No Frills Rush?
 

I was just wondering how many campuses have gone to a no frills rush. My campus began the transition while I was there. The PNMs all wear the same t-shirt on the first day and all members in each chapter have to wear a letter t-shirt. They also did away with one of our skit days. Philanthropy day was added. Has the response to this been positive?

We have no frills rush, and to be honest, it's really good. You don't have to spend BUTTLOADS of money on recruitment, and it keeps things sort of uniform. It hasn't necessarily changed the numbers of PNMs going through recruitment, nor do the PNMs have to "wear" anything special.

I think No-Frills Recruitment is a great idea. It puts the emphasis on conversation and personality exploration, not on who has the best house decorations or who has members that are opera stars. It also is a more pro-Greek event than just a pro-individual chapter event.

You do need to work harder in some ways - coming up with unique and interesting philanthropy events and making sure each and every sister is a good conversationalist, for example. But I think the rewards are better - less stress for everyone involved and the PNMs have a better opportunity to really see what each chapter is like, w/o all the trappings of traditional recruitment.

Those of you who do have NFR: do your chapters still do a skit?

Ours is medium-frills, I would say. The PNM's all wear the same t-shirt, but the chapters can wear whatever. We wear fitted tees and khaki shorts or casual skirts, but some chapters wear dresses the first round. We are allowed to have skits/songs at every party, but there are time limits. Every chapter does a video for at least one round.

The University of British Columbia has had a no frills rush since 1997, and I think it's great. Recruitment is stressful enough as it is and with a no frills rush you don't have to worry about theme parties and the like. We still decorate our rooms, but it makes for a very even playing field.

We still have skits, but they are very short and can't involve elaborate costumes or props. It takes a lot of imagination to be inventive, but it's still pretty fun.

Personally, I hate no frills rush. We went to it my senior year and I think it really ruined things. First of all, it makes the experience a lot less "magical" (for lack of a better word) for the rushees. I realize not all chapters have the same kind of money to spend on rush, but I also don't think it is fair to give the rushees the impression that all the chapters are the same. It was really neat to see the individual personalities of the chapters shine through with their rush outfits and party themes.

Our rushees never had to wear uniform t- shirts or anything....basically it was fairly casual 1st party, slightly dressier 2nd, definitely dresses or skirts for 3rd, and very dressy for 4th. I also liked getting a better idea of the rushees' style and personality.

Just my opinion, but I feel pretty strongly about it.:o

My biggest complaint about NFR is that we CAN'T do skits. I think it has been no frills for several years at my school but the year I went through rush we had skits and they were awesome. One of my favorite parts of rush! Unfortunately, that was the last year for them. The only other thing I didn't like was that in my chapter we wore tshirts for the first two nights. Nothing wrong with that but I just felt SO casual, I would have been more comfortable in something more like what the wore the third night of rush (solid sort of fitted shirts). I think they changed that this past year and only wore tshirts on night. But this was just what my chapter decided on, not the campus. The rushies never had anything specific they had to wear, the last night they wore sundresses or something equivilant (TN is too hot in august to be to formal).

Phil. Day was kinda neat! The AGDs wore AGD scrubs while the other sororities wore their letters or other kinds of T-shirts.. It was kinda funny b/c alumnae are not supposed to wear the same thing as the collegiates. When the alums went to sign-in, the Rho Chi's were freaking out b/c they thought the alums were wearing the same thing. They didn't believe it until they came on the hall and saw what the collegiates were wearing. Heard that the other sororites were somewhat jealous. It will be interesting to see what the other sororites wear next year.

Skit Day, the collegiates did Wizard of Oz. Of course, the characters were dressed up. The hall was reallllly neat. I didn't see the other halls so I don't know how elaborate they were, but AGD got lots of compliments.

OUr chapter personally never had that many "frills" so I had to laugh when no-frills was put into place, after years of being told we weren't being theatrical enough, or whatever. The way I look at it is skits are fine, but there HAD to be something done to put a cap on some of the spending I've heard of. I mean, for a group to spend the equivalent of a new car on decorations, costumes and food is obscene, in my opinion.

All I have to say
 

Our rush chair went $1000 over the rush budget! Our skit was cool and girls loved it,but we still didn't make quota:(

We had what would probably be described as "medium frills". The rush budget was about $2400, about enough to allow each sorority to provide refreshments at all the parties, print some T-shirts (either enough for the newer members, to match shirts the older sisters already had, or one entirely new set for all the sisters - plus bid day shirts for the new members) and buy some decorations - the idea being that you would buy some new decorations and combine it with things you'd bought for previous years.

My chapter was much smaller than the other chapters on campus, so we never had enough money to even come close to spending what we were allowed to spend. (Of course, fewer sisters does mean fewer T-shirts, but the fixed costs of setting up screens, etc, don't change.) And we were newer, so we didn't have an arsenal of rush supplies built up from previous years like the other sororities did. I remember doing pop-ins as a rho chi, and thinking how fabulous the other 4 rush rooms looked compared to AEPhi's. :(

On the other hand, though, it meant that the women who came back to AEPhi, came back because they liked the sisters and felt they might fit in with the chapter, not because they were dazzled by the decorations and cute T-shirts. We didn't have throngs of women at pref, but the women who were there had already decided that AEPhi could be home, not based on glitz and glamor, but based on the sisters in the room.

Frankly, I would have preferred - not a totally no-frills, icewater-only rush with all sisters in identical T-shirts - but fewer frills, where PNM's can focus on the conversations rather than who has the cutest skits and the best petits fours.

I must say that I don't understand the idea of PNM's being required to wear identical outfits. :confused: At my school, PNM's wore whatever they wanted (with some guidelines from the rho chi's) - the only thing they had in common was Panhel-issued name tags.

At my campus they all wear the same t-shirt the first day during the open rounds. The idea was to alleviate some of the first day stress: the rushees not having to decide what to wear. That has actually been pretty positive, the chapters also have to wear t-shirts so the rushees don't feel under dressed. It was a big deal when panhellenic voted on it. Some chapters thought that t-shirts were too casual for rush. Now that it is in place people like it.

Another thing that caused a big stink (even though I thought it was a little silly) was a rule that all rushees must enter through the main entrance every day. There were a couple of houses that would line up the girls and march them around the house to the back and bring them in that way. These houses had courtyards and they would decorate them. It also didn't hurt to remind the rushees how pretty and large the house is, right? Also there was a surprise in the foyer and they wanted the rushees to see it on the way out so it would have a lasting impression...ie they wanted them to remember it when filling out their preference card. The debate before this vote was hilarious!!! I wish you all could have been flies on the wall. Of course only two chapters voted against the measure...hm, makes you think.

I never would have even thought to take girls in through the back door.

As for no frills rush: I don't like it. I understand that spending got way out of hand but I heard stories from my older sisters about how fun rush was. They told me about elaborate decorations and skits every day. When I went through there was one skit and I didn't even get to pick out my own clothes every day. My mom told me that when she went through there was one day that they wore formals. How fun!

People think it's bad that members had to wear specific matching t-shirts.......we used to do actual "costumes" for rush. I can remember vividly the identical blue sailor dresses with big white collars and red bows that the Alpha Phis wore my very first rush party as a PNM. Excessive? Perhaps.....but what an impression it made!!! This was back in the day when the rushees would be corralled out front and then the members would come bursting out of the house, singing and dancing and clapping in their cute little outfits....all you could say was "wow!" In Chi O we had a particular party where we had these dresses made, we could choose from like 3 patterns but we had to pay for the material and have the dresses made ourselves. Also when we had other theme parties we were responsible to get whatever we didn't already have ourselves (including matching t shirts when we did those kind of parties.) We did a really cool Kentucky Derby party where we all wore these suits or dresses and then big hats....we looked like the ladies up in the stands that you always see on TV....the rushees loved it. We had to bring our outfits in and get them approved by the party chairs ahead of time so there were no unpleasant surprises. The sick thing is, generally speaking we had everything we needed already for most of the theme parties so it didn't cost too much....once we went to no-frills we had to buy all these silly t shirts every time!!!!

no frills how about no fun
 

As a pnm one of the more interesting activities of the night was seeing all the party themes, decorations, what they were wearing etc. I wasn't shallow enought to use this as my sole judgement of the house, but it made even the most boring houses seem fun. Every year our school fights over the silliest things, like beverages, number of a ballons at each party, dress, what kind of leamonade it is that you are serving etc. Although I agree that it does get rediculous, we went over budget on rush this year, but we did go over cap!, getting rid of singing and skits sounds boring. Last year the rush committee was deadlocked on skits for weeks, with three for and three against, if they get rid of them I will personally be really sad. If pnm choose a certain house just because of the decorations, skits, or outfits, then they are obviously rushing for all the wrong reasons.

Believe me as fun as a "frilly" rush may sound, a medium or no frills rush is better. When I was in school recruitment was 6 very long days and budgets that were supposed to be $10,000 became $100,000. Talk about make your due high. Additionally, all the PNM had to purchase a rush wardrobe. Med. or no frills can be just as fun and way less expensive.

The chapter I advise they have the PNM wear a t-shirt and short the first day - the chapters were stiched letters. The house should look as it always does and we can put up picture boards or "brag" boards, but no other decorations. We sing entrance and exit songs for every round. There are no food or beverages served during any rounds (yeah! no food in the teeth!) and no one but the President and Membership are able to go outside the chapter house on any day.

The second day is philantropy and everyone again wears t-shirts. Who wants to paint or glue in their good clothes?? The house should look the same except for the stuff you are doing your project with. This year the women made pinatas.

Third day is skit, but with the low key skits we do no elaborate costuming or decoration is needed. The girls sing, dance and make the PNM's laugh, but it doesn't cost $30,000 and we don't have a professional writer make it up and a choreographer prepare the dances. (You think I'm kidding don't you!) The PNM's were casual summer dresses or something they would go out in - nice but not cheesy. This year we did TRL with a few commercials between "Janet Jackson's" performance and "N'Sync's".

The last night is Pref - we all wear black dressy dresses and the PNM's dress up as well (most already are wearing their black pref dress for when they are members!)

Other chapters I have worked with in the past are about the same. Of course in Texas, this is about as no frills as you are going to get. I don't think it is any less fun on either side and it lets the PNM's off the hook on the first day - they don't feel like they need to look like a fashion plate or a super model to be invited back. And OH, MY GOD - what if their shoes and belt don't match their purse!!! These girls are stressed out enough during first round.

I think this is one we can all agree to disagree on. It really doesn't matter since the rules have been laid out and that's the way it is. For every girl who prefers a simpler rush, there is one who liked the glitz. Granted, the no frills rush can be less work and less stress, but on the other hand the very best things come with a price. You really can't say which way is "better" and it's a moot point now anyway. I'm sure everyone still manages to knock out the rushees with their parties, just in different ways.

did any of your chapters actually spend 100k on rush?

This is in Texas, dude. She's not kidding.

$100,000 :eek: OMG!!! My whole sorority's annual budget wasn't that huge.

we've done no-frills recruitment for as long a I can remember. When I went through in the fall of '99 we had a week long recruitment, monday and tuesday were the unity parties and held in the student center. All the sororities wore the same t-shirts and khakis so they were all "the same". They could only have one table of pictures, artifacts, etc. On Wednesday, PNM's would cut their first house from their list. Thursday and Friday were the philanthropy parties and the PNM's first tour of the houses. The sororities all had to wear khakis and this time block letter shirts. Saturday, PNM's once again voted but it was two houses instead of one. Sunday was pref and they could wear whatever they wanted....some dressed formally, some dressed nice but more casual. Bid Day was then that night.
Since then, PHC has changed formal fall recruitment to 4 days...which let me tell you is great. This past fall we had recruitment Thurs-Sun. Thursday and Friday were both in the student center and each day we had a little presentation about our chapter. Saturday was philanthropy and house tours. Sunday was once again pref and bid day.
I guess no-frills recruitment is a good thing for us since we are on a commutter university and there are only 5 sororities. Plus....we don't have that type of money to be spending 100k on recruitment. Quota only tends to be 10-15 every year. So not that many women actually go through the process.

EMU has a no frills recruitment and having been the VPR this past fall I definately find it to be benefitial. We also have structured recruitment in the Union, because not all the sororities have houses. It's usually Thursday through Sunday with Bid Day being Sunday night.
I think no frills is good for us because the PNM's perhaps focus more on the girls rather than who has a bigger house and what not. We only have 9 sororities and ceiling is 55, so our greek community is much smaller than most. Each chapter is not allowed to spend over a certain amount, something like $800 I think and we have to turn all our receipts in to prove that we didn't (but there's ways to get around that!). There's no food and no elaborate decorations. We only get 1 hr to set up and a half hour to take everything down and out of the rooms. It puts all the sororities on an even field, except for sometimes chapters get screwed over and put in the tiny rooms (which we had to do, twice!). The PNM's don't have to wear the same tshirt though, but all the sororities have to wear the panhellenic recruitment tshirt on the first day. I think the reason it works well for us is because we're a smaller greek community and we don't have large houses so there's no way you could fit 55 women plus however many PNM's in the houses. :)

Rush in the LBC....

I guess one could call Long Beach State rush a medium/moderate frills rush.

For rush info night, all the sororities on campus wear some form of a flowery/cute sundress (this is Long Beach afterall, it's hot when we go through rush) The only distinguishing markers that we are allowed to wear is our badges. Info Night is held in the Student Union, and there are no refreshments served.

On day one, every house wears something different. But all tends to be black skirt/capris of some kind with an embroidered express metro tee with their house letters on it. (Except for DG, they usually wear either white shorts or capris with their striped rugby's.) On day one, we are only allowed to serve PNM's icewater with lemon in it.

On day two, every house usually gets a little dressier for philanthropy day/house tours. And, on day two we can serve the rushees lemonade.

On day three/pref, we go all out. We are all dressed in our black pref dresses (of course). But the best part is that we get to serve the rushees a dessert of our choice. This past year we did chocolate mousse, with sparkling raspberry cider to drink. And the year before that some delicious sorbet.

As far as the rushees go, there are no restrictions put on their dress. Their PX usually go over the typical attire with them.

-Lil Snakey K

God, ice water with lemon!!!! I can remember having iced tea, lemonade, or various kinds of pop to choose from, plus finger sandwiches, hot hors d'ouvres, and desserts such as chocolate-dipped strawberries, tiny parfaits, petit fours, etc. One time we had this whole buffet laid out that was decorated with fruit. We had pineapples carved out to hold food, grapes bunched all over, a big watermelon carved out and filled with melon balls and berries, etc. It looked great but I can remember having to set up/refill/cleanup and that part wasn't fun.

Thought I'd bump this up--Valdosta State is planning a no-frills rush, although I don't think most rushees know it. It isn't mentioned in the brochure; anyway, I wanted to see more opinions on it since I have only seen extremely frilly rushes (SEC schools).:)

For schools that have a super-low rush budget, does that include everyone's rush clothes? I know that our clothes normally cost us around 300 bucks per girl, so there is no way we could have met the budget! We also rent sound equipment and spotlights, we buy floor coverings, wall coverings, signs...let me see if I can find a pic from skit day...I'll be back...

Okay, I took the pics down, so here is where you can still see them. I made an online album for them.

The frilly rush pictures!

Enjoy!

:eek: Whoa... :eek:

When I saw the first picture I thought...hey, that kinda looked like our party...

But then as the 2nd picture opened up, I nearly fell off my chair. Those balloons!!!

WOW... pretty amazing to me that there are parties that actually look like this... my school is VERY low key. We all wear matching outfits everyday... but mainly stuff we own already like our house letters with the imfamous "black pants" and t shirts with jeans... I know this year we're having a jungle themed party and we're supposed to wear green shirt with khakis... WOW... You all in TX really do do everything HUGE don't you ??

I can't see the pics!!!
 

BOOOOOOO!!!!

dzsaigirl, I can't see your pictures!!!! They won't show up on my computer.

I can barely remember rush when I went through. I do remember two nights of informationals, then a theme party, then pref. (The sororities only cut for pref I think). The info parties weren't very elaborate, the room was decorated with all sorts of paraphernalia, things the girls were involved in, etc. Themes were fun. I remember a 50's theme, a Baseball theme, and a Little Mermaid/Under the Sea theme I think. (There's one I'm forgetting). The skits were very cute and very entertaining, and themes parties had good food (like popcorn for the 50's, WONDERFUL baseball cookies for the Baseball theme, etc.) And then pref was dressy, with cake and punch and a ceremony.

While I was there, rush pretty much stayed the same. It REALLY changed after I left, when they added the philanthropy party and cut the frills. I did go back to rush as an alumnae this past year, and one of the big stinks was that the Panhellenic advisor (who was a guy) told the groups that they could only serve 2 food items during pref. Our girls had cake and strawberries (and punch). They thought about having chocolate dipped strawberries, but they weren't sure if the chocolate would count as an extra food item (and result in a rush infraction). That should tell you how well thought out and organized their rush was. :rolleyes:

Hopefully things will be better this year. I am for "No Frills" recruitment, but not "No Personality-and-fun" Recruitment.

try looking now...

I can't see the pictures either :(

Okay, I posted the link where the pictures were, so here it is again so that you all can see the pictures!

Frilly rush pictures!

Thanks for putting the pics back up!
I can remember having ice sculptures and yard decorations so things have toned down a little--even in Texas!

We're going from those pics to this...
A Semi - Frills Rush this year and it consists of on Day 1 - 100 Balloons max, no wall or floor coverings, 2-3 Brag Tables, no chair covering of any sort and university provided seats, that's it...and the Rushee's and Sororities will all be wearing panhellenic shirts ~ You can distinguish each other by the colors of the shirts. Ice water only.
Day 2 - Philanthropy day: Philanthorpy projects, 2-3 Display Tables, no more than 100 Balloons, No wall or floor coverings, Project tables ok, university provided seats and for clothes, no button down or collared shirts. Ice water only.
Day 3 - No wall or floor coverings, we can do a skit, video, no limit on balloons, more frills allowed on this day I guess.
Pref - same way as always, dressy & food, etc.

I think this is a good thing because they're phasing it out but it still can be somewhat entertaining. Some chapters were having a hard time with the whole Semi-Frills thing but as a whole we agreed it would be the best thing. At my school all the sororities wear exactly the same outfits within their chapters during Rush, we're talking skew numbers on tags here. In the long run it'll be cheaper and the rushees can really see the chapters for who they really are.

I believe that Indiana U. began the "no frills" recruitment policy my freshman year. But, we are still allowed to do skits and just last year we added a philanthropy round.

It's interesting because the PNM's are not made to wear the same shirts at all during recruitment. They are allowed to wear whatever they want. However, the active sorority members who are taking part in what we call "19-party" all have to wear the same shirt. It is a red, long-sleeve shirt with with letters specific to each chapter on the front left and then the back has greek columns with "19 Reasons to Go Greek". It has reasons like sisterhood, philanthropy, and so on with all the chapters letters framing the columns. Since it looks like we are going to get Sigma Sigma Sigma, we are going to have to get new shirts and Panhel is going to have to come up with a 20th reason!

Sorry that was so long...I just thought it was interesting that the PNM's had to wear the same shirt during recruitment!

no frills
 

Arizona State has no-frills rush, and personally, I think it sucks. I hear about other schools' skits and think about how ASU has day after day of talking. Frankly, it's really boring.

NWMSU goes to no frills
 

At Northwest Missouri State University we are going to a no frills rush this fall AND having Sigma Alpha (ag related sorority) go through recruitment for the first time! Talk about big changes! From what I hear though, everyone seems pretty excited about it. I don't know everything about our no frills, but here is what I do...

No:
*bump lines
*uniform dressing (but it can be similar, like the same t-shirts, black dresses on pref, everyone wearing a black skirt and white shirt...basically you can't be super frilly and say everyone has to wear this exact white shirt from the gap, etc.)
*skits (this really sucks, sk's hilarious first day skit really made them stand out to me about how laid back and funny they are)
*chanting while PNMs are in the room. we can chant while they are waiting outside the room to get pumped up though (we don't have houses so we have the parties in various large meeting rooms around campus) but we must be silent before they enter.

Only...
*one brag table
*7 (not sure on the number) vases of fresh cut flowers, and a $50? per day budget for the flowers
*other table decoration is 2 4x6 pictures in plain frames per table...once again i don't know if these are the exact numbers, but it was something like that

There are a lot of other little nitpicky rules like that that i cant remember...i'll have to get a refresher at work weekend. Basically our whole recruitment is going to be based on conversation, which in many ways is good. Luckily we do get to keep philanthropy day and pref pretty much the same to add some flair to recruitment. And our PNMs don't have to wear the same shirts or anything like that. For me this is going to be my first time on the "other side" so it won't be that different for me, but I do feel very sorry for the older girls that have to relearn everything! I'll post again once I find out more details on our rules.