Mizzou Recruitment
 

Hello all,
I am new here. My daughter is getting ready to go through recruitment at Mizzou next month. I have enjoyed and appreciated reading through old posts here as recruitment at Mizzou seems very different than when I went through rush back in the late 80's. Would live to hear from any other Tigers out there :)

Hi Mom of Tiger!
I am a Mizzou alum (and a sorority alum) and now have a daughter who is a happy member of Greek Life. This will be her first year going through recruitment as a sorority active, and she is looking forward to it. I went through rush in the mid 80s myself. Wow has it changed! Some things are just as you'll remember them. On the other hand, it seems much more intense to me now. For one thing, numbers are bigger. Pledge classes in our day were in the mid 50s. Last year they were over 90. I posted my daughter's recruitment story last year and there are tons of great recruitment threads on this site. I will look forward to hearing about your daughter's experience. Last year I felt a lot of support from other Moms, alums and Panhel/chapter advisors and I'm sure you'll find the same.

One theme you'll read over and over again--please emphasize to your daughter to keep an open mind, even as a legacy! Mizzou has an incredibly strong Greek system and every chapter has something to offer. A legacy isn't a guarantee (although of course it may certainly help at her legacy chapter). I know a lot of girls who have gone through recruitment at Mizzou and even the strong candidates experience a lot of cuts. If she can prepare herself for this before she goes, she'll take it in stride and be able to enjoy the process more. My daughter ended up at her legacy house (my old house), which has been wonderful for both of us. I also know girls who were cut from their legacy houses. You'll get plenty of support here, but feel free to PM me if you have any Mizzou specific questions as she goes forward.

Good luck to your daughter--and to you too! I remember how intense rush was for me, as a Mom (much harder than going through myself, to be honest).

My daughter is also an active at Mizzou (WalkintheWoods helped keep me sane last year!). She is living in the house, so will be very active with recruitment from the other side - which I think she is looking forward to, though knows will be a lot of work!

I was also in a sorority long ago and far away - in a totally different part of the country - and our "rush" was nothing like the recriutment at Mizzou. My sorority doesn't have a chapter at Mizzou - so she wasn't able to benefit from any legacy.

It's a fabulous greek system. She has friends in a variety of different sororities, which is nice.

As WalkintheWoods said - tell her to keep an open mind. It is very competitive, and I think we were unprepared for just how competitive it was - thinking the more southern SEC schools would be FAR worse.

Happy to offer words of advice/support! Hope she has a fabulous recruitment!

Thank you for your responses! I, too, went to college on the other side of the country & my sorority is also not at Mizzou. She is definitely going in with an open mind as she know no one at Mizzou & we have no affiliation with any houses there. We have gathered recs for all of the houses but two. She has at least one rec, if not two, for all of the others. I think move in day is 4 weeks from today!

It is an exciting time. I think my daughter grew from the process. Tell her to make sure to get rest, wear comfortable cute shoes, and stay hydrated. I remember that week was very hot, as late August often is in Missouri.

It is exciting to see other moms! Good luck to you all! Are yall as never as I am?

ImJustAMom, where is your daughter going through recruitment?

I can tell you that I was not that nervous, at first. Probably not realizing just how competitive it was. But after the first round, I rapidly went into panic mode. I believe I may have drank a bit more wine than usual and drove just about everyone around me nuts. But that's just because my daughter was very far away and I had no ability to really do anything for her....other than lend an ear and a supportive word. But I suppose, as a young college woman that was best. Girls do have to learn to negotiate recruitment largely on their own, as each girls experience is different.

But as a Mom who has been there and done that at Mizzou, I am happy to lend my support to you as you go through the journey this year with your girls. Let me know if I can help in any way!

In the midwest! It isn't supposed to be very competitive, but I am nervous just the same! I'll post where after it is over. :)

I'm the mom of a Mizzou sophomore as well. One piece of advice that made a big difference for my daughter was to get rec letters. With so many girls going through recruitment getting your daughter on the radar of as many houses as possible is really helpful.

Best wishes to you and your daughter. I think it is as anxious a time for moms as it is for the daughters. Mizzou has a huge number of girls going through recruitment, but with the RFM system that in place now if a girl keeps an open mind and keeps going back to every house that invites her back she has a very good chance of finding a match.

Momoftiger, did you get my pm?

Thanks Bluedoor. I have seen "RFM" in a few posts. Can you or anyone else explain that to me please? I am unfamiliar with that term. :). Thanks

Also, I was reading through older posts about recs.....we are short one house and I cannot find ANYONE! They recommended contacting a local PHA chapter. I am I going to try that today. I am so thankful to have read that. I didn't even know there were PHA alum groups!

I wish the Mizzou PHA page would be more specific about recs. It states:

"Letters of recommendation are letters written by a sorority alumna recommending you to her sorority. While recommendations are definitely appreciated by chapters, you are not responsible for securing them. It is actually a chapter’s responsibility to obtain one if they need more information. If you know an alumna, it is not uncommon to ask her if she would be willing to write a letter of recommendation to her sorority. Each chapter’s national organization has their own protocol for recommendation letters, so if you have any questions, encourage her to contact them for more information."

To me that makes it seem really kind of optional. I am not sure how iron clad necessary they are as opposed to Ole Miss or Alabama, even having had my daughter go through.

I know her pref options included one that she had a letter for and one she did not. She was immediately cut from several she did have letters to, but I believe some of that was grade related. She was a transfer sophomore, and although her college GPA was in the green range, her HS GPA was in the yellow range.

Yes! If I was going off of what PHA states, I wouldn't have thought she needed rec letters, I am so glad I found this site that stated otherwise. I would hate for her to be at a disadvantage because we just didn't know!

Hi Momoftiger. Re: RFM, I can tell you what it is; please anyone else chime in to make corrections here or add more info. I'm not directly involved in implementing RFM so others may have more insider info.

RFM is Return Figure Methodology. It is the process most campuses now use to determine how many PNMs each house gets to invite for return rounds of recruitment. It is based on a chapter's historical return rates, that is, what percentage of PNMs have requested to return to the house in the past. The purposes of RFM are 1) to increase the odds that each PNM will make return visits to houses where she has a realistic chance of receiving a bid; and 2) to increase the overall strength of each campus' Greek system overall, by giving PNMs multiple exposures to up and coming houses. Since RFM began being implemented, more PNMs end up joining houses. Because of RFM, houses that have historically been more popular (often but not always older, more established chapters) generally need to make steeper cuts in the early rounds. The great thing about this for PNMs is that, if they don't have a decent chance of getting a bid at a house, they should be released sooner rather than later, giving them an opportunity to take a closer look at other houses. Also, newer chapters gain members and have an easier time reaching quota and total. Overall I think it's been a very good thing for PNMs and for the chapters. I am almost certain that Mizzou uses RFM but if any Panel officers or chapter advisors can confirm?

WalkintheWoods has that all correct. To state it another way, hits come early and hard but if she makes it to the end (short of incredibly rare occurrences) she WILL be placed into a chapter. So she needs to take the cuts she gets with grace, take a fresh look at the chapters to whom she still has invitations each day, and be happy.

Clearly you can't help but have favorites after each round, and it is unrealistic to say she shouldn't make her favorites the houses that are outside her reach (for whatever reason). But if she can go in accepting that 1-all of the houses are good there, even the smallest and 2-she WILL have a positive sorority experience if she allows herself to then the emotional setbacks of being cut by this or that house should be temporary.

ANY cuts feel personal and abusive. With RFM, the chapters have to cut more girls than they want. Try really REALLY hard not to take it personally. This system really does work better, even if you want to say, "but if they'd only give my little snowflake another chance they'd grow to love her as I do!" That is undoubtedly true, but hard decisions have to be made in favor of efficiency. Rush would take forever if they allowed sufficient time at parties and/or had duplicate rounds to give members and chapters an extra opportunity to get to know each other.

Trust that the system works. Know that the vast majority of girls who don't drop out and meet the minimum gpa do get placed. When you see 75 and 80% placement rates, please know that most of those 20-25% of girls dropped out when they got cut by their favorite sorority. The girls who stick it out rarely get cut completely. Not that it DOESN'T happen, but it is not a possibility you need to spend time worrying about.

If she goes in prepared with her recs, basic conversational skills and a good attitude, she should be fine. Good luck.

That was a great explanation and makes it clearer for me.

I just remember as a Mom driving back from having dropped her off (long ride) and her texting me excitedly and telling me about all the houses she visited and ones she particularly liked and felt like the conversation went great. After the first day there were 2 she really loved. Where she found like minded girls that she was paired with she had a lot in common with. I was so excited for her. Fast forward to the day they get their first list of invites back and she had only 4. And not either of the two she so loved. I was in the car on my way to work and I felt just awful and trying to tell her that was "good". I mean it was still good - she had houses she liked, but I think we were both unprepared for it to be this competitive. But that were those early cuts. And yes.....better to be cut right away than to keep going back and becoming more enamored with a place where you were ultimately not going to end up. We both realize now that the conversations she had there were still good, and those girls didn't secretly run back and "diss" her. But these were both houses that tend to be more competitive and that it wasn't personal. At the end of the day, she is in a chapter she loves and looking forward to living in the house (and it was a house she liked all along).

Panhel really can't state outright that rec letters are needed to attain a bid, because they don't know the membership selection policies of every chapter. The only thing they can say is that girls need to be a full time student with a certain GPA to participate in the rush process. I'm going to make this blanket statement: if recs are even mentioned on the school's Panhel page, you need to get them. If addresses of the chapters are included when talking about recs, YOU REALLY NEED TO GET THEM.

Thank you!

We are having trouble finding a sigma kappa rec. I reached out to our local PHA site today for assistance. She has 14/15 houses otherwise. I hate for her not to have that last one because that chapter looks adorable on their recruitment video. It's become a mission for me now to locate one. Wish me good luck!

I am a Sigma Kappa and there are several on Greek Chat as well. I will PM you to chat about it if you would like.

Have you contacted their local alumnae chapter?

I tried to get on their website but the link wouldn't work :(

Check with their HQ

I sent you a PM about the alumnae chapters!

Sorry, didn't get back here for a few days. I see there have been great explanations of RFM. It really is helpful at schools with such large groups of girls going through recruitment. Your daughter will hear the phrase "maximize your options" many times. This means that she attends every party she is invited to (mandatory at MIzzou) and after pref she lists every chapter she visited (up to 3) on her preference list. If she does make it to pref round and lists all chapters she attended she is guaranteed a bid to one of those houses, although not necessarily her first choice. If she attends 3 pref parties but only lists one or two of the houses she is not guaranteed a bid.

It sounds like you have done everything you can do to help her prepare. It's great that she has so many rec letters. There is lots of good information on this site and several others on-line that give tips on recruitment conversation skills. There is a great thread here in the sorority recruitment section about making personal connections during recruitment that I read and shared with my daughter before recruitment.

Wishing you and your daughter all the best. Please keep us posted on how it goes for her.

Thank you so much!!

Ooooh -- it's been 45 years since I was getting ready for Mizzou recruitment. 1970-71 was the last year that the term began in mid-September, so our recruitment was after labor day. I need to dig out the scrapbook for some TBT pictures.

Here's the PHA promo for this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdnMWD3jS5A

I look forward to hearing your stories!

LOVING the PHA promo! Simple and sweet.

Another MU mom
 

Sorry I'm so late to the discussion, I've been trapped in a home renovation project. My daughter also went through recruitment last year at Mizzou. Many of the people posting on this thread are responsible for keeping me sane last year. MomofTiger is already miles ahead of me, just by coming here early and getting recs for 14 of the houses.
Even though I was Greek in college, I was wholly unprepared for SEC recruitment. We had NO recs, my daughter knew one person at Mizzou who was in a fraternity, but had been asked to leave the school for conduct issues. She had a good GPA, lots of involvement in high school and strong ACTs going for her, but that was it.
She did go into the process with an open mind, as she had no prior knowledge of any of the chapters. She was 2 weeks out from a pretty significant infection in her lymph node, so the left side of her face looked kind of like a chipmunk, and she had to nap over her lunch breaks. She did well after the first round of socials and had 5 or 6 chapters she really liked, but got heavily cut between rounds 2 and 3 and lost all but one of the houses she really liked. However, she kept her top ranked house, and each round fell more in love with them. On preference night she was in tears, she was so set on this house, the other two she went to did not compare. She wanted to suicide, but I talked her into listing at least 2 on her card, she just did not see herself in the third house and was willing to forego pledging in the fall if it came to that.
I was so nervous on bid day, I knew she was either going to be thrilled or devastated, and I live 450 miles away. Her roommate and two of her closest new friends on her floor had dropped before preference because they were not happy with their remaining choices, and they were all from St Louis. So at least she would have them for support if things went badly. When she did not get a call from her Pi Chi, she felt a little better. Thankfully on bid day she got her first choice and is very happy there. When they started recruitment training in the spring, she told me several times, "I have no idea how I got into my chapter" She has reached out to girls in her high school on social media offering to give advice to anyone considering recruitment so they do not go into it as clueless as we did. For the moms, I strongly recommend you get as many recs as you can, don't sweat the ones you can't, encourage your daughter to try to show her personality at the socials, without going overboard or overly "cheesy" Avoid controversial topics at all cost. Many sisters do have strong religious, political and social opinions, but this is not the time or place to discuss them. Dress appropriately, feel free to throw in something interesting or personal, it can be a conversation starter, but nothing crazy or wild. Think lunch or dinner at the Dean's house!
Most important of all: HAVE AN OPEN MIND!! Do not listen to the whispers of other PMNs or buy into rankings on the internet sites. Every house has something to offer, but some will just feel more comfortable than others. Good Luck, and I suggest a nice supply of wine in the fridge for you, mom!

1890 PNMs at Mizzou this year!
 

Hi NUalumMUmom! What great advice--I second everything you've said here. Good to connect with you. It's fun to see the familiar names from last year--this site was my lifeline during my daughter's recruitment. So grateful for all the kind, encouraging, wise and supportive people here, including you!

Update for everyone: PHA website posted today that Mizzou has 1890 PNMs registered for recruitment! I think this is slightly lower than last year's #, which I read is a reflection of lower enrollment #s at Mizzou for fall (though I don't know if that part is accurate).

I really appreciate hearing your stories and reading your advice. Thank you all.

1890 PNMs. Wow.

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Re numbers
 

Hi! They told us at Summer Welcome that there are fewer freshman women than they had expected, so I wondered if recruitment numbers would be down a bit.

My daughter is an entering freshman and will be going through recruitment. My word, the anxiety. For me. She is pretty chill, as usual. Oh, to be 18 again.

Hi beagled1. My daughter is also going through recruitment! It will be good to have another mom going through the same anxiety I am!

I am so excited to hear their stories and hope they both have wonderful recruitments! As I said, I remember the anxiety of the Mom side very well - so I am happy to lend an ear and my support :)

beagled1, good luck to your daughter! How well I remember the anxiety of last year! You'll find lots of support here. I'm looking forward to reading everyone's stories.

Not recruitment oriented, but just generally new student guide info from the Missourian.
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/sp...n/collegetown/

Great! Thank you. I will share with my daughter :)

As a Mizzou mom of a senior greek woman, I'm SO pleased to see this thread about MIZ! Best wishes to all going through recruitment! Also remember that the actives also feel anxiety and recruitment parties don't give them much time to get to know the PNM's. It can feel a little shallow when you only have a few minutes to talk. The worst thing to do is come into recruitment thinking you want a certain house. The BEST advice is to keep your thoughts to yourself about each house and be present at each house when you are there. With 300 plus women in each house, and such a strong greek system, PNM's can find sisters amongst any of the wonderful houses.
Would love to hear how everyone is getting ready and their experiences during (without naming houses of course!).

My artistically challenged daughter started crafting for her little-to-be. So yes....the actives are super excited.

Above advice is spot on. Great system. Diverse women in every house. If girls think for themselves, keep an open mind and maximize options, they will more than likely have a successful recruitment.