Recruitment 2010 news
 

I didn't want to start a thread just for TX A&M, but did want to report - over 800 pnms will be going through recruitment!

Post news from other campuses here.

as of 7/20 the University of Arizona had over 900 pnms signed up.

Georgia Southern PNMs are at second parties right now. Several of us have heard stories of massive cuts last night.

Carnation, sorry to hear about the massive cuts at Georgia Southern.... ouch.

Is anyone here in the know about South Carolina? How many PNMs, etc.? I am nervous as a cat, since my God Daughter is going through recruitment at SC in a few days....Hope to have a story to tell.

Univ. of Southern California
 

USC is expecting around 800 pnms. Juniors have some good news. Two juniors per chapter may be pledged over the regular quota. They will not count on the chapter quota. Nine houses will take part in formal recruitment. SDT will have informal recruitment.

This may not seem too large compared to huge southern universities, but SC only has about 1,300-1400 women in the freshmen class. There are many sophomore pnms, but the majority are freshmen.

From the Oklahoma State Facebook Feed:

A total of 741 young women are on campus now, participating in Rush 2010 for the 11 campus sororities at OSU. Bid Day is Saturday and classes begin Aug. 23.

GCSU and GSU
 

Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville (GCSU)

Bid Day at noon!

Georgia Southern--prefs today, bid day tomorrow!

I'm excited to see where some of my son's friends will end up!

please let us know NUBlue&Blue!

My daughter said there are a record breaking number of pnm signed up at South Carolina. She didn't know the exact number but thinks around 1100-1200.

I hope your daughter's experience at Carolina is as happy as my daughter's has been. It's a great school.

Best of luck. :)

Thanks HappyKappaMom!

It's my God daughter, but I'm as nervous as if she were my daughter. I can't believe the numbers at these SEC schools! Her mom (also a greek) and I have tried to prepare her, but not sure anything really prepares you for those numbers. With only ten houses, quota must be huge. Her mom's sorority and my sorority are both on campus, so we are dreaming of one of those, but are totally realistic and have told her time and time again, "Dance with the one that asks you!"

Glad to hear you and your daughter love the campus and greek life there. As I say, I hope to have a happy story to tell. She and her mom are traveling to Columbia today.

Sorry, didn't read carefully enough: send my best wishes to everyone (you, God daughter and her mom!) involved! :)

Yeah! Our rec girl at Georgia Southern went KD!!!!!!

^^^ WooHoo!! Yea, Carnation's Rec Girl! Georgia Southern is an excellent chapter. Congrats to one of our newest Kappa Deltas and to her new chapter. (for having such good taste!)

Recruitment at UK starts Sunday. So far, somewhere around 900 PNMs are signed up. We have 12 chapters.

I've heard Arkansas has 1,000 going through. Forecasting 110 per pledge class.

Texas A&M
 

I am so impressed - the Gamma Phi chapter advisor sent me a letter for each girl for whom I sent a rec, thanking me and promising to send a follow-up on where she pledged. I wish more chapters did this!

GCSU friend decided that greek life was not for her and left recruitment.

Georgia Southern friend is a new Phi Mu. My oldest daughter will be excited, as this is the first rec she has written as an alumni for someone who pledged Phi Mu!

I don't know if national Kappa Delta requires this or not, but after rush, I have always gotten a card stating where the rec girl has gone, and that is from several different chapters. I agree, it is a nice custom and it recognizes the effort the alums make to write recs on girls.

We did this when I was at TCU back in the early 90s. However, I have never received a thank you note or a note of where someone pledged for any of the recs that I have written. (mostly schools in the southeast) Like you I wish that more chapters did this. I would even be half-way okay with a form letter acknowledgement. While not quite Miss Manners it would at least let me know where everyone pledged.

Good for A&M.

(never thought that I would ever utter those words!)

The lovely ladies at Ole Miss send out notes telling where PNMs pledged (or didn't). It shocked me considering how many PNMs likely have recs sent in during a recruitment period. I bet they have quite a large Thank You Note committee.

Arkansas is in desperate need of more NPC groups. I really do not understand why they have not considered opening for expansion. And since I am very ignorant in this area, I won't assume that it is all the University's fault - although I have very strong opinions about the lack of abilities in the Greek Life office.

And, this is not a new and rare situation. My oldest pledged in 06 with roughly 70 in her pledge class. Next daughter pledged last fall with 84 in her class. And, now they think it will be 100? How is this not a problem for all concerned??

Re Arkansas - didn't they add AOPi a couple of years ago?

Re thank you's - Delta Gamma's form has a place where the alum can mark that they want to know what the PNM pledged.

USC (Southern Ca.) sent me a card last year detailing where my rec. girl had gone. It seemed to be a form from HQ. I do wish more chapters would let their rec writers know 1.) they received the rec and 2.) what ends up happening with the pnm.

Maybe no other groups can afford to build competitive housing? No idea. gee_ess, you remember the groups that were there when we were that folded later and at least 2 of them didn't have competitive housing.

I've never received a card, but I was "shown the ropes" as to our local rec customs by a friend with a daughter older than mine.

1) Secure recs and deliver/mail packages (or email) packages with resume, picture, stamped addressed envelope along with note thanking said person for writing rec.

2) 2-3 weeks after delivery of packet, mail thank you note to everyone you asked to write a rec. This helps as a reminder to those who haven't done it yet to get moving. Usually just say something like "Thank you so much for writing me a recommendation for Kappa Kappa Gamma! I'm so excited to go to Georgia and I look forward to meeting so many new people during recruitment! Thanks again, Susie"

3) After recruitment, send note thanking each person again for writing rec and telling them how it turned out. Doesn't need to say more than "I had such a great time at rush and meeting all the girls at Kappa Kappa Gamma and appreciate your recommendation. I pledged Delta Delta Delta and love all my new sisters. Thanks again for helping me with my recruitment."

I can't tell you how many people commented to me that they had received my daughters' "sweet note" and are now always willing to help me out when I ask for recs for any of my kids' friends. A little courtesy and personal attention goes a long way.

Deadline to register for recruitment at S. Carolina is midnight tonight, and as of now there are 1150 PNMs signed up. I sent a rec to UGA for a woman going through there and got back a lovely acknowledgement from GPB. Thanks ladies!

I should clarify that I've never received a card to say where someone ended up, I have received the rec acknowledgement card from UGA and Alabama.

How exciting! I love to hear about new Phis!

Sam Houston State's Bid Day was today! Quota was 16, there were about 85 that signed up which is waaaaaaaaay down from the previous years.

Here are the results:
Alpha Chi Omega - 20 (Yay! I love these girls!)
Alpha Delta Pi - 18
Sigma Sigma Sigma - 19
Zeta Tau Alpha - 18

Yes, AOPi has joined the campus, and done so very successfully. I believe they came in 05 or 06.

Carnation is right. It takes a lot of money to compete with the older, more established chapters on campus and the main way to compete is with housing. AOPi did a good job - built a beautiful house right on sorority row - which made all the difference so early.

Anyone who comes on campus must adhere to some pretty strict housing rules set by the U of A, but, imo, it is worth it. What an opportunity for a GLO to build a strong chapter! There are SO many women interested in Greek Life!

I believe it is an actual hardship on the current chapters to keep giving them these large pledge classes, and the University is doing nothing to alleviate these problems

(can you tell I get riled up about this?)

My friend from KU is considering dropping, but I gave her some bits of advice I've seen offered to some disappointed girls here- she seemed to really take hearing 'go forward with recruitment like the chapters you have left are the only chapters on campus, because they are for you'. She said she's going to sleep on it- we've been talking and she's very exhausted and feeling kind of ill. Hopefully things will feel better to her in the morning.

It is hard on these chapters to keep having such large classes, no matter what the scale. Even at Georgia Tech, where the pledge class numbers were in the high 40's, that was about 10 girls too many for the size of their chapter rooms, dining rooms, etc. After about 4 years of even just an extra 10 girls, you're bursting at the seams.

On the other hand, it's hard to do anything about it with any kind of speed. It's kind of like building new schools in fast growing areas (if you're from the Atlanta area, you know what I'm talking about). By the time something can actually be done, the problem is so big that the relief isn't enough. The process for adding a new chapter to campus takes awhile, and in old established places doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be successful right away either. And then there's the problem of equality in housing...depending on the commitment from the national office, there may or may not be money for a house. In the case of my daughters' chapter at GT, they were the newest chapter (until the addition of Alpha Phi) on campus, coming on in 1989 but did not have a house until just a few years ago. It was relatively new when my daughter was a freshman in 2005 and they are unable to hold chapter meetings there because they have too many girls.....already. And they have the newest and biggest house.

For everyone's sake, I wish it was easy.

This is the biggest problem. If sororities KNEW they could come in and have huge numbers immediately and keep them there, they wouldn't hesitate to take out the mother of all loans because they'd make it back in a few years with member dues. However, the university cannot make women join chapters, and at some of these schools the rushees would rather be nothing at all than go "new sorority."

The only thing the university could conceivably do would be to put an immovable cap on the groups (i.e. no group can have more than 200, screw quota) and again, if girls at schools like this got dropped by the "top" group they want, many would rather drop out of rush completely.

It's a really huge risk that can conceivably cripple a whole national organization if it doesn't work out well.

You know how it's said sometimes the difference between hope and despair is a good night's sleep. Add onto that this PNM is feeling a little ill and you have one very unhappy young lady. :(

She's also pretty lonely- none of her quad-mates have moved in yet, and I think with all the quiet she's found a lot of time to ruminate over the disappointments of the day. She's the one who talked me into doing recruitment this year, too, so I just hate to see her so bummed.

i am sure that you gave her good advice. i hope that she will buck up and continue on. i know that you will continue to be a good friend and will listen to her-that will help so much. please let us know what she ends up doing.

I wish Irishpipes would chime in - I know she was involved in the ARkansas AOPi experience and could give more info. Aopi came in with big plans and huge support nationally, and it made all the difference on campus. I can't speak to their actual numbers, but the "feel" (tent talk?) on campus is they are a good group and are building a good solid reputation.
I am sure it was tough and stressful and quite expensive, but I really believe that they are doing well and adding to Greek Life.

With regard to how slow the process is, I imagine that is true, but the 'head in the sand' approach to this that the U of A takes is so frustrating. Just get the ball rolling!!

You rang??

AOII came on in 2007. I can't even begin to explain that whole process. First of all, Arkansas is certainly one of those schools that you would think NPCs would be drooling at the opportunity to charter. However, when it came down to it, the 2 groups presenting with AOII (Delta Zeta and Phi Mu) both withdrew from consideration before panhellenic voted. Not being an insider of DZ or Phi Mu, I don't know exactly why that happened, but I could muster a good guess.

In my opinion, Arkansas is quite similar to another SEC school - Ole Miss. Huge Greek system, huge chapters, huge interest in Greek life, very few NPC chapters. Seems like everyone wants a chapter at these schools but few can take the plunge. AOII invested millions in that chapter. That kind of investment is somewhat crippling even if it works out - you have to pass on other potential expansion opportunities, you risk the assets of the entire fraternity, etc. The panhellenic as a whole was not particulatly inviting to AOII in some ways, the university is difficult to work with (regarding land, construction, etc.) and Fayetteville is not a big metro area with lots of alums. I think most NPC groups would have difficulty making it at Arkansas. PNMs are Greek savvy there. They understand southern name recognition as far as sororities go. Certain groups might not fare well becaue of that. Very similar to Ole Miss.

I think Arkansas needs a new sorority or 2, but there aren't lots left on Maple, which is sorority row. The old DG house is still there and is owned by the university. It is my understanding that DG retains rights to reclaim that house should they recolonize. (And that is a lovely house with a fabulous location.) The university owns all of the remaining land. AOII owns our house but leases the land it sits on from the university. Bizarre. Our construction was delayed 1 1/2 YEARS due to red tape with the university. We lost many members because of this delay.

Some very strong NPCs have folded at Arkansas and I think that scares off potential colonies as well. A very strong, southern group colonized there in 1989 and made quota for the first time in 2006 I believe. It is a tough campus. I really think only a very small handful of NPCs would have much of a chance of success despite the desperate need for new chapters.

Just my 2 cents.