lesson for these girls, but hey, some of them may learn something from screwing themselves out of their top choice sorority and down the line be more cautious. Better your top choice sorority than your dream job.

Actually you have to party with AB Fraternity to get into ABC Sorority, lyke duh!!!!1!11! the XYs are lame anyway. :D

I just did some further investigating into the group and some girl has actually started a thread about a certain sorority (not naming names) but the name of the thread is "XYZ" and her posts are "is anyone else planning on rushing XYZ?". And plenty of girls are like "yeah, for sure it's on my list!"

Poor, poor, PNM's...I mean they've all been to orientation by now so they should know that you visit EVERY chapter and it is MUTUAL selection process. PNM's who think they're simply going "sorority shopping" really irk me but I guess the joke's on them in the end...

The year I was a IIX I actually went into those message boards and posted advice for the PNMs, answered there questions and subtly mentioned that they needed to keep their minds open..it kind of worked lol.

I just looked at mine and all they're talking about is Orientation (how fun it was, which I love because I used to work in that office) and possible dorm assignments.

Yay for well-behaved incoming freshmen, although I'm sure it's only because we have (dirty, gross, irrelevant) deferred recruitment.

Did you know that "Hookers and Blow" has 1,114 fans? What are these people thinking?

LMAO...i was going to write the exact same thing. As mean as it may seem, i think we'd all like to know that susie is a big drunk loosey-goosey before you let her in your organization

My favorite last year was the PNM that posted pics of each of the sorority and fraternity houses with her comments written underneath. Like "Lame", "drunken sluts", "OMG I love them" etc. on her public facebook page.

You can imagine how that turned out.

I actually went to our facebook group to see if anyone had posted anything, but what was under the Greek Life discussion tab was mostly sophomores telling PNMs to ask them questions if they had any, and the girls mostly being like, "I'm so excited about joining a sorority! I can't wait for events in the fall!" except one or two were like, "I can't wait to see which one I want in the fall!" And I just kind of went "oh honey no..." But for the most part, it wasn't bad.

Yes! I've already been doing background work using facebook as a means for gathering recommendations for PNM's coming through.

There is one coming through currently who has an outstanding picture uploaded with her registration form, however in her facebook profile picture, she is wearing a short tight outfit with the boobs popping out and holding a Corona in her hand. She is coming in as a college freshman, so assuming she is around 18ish, that doesnt set very well with me. Luckily, her verified GPA is too low for our requirement, so her getting in wont be an issue.


PNM's PLEASE take note of your profile pictures on facebook even if you have everything else marked private. The pictures and language you use on facebook sets up a precedent about you, whether you think that of yourself or not, especially for people who dont know you and are looking for more info...like sorority women and potential employers. It's been said many times before, but I'll say it again, if you are under 21 and are drinking/holding alcoholic beverages in your pictures, that is illegal activity and can potentially make you viewed as a risk management issue before you even step foot in the door. TAKE THEM DOWN!!

Thank you for this thread! Being a mom I didn't think it was my place, but I was hoping someone would bring it up.

I'm an alum of my daughter's school, so I get a lot of their facebook groups popping up on my FB as addition suggestions - one of which was the 2014 group. There was a Greek life thread where at least a few (mostly boys) said some variation on, "Yeah, I'm going Greek - I want to party!" which was clueless, but so far there have been no discussions of group reputations.

However, I went to a roommate's survey (curious to see what housing everyone wanted this year), and it asked, among other things, whether or not they were going to pledge and, if so, WHERE they intended to pledge. Yeah, it asked them where. There were several who answered, "Yes, and I'm going to pledge XYZ."

I showed it to my daughter who was beyond appalled. I think her response was something like, "The only thing they know at this point is whether or not they want to go through recruitment. They don't know IF they're going to be asked to pledge at all, and they certainly don't know WHERE, but way to get yourself cut. Don't these girls know we can look at this stuff?"

She also wondered whether the Greek life offices send out a list of basic do's and don'ts with recruitment information. Does anyone know if any schools do in fact do that and if includes basic facebook etiquette?

This is seriously the best advice I've heard all day!
I think in general now is the time to clean up your Facebook page. Untag questionable photos (if there's alcohol and you're underage, it's gotta go!), delete crude wall posts, and set your entire profile to "Friends Only" for EVERYTHING.
Way better to do it NOW than get to recruitment time and get dropped because someone found a picture of you and your friends smoking pot.

...and one last thing: never ever ever for any reason say anything publically about only being interested in one sorority. Never talk badly about any sorority. Never talk about how "excited your are to party with XYZ fraternity". Basically, just avoid saying anything other than expressing your interest in recruitment. People CAN and DO read this.
/super overbearing advice. :)

After reading this thread and thinking :eek: I quickly darted over to my school's class of 2014 group. While there were scores of PNMs declaring their excitement to rush, there was not a single one of them that posted anything specific about any chapter.

In addition, save for one girl, all profile pics were 100% appropriate. Even the one wasn't too bad.

Either the panhellenic has done an excellent job of educating these girls or they just are aware enough to do not anything stupid that would jeopardize their chances.

Whew.

Ours is boring. Not even any PNMs.
However my google brought up this monstrosity of a page:
http://pages.slu.edu/org/panhel/

This is NOT the current panhel page, in fact, I doubt they know it's still out there. But.. wow.

At least it's not like a certain university (not mine, but another PA state school) who hardly has any active links to Greek life pages left because they were all on Geocities.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cinlQiC8jn..._too_close.jpg

YOU WIN AT LIFE.

Interesting what some people will share about themselves. On a roommate finder thread at one of my schools:

Q: how do you enjoy your time?
A: getttttting willlldd, drinking, shopping all the timee and witttth friends alwaysss.

Q: party?
A: helll yeaaaa.

Q: drink? yesss!
A: smoke? sometimess

Q: mind having people in your room, late night? parttyyyinggg alll nighhhhtt and my friends will be donee a lot.

What is it with the extra letterssss thinggg? The kids at my church do this on their Facebook stati all the time. It drives me crazyyyyyy.

Apparently its the new trend to add to my list of typing pet peeves.

Adding 6 extra letters to all your wordssss- IN
tYpInG LiKE tHiS- Out

I think it looks stupid and doesnt boost my opinion of the poster.

And it's worldwide. Our former exchange students have facebooked us and you ought to try to read Chilean Spanish when they do that. NOT easy to read!

Good call!
Although I've been known to do that once in a while. But just a "soo" or a "crazyy". Never a "sooooooo crazyyyyyy". :p

I just went and checked my school's 2014 facebook page and was highly disappointed, you guys had my hopes up pretty high for some interesting posts. Most people responded with "going to pledge?" with idk, maybe, and possibly. A few yeps and some nopes. Overall the page and discussions are fairly quiet.

I did not fill it out or post. It's probably better to be unknown at this time rather than someone not liking an answer although overall it's fairly tame.

My school is actually being pretty tame this year which is weird. There are a couple that have created a group that if they go through I'll be red flagging.

So I just came across a post for a school that someone I know is going to. The girl wrote:

When does rush start? Is there rush during the summer? or it's just before Fall? ... I think i'm going to rush ABC and XYZ. I know a couple girls in ABC and i'm a legacy for XYZ because my sister was president of her chapter at ----- :)How does it work though? do you rush specific ones? or you rush all of them?? lol

If her sister is was president of her chapter at XYZ, wouldn't she know a little about recruitment?

^one would think!^

My school's board is fine. The only thing was that a fraternity member posted a thread to help answer questions about Greek life (fantastic recruitment idea on his part, although I bet sorority members might be considered dirty rushing if they did it). A NPHC sorority member also chimed in with assistance. The questions were mostly about when is rush, how expensive is it, is there hazing etc. Perfectly normal questions which were answered responsibly.

One PNM, however, wrote "what are the specific images for each sorority? I need to know whether I join the right one or not." The fraternity member wrote a tactful response about how you have to rush to find the house that is right for you and not listen to stereotypes. She then replied (something to the extent of) "I know...but seriously, what are they? I am just curious. I heard ABC is the best choice."

The funny thing is that simply by looking at how she's represented herself on her profile, she does not have a shot in hell at ABC and is actually going to be very hard pressed to get a bid to the vast majority of sororities.

Good. :) Lesson learned. I hope she goes bidless.

Oh the extra letters thing drives me nuts! My younger sister does it, even via chat on facebook and I called her on it. She said "I'm so exciteddddddd I got promoteddddd!" My response, "Congrats, though it was obviously not for your spelling skills."

I checked out my school's 2014 (there are like 4) but nothing bad thus far.

Well that is quite obnoxious of her. Why would you be so pushy about it? Is she just clueless?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this question, but it's regarding facebook and recruitment.

I met this girl at orientation and we discovered that we had a mutal friend (who happens to be an XYZ) and we are both going through recruitment, so we added each other on facebook. Yesterday was her birthday so I wrote a birthday message on her wall. She wrote this on my wall:
"thank u so much girl! u excited for rush?? get pumped! XYZ PC10!!!!!"

I deleted it off my wall, was that the right thing to do? I'm friends with girls from other houses and I didn't want them to thing I'm biased.

Your thoughts?

I think you did the right thing. :) You can delete anything you want from your wall. That's why there's an edit option. If she asks why you deleted it (she may never notice and it may be unimportant to her if she does notice) just tell her that you tend to clean your wall from time to time, nothing personal.

You did absolutely the right thing as far as you are concerned, and may have saved her butt in the process as well. Super good call.

You just did both of you a huge favor. Not only could it possibly have an effect on your interactions with the other sororities, it could seriously piss off XYZ. PNM's who ASSume they will be joining a certain chapter often get passed over because their sorority of choice doesn't appreciate a girl who thinks she's the shiznit. But then, no one does.

If she notices you deleted it you might want to throw her a bone by repeating that advice in a tactful way. She might hurt her chances with XYZ if she keeps that up.

do you think I should say something to her? if she writes that kind of stuff on facebook, I can only imagine what she says in person. I don't want her to tell another PNM (or even worse, an active!) that "me and abbeydae are rushing XYZ!"