Academics...What matters?
 

Of course for PNMs, GPA is very important. But does acceptance to highly ranked/well respected honors programs (at the University where said PNM is going through recruitment) have an impact? I am just looking for some varied opinions to either support or contradict what we have been hearing locally.

It depends on the school...because remember at some schools with 1000+ PNMs enrollment in the honors program might not be rare enough to give a significant boost to a PNM's resume.

Depends on the school, for sure. One of mine was accepted into the most advanced honors program at her university; only 16 freshman were accepted into that level. She and another girl from it rushed and said that almost every rusher they had said, "Wow, you're Bell Honors. Do you think you'll be able to handle the load of that plus sorority?"

So at the time, they said, "Oh, sure!" because they were used to handling heavy academic/extracurricular loads in high school. Looking back after college, they said that maybe those sorority members knew what they were talking about because it was incredibly hard to handle the depth, difficulty, and extra meetings of their program in addition to sorority life. I do feel, though, that they're better time managers now as adults because of what they managed to do back then; both were sorority officers plus graduated from their program cum laude.

Carnation,

You bring up a great point. I suppose it could be seen as a negative in the presumption that high achieving honors kids would not have the time to devote to a sorority. Although, I stress the word "presumption" as I believe those exact type of kids manage their time very well. But the type of honors programs I am speaking up are pretty selective like you mention. So with that said do you feel it was a positive "check mark" for your daughter?

EIG

It's hard to say. Both girls had everything going for them recruitmentwise--the full package, you might say--I think it could have had different effects on different sororities and it seemed to depend on the reaction of the girl who rushed them. If they commented on the honors program favorably, those sororities kept the girls and those who seemed to be expressing doubts that the girls could handle it cut them. Oddly enough, the group with the highest GPA cut them.

The same groups kept and cut both. Each girl pledged a sorority she loved. However, I don't think that any of us dreamed that sororities might see Bell as a negative in recruitment. I remembered all that years later as we went to the Honor Program graduation dinner and they called out my daughter's college honors-- Phi Kappa Phi, ODK, Order of Omega, Sigma Tau Delta, cum laude--I thought, "Okay, other sororities, see what you lost."

Carnation...thanks for the info. Really interesting perspective. I certainly can see it both ways, but for the highest GPA sorority to cut a more than probable high GPA generator is really surprising. Especially since the majority of honors programs worth their salt will have a pretty high GPA "minimum" for staying in the program.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

I think most chapters would prefer a cheerleader over someone in the honors program, to be honest.

Hey, both these girls were both!

I'm sure we all know brilliant kids, valedictorians even, who went to college and flunked out for various reasons. Maybe that's what the sororities feared, or else that the girls wouldn't have the time to devote to the house.

I thought it was interesting that the only guy who went Greek did have to drop out of his house and off the tennis team because he was flunking out. I don't even remember if he finished the program but it seems like only half of the originals did.

It's not worth it to have a high GPA generator if she's going to be so busy studying that she's never around. It's also not worth it if she gets a bid just for her GPA and not because the chapter truly likes her.

Although I also think it depends on if the programs in question are driven by GPA only, or if you have to have other assets (community involvement, campus involvement, an outgoing personality) to be admitted. Someone in the second kind of program probably knows what she's doing and how to manage time...someone whose life has revolved around grades and only grades maybe not so much. (Some of those straight A students are dumb as posts, organically speaking, and only make those grades through sheer force of will.)

Is that because cheerleaders are typically attractive/good body and a girl in a honors program is assumed to not be a hottie?

Disagree. I think it depends on the chapter/campus. Sure, chapter members who are visible and involved on campus are a plus, but grades are very important. So someone who has been accepted to a prestigous honors program would be desirable, imo.

No, I just don't think most chapters care at all if you are in an honors program.

Sure, it looks good to alumnae when you are soliciting recs and all that, but at the end of the day, chapters want girls who they will have fun with for the next four years.

While I agree that they want girls that they LIKE and will enjoy spending time with, I disagree that that means "cheerleader" rather than "honors student." And barring some chapters that really narrow their focus and pledge the entire squad/team/club of some sort, most chapters have cheerleaders and honors students and engineering students (who couldn't maintain honors because they're just barely making it despite studying all the time) and College Democrats/Republicans and party girls, and non-party girls and so on.

Be who you want to be, and if you fit in, you'll fit in. If you're trying to become who you think a chapter wants you to be you'll just be unhappy.


ETA: Sorry Kappamd, I snuck in there. :p

^^^I completely disagree.

If there's a choice between a "fun" cheerleader type who has only that going for her and a girl in the honors program with an impeccable resume (because she did get into the program after all), I think honors girl would win out in most chapters.

I can only speak from my experience with SEC recruitment. But high GPA's are definitely a plus for a pnm. Yes, chapters are looking for girls to have fun with, but there is criteria for membership that go along with that. Being able to tout that your rush crush has a high GPA or is in the honors program will often trump another pnm who does not have that asset.

Maybe this is truly chapter specific?

Being a cheerleader these days is about a LOT more than being attractive, especially if your HS/university has a competitive cheer squad. I mean obviously you'll be fit and in shape but some competitive cheerleaders are far from the drop dead gorgeous stereotype. It's about your skills and athleticism, not your face.

Of course this is chapter specific. In fact, this is membership selection stuff, and we probably shouldn't indulge the OP at all. My point is that being in an honors program does not mean chapters are going to fall all over her (her daughter?). It's an item on the resume, just like anything else.

Re: cheerleaders -- This obviously differs by campus, but if you were a cheerleader or an Illinette at Illinois, you missed most of rush. Most cheerleaders signed up anyway, and had pref invites anyway. The same would not have been true for an honors student who missed two rounds of parties. In fact, it was not even true for women in marching band, who missed two rounds for the same reason the cheerleaders did.

Yes, I have a daughter, but this conversation actually came up between myself and an old college buddy who was in a different sorority than me. I am writing a RIF for her daughter (unfortunately her sorority is not represented at my D's college choice) and we started to discuss her extremely attractive honor student. Someone from her local Panhellenic started the debate and we were just finishing it. Their stance was attractive, good personality and honor student = rush crush. I was simply throwing it out there for varied opinions. And I knew I'd get them :D

This reminds me of the question that college counselors always get when talking to parents of high schoolers- is it better to have lots of AP courses with a slightly lower GPA or regular classes with a higher GPA? The answer- the AP courses AND the higher GPA. So in this instance, the cheerleader who is an honors student and also is the president of the hs key club, with a great personality to boot. :)

Also, we're going off of HS GPA, which can be so different from what actually happens in college. We all know 4.0 girls who went off the rails after that first semester at Large State University because they couldn't hack it...

So true. But it isn't always the academics they can't handle, it is often the freedom that does them in.

True story, as I can attest to from personal experience. I came in from high school with a 4.0, admission into the honors program, and more activities than any sane person should have on one resume, and then I discovered the joys of "college life"--although since we have deferred recruitment I ended up rushing with a less then stellar gpa, but I was still in honors (thank you, grace period!) AND a collegiate athlete, so who really knows.

On the flip side, I graduated cum laude, so a girl with a gpa on the lower side one quarter/semester into her freshman year can definitely turn that around if she's driven enough. Sometimes i think it's a shame that formal recruitment is structured so that a lot of times a girl has heavy cuts in the beginning rounds soley based on GPA.

There's that, which I saw first-hand, but I was thinking more about the academics.

Let's use the example of Suzy Smith. She's a 4.0 valedictorian of Small-Town HS in Texas* that may not have the best academics. She does what she can extracurricularly--cheerleading, honors classes and societies, etc. Because she's in the top 10% of the class, she gets an auto-admit to UT-Austin. She's not stupid, she's just not prepared for the academics, especially when there are kids from better high schools who can eat her lunch on a bad day.

Should she be considered a "better" fit for a sorority than a girl from a more rigorous HS who made a 3.5 with the same activities? All things being equal, there's a higher chance that the 3.5 girl will keep up the higher GPA.

*Not picking on Texas here...they're the only state that I know of off-hand where there's an auto-admit for the top 10% in a HS class.

And this is why they have things like the SATs. My hs best friend had MUCH consistently higher grades than I did, but her SATs were in the crapper - I don't think she even broke 800 - and so she didn't go to college.

Nowadays I think HS grade inflation is more of a culprit (in regular and AP courses) than WHOO HOO I IZ IN COLLEGE TIME TO PARTEE. Not to mention there are a lot more courses on how to ace the SATs.

Depending on your major, the grade inflation may be just as bad in college.

Do sororities look at SAT scores? I have no idea--it's been a few years since I wrote a rec, and I don't remember providing mine in my Panhel apps.

I also used UT as an example because it's just the top 10%--you can go to a crappy HS, have a 4.0 and be admitted regardless of your test scores. That goes to say if you're just outside of the 10% and you scored a 1600, you're not guaranteed admission.

Even though people are pissed off about it, it looks like other states have considered that same option.

LOLZ, I forgot what we were talking about. :) I didn't really mean for sororities, I meant considering how academically ept someone is in general. But honestly, it might not be a bad idea for sororities to check it out.

This all gives me a little bit of insight on why some of the sororities at SEC schools are notorious on (allegedly) confining their membership to certain high schools. You know that if Judy got a 3.0 at Bear Bryant High, it's probably better than Tammy who got a 4.0 with all AP courses at Roger Clinton High.

That might be true, but there's also a good bit of classism and general provincialism thrown in there as well. My chapter wasn't like that so much because we were from all over the country (and in some cases, the world), but at a school where students are from the same general region, it's easier to gauge "what kind of girl" someone might be based on what high school she attended.

Oh, I'm sure. I was trying to give them a more high-minded explanation for it. :)

Or if you're from St. Louis. If you're from St. Louis the first question someone else asks you is "What high school did you go to?"

It excessively annoying if you're not from the area.

/randomaside

In the town that I currently live in, but am not originally from, people just succinctly ask "so where did you go to school?" And they don't mean college.

/continuing the random aside, because I find that completely annoying (not to mention life-limiting) as well.

Ha ha! My college sweetheart is from STL, and after 5 years of dating him, I started asking that same question. I usually asked it as part of the "who do you know?" game--at my college, most of the STL kids came from a handful of schools.

He, on the other hand, was classist about it in that if people went to certain private (ie, non-Catholic) schools, or public schools in "certain" cities, he'd get all populist-snobby about it.

I found St. Louis to be one of the most provincial places I've ever visited, at least in that regard.

It's incredibly class-based. Private school in STL costs more per year than your average college does. And they're also unusual in that most of them are single-sex. It's all who you know-where-you're-from-who-your-parents-are-how-important-are-you.

I nannied for a kid who was interviewing for JR HIGH.. Their plan was that if he didn't get in anywhere, they would rent an apartment in Clayton to establish residency because they were a 'good' public school. I just couldn't fathom dressing an 11-12 year old up in a suit to interview for schools

There's a pretty funny book about a PR director's experience in a St. Louis private school (he disguised it, but a lot of St. Louisans were pretty sure it was MICDS), called "Confessions of a Prep School Mommy Handler."

Here in NYC, middle school interviews are a piece of cake. It's the KINDERGARTEN interviews that cause the gnashing of teeth. It's funny, I'm not even mortified by it the way that I might have been when I first moved here. In fact, it's probably going to be part of my life as a parent in NYC.

i'll have to look for that book.

And yes, I can't even fathom the idea of putting my not yet born baby on a waiting list for preschool much less interviewing for it, or for kindergarten.

I'm just not having kids, it's the simplest answer.

Same thing with Louisville. To this day, if I meet someone else from my hometown the first question is "Where did you go to school?"