University of Arkansas Pref Night
 

Would it be appropriate to wear a black dress on pref night at Arkansas? I've heard that at some schools you cannot wear a black dress or you'll blend in with the sorority members. What do y'all think?

Black dresses are typically the norm for Arkansas Pref night.
The Greek life link is pretty vague here: http://uagreeks.uark.edu/whattowear.php. I wore a black dress to pref at Arkansas, but that was over 10 years ago. The main thing is make sure it is cocktail dress - not prom dress :)

Of course I say that, but there are pics on facebook from last years pref here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...6356260&type=3. Color was all the rage in these pics :)

I know I've stated this before, and I know that the point is to downplay designer labels and appreciate the person inside and kum ba yah etc, but blech blech BLECH on someone choosing a shirt for me for the first three rounds that may be a color or a style that I look like absolute ass in. Do they at least offer a choice of 2-3 colors? I mean if I would have had to wear teal during rush I would never have gotten a bid. They would have been afraid I was dying of hepatitis.

Poor 33girl. At least teal would be only 1 day - it looks like they rotate colors over the 3 opening rounds. Maybe you wouldn't have gone bid less :)

At Auburn, there's one day that PNMs wear a Panhellenic T-shirt and the cost is included in the fees. Last year, you had a choice of 3 luscious shades! I'm all for doing recruitment so that you wear T-shirts and shorts until maybe prefs.

UA may be in the Ozarks but Fayetteville is torrid in August.

From hearing discussions about predicting how many of each size to order, and the lead times necessary to produce about 4200 t-shirts. Panhellenic Registration would have to be cut off much earlier than it currently. That would allow the PNMs to select their own sizes (and colors if offered), but at what cost?

It doesn't take long to make t-shirts. And they will probably have several hundred extras to allow for inaccuracies in size and last minute additions.

I'm all for the t-shirts, and I really think the looking awful in certain color thing is really way more personal than we think. As an example, I changed my hair part one day in college from the left side to the right. I felt like I was wearing a target over my head and yet not a single person noticed. You may not feel the greatest in teal, but the rest of the world probably wouldn't notice any difference in your skin tone. Unless part of rush is a period of time sitting under studio lights. Is the SEC THAT judgy? (ok, yes, I'm kidding)

Any word on how many registered? Registration closed on July 15.

A black dress is just fine. However, a bright color can make you stand out and allow people to recall you a lot easier. I wore a black dress going through, but I would definitely say it is trending to more color in the last few years.

Last number I saw was 1351

My AGD sister-daughter's daughter just pledged Zeta!

hooray!

133 New Alphas for Alpha Delta Pi!!

I hope Futurehog comes back and lets us know where she found a home! It was a crazy, crazy year at ARkansas - limited quotas for certain houses, larger quotas for others. It was groundbreaking and heartbreaking but I think it may have worked.

I keep hearing about these limited quotas, but I haven't seen e diencephalic of it. Does anyone know what the numbers where for all the groups?

First, I have no idea what diencephalic means!! Wow! :)

It is my understanding that five were 'capped' at 105. Their bid list numbers ranged from 105 - 109. The rest were in the 130 range.

1360-ish went through recruitment and I believe 1200-ish stayed thru pref to receive bids. First round cuts for the 5 being capped were brutal. As in, they released 900-ish.

For pics of bid day, etc go to University of Arkansas Greek Life on Facebook.

Lol. Autocorrect. Should have said "any evidence." Random.

Ugh. This idea makes my skin crawl.

First of all, for this change to make much difference, a differential of more than 25 would have been needed. Secondly, now we have a Panhellenically-approved tier structure at Arkansas. Why not just use RFM and place the QAs in the smaller chapters? Same result without labeling 5 chapters as recruitment welfare recipients.

Good intentions pave the road to hell, of this I am certain.

Irish - I know what you mean.

One thing I did see happen for the better(?) was on pref, pnms ended up with their bottom two choices (or two that reappeared) vs a first choice AND a last choice.

This allowed the crushing blow of being rejected by your first choice to happen on pref day rather than bid day. If the Gamma Chis did their job, they managed to get these girls propped back up and regrouped in time to attend parties and consider being something other than their first choice.

I would love to know if this really was the norm or something I told myself was happening often simply because I saw it happen to a few. I do know that girls dropped out on pref day (again, before BID day which might be positive) but am not sure what flexibility our two new groups have for COB and coming back around to some of these darling girls that were too overwhelmed and exhausted to think clearly.

I'm surprised NPC was on board with the tiered quotas given the UAs. We have COB to handle this issue and total readjustment.

I did have a rec girl at Arkansas and although I have no idea if this "tiered quota" is true, I do know she got her 1st and 4th (out of only 4 on her skit schedule) for pref round. The 1st had a "capped" list and the 4th was in that other group. She got her 1st choice for bid day.

If that 25 or so additional girls actually accepted their bids and are willing to make the commitment, then it will have worked. This is definitely no long term solution, but our special snowflake that is Arkansas might need some creative problem solving. The proof will be in more parity, no change, or tiers made worse. I applaud them for trying to solve the problem, but we'll see if it works or not.

This school still needs more chapters, and I'm sure that's why NPC has stepped in to try to figure out how to fix it. This is definitely NOT the time to add more chapters, but there are things as simple as fire safety restrictions that come into play. And with enrollment seeming to go up up up I'm sure the school is glad to house students in sorority houses instead of having to find alternative housing solutions.

Wait, wait, do we even know this is true? How do we know it's not just a quota of 105, and TONS of QA's? Wouldn't those chapters have made really heavy cuts in any case?

Well, we know Arkansas asked for permission to do this. Also, to give these chapters 30 more QAs each than the 5 larger chapters, you'd have to adjust RFM numbers to shift more women into their parties so there is a larger pool to draw from for those QAs. If they reach quota along with the larger chapters and exhaust their PNM pool, where do the QAs come from?

Thanks, that's the piece I was missing. I forgot about that powerpoint a few months back, and we all know how rumors can happen around here.

The two different quotas is definitely fact.

Which 5 had the 105 quota?

Were the 5 with the 105 quota the largest groups or the top recruiting ones? Or are they pretty much the same at Arkansas?

I was under the impression there were only four chapters at the 105 range (XO, KKG, PBPhi, DDD), several at the 130 range, and a few at 160. I know many are skeptical about the system, but from the feedback I've heard it seemed to work and was taken well by both chapters/pnms. I was told XO/KKG had to cut 1000 the first day. The atmosphere this year was overwhelmingly more pnms breathed a sigh of relief to be asked back/have a full schedule, rather than only wanting a certain 3 chapters which has always dominated the tent talk. Most girls were just ecstatic to be going to back to any chapter, regardless of it being their "favorite." The reception of Alpha Chi Omega and Phi Mu has been incredible over the past year, so it is possibly to change the culture, despite strong traditions/stereotypes. This type of quota differential was necessary as of last year some chapters had 150+ more members than longstanding chapters. COB just isn't very strong at Arkansas. Traditional recruitment is much more popular, even if that pnm ends up at the same chapter despite which system them go through. There have been talks of further expansion for 2 more chapters this year or next...

Right now, I sincerely wish U of A released bid lists. Just to quell my curiosity!

Please explain how 30 or 60 NMs are going to make up the difference when chapters are down 150? I know one of the big chapters has 100+ members than several other groups that typically make quota every year. It's not an issue of recruitment. It's an issue of retention.

Can we kindly remove the names of these sororities in the assumed quotas? It just adds to the tent talk, IMHO :)

I agree with Wavycutchip.

I think the comment about just being thrilled with some invites, is actually pretty valid. We read this sort of thing in recruitment stories all the time. "Girls were hysterical all around me because they only got invited back to one house. I was so thrilled to have a nearly full schedule."

I assure you, this feeling was a rarity at Arkansas until this year. Maybe this experiment will pay off...

But, and it's a big but, AOPAngel is right. Retention is key. I do think the whole system is working to be cooperative and supportive of each other. Housing will definitely help. The road is long but I do think it can happen.

Another thought - the larger chapters have retention issues as well. These large classes are a liability to sisterhood and it becomes easy to drift away from the group.

I would have to think the larger you get the harder it is to keep all your members engaged. Some retention with the upper echelon must come with the cache of membership, but I agree that size is a liability of everyone. I have talked to the NM educator from our chapter at Arkansas. They have such creative ways to foster sisterhood in these big chapters that we in smaller chapters would never think of like rotating small groups for new member meetings, Senior- NM, Junior- NM get togethers, etc. I am really impressed. Of course, if you are a wall flower, all of this could be really overwhelming.

I have actually been thinking about this since I read the thread last night and at first I was torn on the issue however I actually think the cap limits are a great ideal.... While I do not think that it is necessarily the right thing for Pan. to "force tiers" I also think in a competitive and "long standing traditional" environment, it might be the only way to move forward. I went to Ole Miss and sadly not only have the so called "tiers" / "top-houses" NOT CHANGED in 20 + years since I was there, but they have lost 2 of their chapters due to numbers. One was a sorority that was re-colonized and took their first official pledge class in 1990- they were closed due to numbers less than 10 years later. It was sad to see an awesome group of girls that colonized and were enthusiastic, pretty, smart etc... lose a house because "no one wanted to join the new house". The other house that closed was equally as sad because no one wanted to join because it had been the "worst house on campus" for "years".

There is so much tent talk and preconceived notions prior to rush (sorry recruitment- old habits die hard) starting from mothers, sisters, grandmothers, etc... that some of these houses don't even stand a chance once recruitment comes along. I can not tell you the number of awesome girls that decided to not go back to a house because of these preconceived notions. So all of that being said by capping quota or imposing different quotas for different houses you are forcing PNM's to consider houses that perhaps they never would have considered before. I don't think this is a bad thing. I also think it forces houses to cut before they are ready to cut, which again is not necessarily a bad thing. Personally I "fell in love" with a house that cut me going into pref night and I was left with 3 houses that I had never even considered. Had this house cut me round one or two, I would have perhaps looked at a lot more houses differently. I did find the PERFECT house for me, however, a lot of girls drop out completely when this happened to them. As recruitment numbers rise each year and houses remain stagnant something has to change or you jeopardize the entire integrity of the greek system. What will end up happening is the biggest will keep getting bigger and the smallest will continue to shrink until they are forced to close, which will then drive quotas on the remaining houses up even higher... It just isn't feasible to continue to have rising quotas-- IMHO a pledge class of 100+ is a pledge class that is way too big! Secondly, I believe the current system prohibits growth. Clearly with pledge classes as large as they are a new Colony would be ideal, however who's nationals are going to spend the kind of money, time and effort a colony requires when the chances of survival are slim to none. Imposing quota limits allow new houses to get their feet on the ground and establish themselves in order to make a viable chapter. PNM's I would think would be more open to a new or smaller house with this system because they are not going to feel like they "got the dredges".... it increases the knowledge that no one house can take everyone no matter how much they like them.

Finally (as everyone breaths a sigh of relief :-) )- I actually think retention would increase. The bigger houses would benefit because their pledge classes would be smaller allowing everyone to get to know each other, bond, etc.... and smaller houses would benefit because not only would they now have enough members to make their presence known on campus, they would also be taking in girls that felt like they had had a choice in their membership not just a group that felt let down that they had gotten the smallest, the newest, the "worst" on campus. For example you have Rudy Recruitee and she is desperate to pledge Gamma Top House. She gets released by them on pref night and is left with Alpha New House. She doesn't want to be in the new house, everyone says they don't cut, etc... etc... BUT she does want to be greek so she goes, she bids she's not happy because all her besties from HS are Gamma Top Houses and she drops.... leaving Alpha New House down one more girl. NOW lets say quotas are in place. Rudy Recruitee is desperate to pledge Gamma Top House... but she knows Gamma Top House has a smaller quota in place than the other houses so she really isn't surprised when they release her before skit. Hey she KNEW she should have volunteered with the homeless this summer instead of working on her tan. Rudy Recruitee heads on to Alpha New House that really wanted her back. Her BFF is also going back there! She likes Alpha New House! she could really be a leader here instead of just "number" at Gamma Top. She prefs, she bids she is in love....The next year she can't wait to show all the recuitees how much her house means to her.....

All and all I actually think its pretty smart-- Its funny but I remember similar discussions when the RFM started being introduced and I think everyone agrees (now) that it actually improved the system.

Change is hard.

And one of the reasons those discussions about RFM happened at the time was that it was new, different, hard to understand and would happen behind the scenes under the work of an RFM specialist. Recruitment is not one of the areas I advise, but one of my advisees is in charge of the IT systems for the Chapter so she works with the Recruitment team. So she starts reading her manual and freaks out over RFM. So she and I learned about RFM together (I'm ancient) so that she would be comfortable when she joined the team this Fall. RFM is more comforting once you understand it and can see why it helps an entire campus be successful. For those Chapters that already have an idea of who just might be on their bid list, they are forced to scale back to a reasonable number of invites so that PNMs that wouldn't have had a chance there are not led on some fairy tale only to be dropped right before pref night.

OldOleMiss, a lot of the things you like about the system are just qualities of RFM. You don't need different quotas for different groups to have this effect. If RFM were used back in the day, those groups at Ole Miss likely never would have closed due to numbers. Would there still be tiers. Yes. There will always be tiers because for some reason humans like popularity contests. RFM is great, but I'm not sure I see the utility of different quotas, and frankly think it's against the UAs.

I think I like the dance party idea better. Setting different quotas just makes the already desirable chapters even more desirable, like the latest "it" bag that there are only 50 of in the world.