Indiana U recruitment schedule
 

Since it's getting close to IU recruitment, I thought I would post the schedule. It's a brutal one. Best wishes to the sorority women, advisors and PNMs who will be involved!

PHA Formal Recruitment Schedule, January 2016

22-Party/ Skits

Thursday Jan.7: Skit Round Day 1
8:00- 8:40
9:00- 9:40
10:00-10:40 Drink Round
11:00-11:40
12:00-12:40
1:00-1:40 Drink Round
BREAK: 1:40-4:00
4:00-4:40
5:00-5:40
6:00-6:40 Drink Round
7:00-7:40
8:00-8:40

Friday Jan. 8: Skit Round Day 2
8:00- 8:40
9:00- 9:40
10:00-10:40 Drink Round
11:00-11:40
12:00-12:40
1:00-1:40 Drink Round
BREAK: 1:40-4:00
4:00-4:40
5:00-5:40
6:00-6:40 Drink Round
7:00-7:40
8:00-8:40

First Invite

Saturday Jan. 9: Philanthropy and Service Round Day 1
9:30- 10:15
10:35- 11:20
11:40-12:25 Drink Round
12:45-1:30
BREAK 1:30-4:00
4:00- 4:45
5:05- 5:50 Drink Round
6:10- 6:55
7:15- 8:00

Sunday Jan. 10: Philanthropy and Service Round Day 2
9:30- 10:15
10:35- 11:20
11:40-12:25 Drink Round
12:45-1:30
BREAK 1:30-4:00
4:00- 4:45
5:05- 5:50 Drink Round
6:10- 6:55
7:15- 8:00

Second Invite

Saturday, Jan. 16
8:00-9:00 Drink Round
9:20-10:20 Drink Round
10:40-11:40 Drink Round
12:00-1:00 Drink Round
1:20-2:20 Drink Round
BREAK 2:20-4:30
4:30-5:30 Drink Round
5:50-6:50 Drink Round
7:10-8:10 Drink Round
8:30-9:30 Drink Round

Preference Round
Sunday Jan. 17
12:00-1:15
1:45-3:00
3:30-4:45
5:15-6:30 (optional 4th round)
7:00-8:15 (optional 5th round)

Bid Day
Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016

What's the maximum invites per day?

I believe that 16 is the max for round two. Second invite is either 8 or 9, not sure if there is an extra party in the schedule for over flow or if there are 9 invites. Preference is three.

I hope we get to read some good stories and not be overrun with a bunch of stupid spam!

Wow, going from 8 or 9 parties to a max of 3 for Pref is a steep drop. I imagine receiving invites from groups a girl had ranked 7, 8, and 9 would hurt a lot more than getting invites back from groups 4, 5, and 6.

Do you know if there's a minimum number every group has agreed to take again like last year?

Wow, an optional 4th or 5th round for pref? Has that ever been done? (Or is that in the schedule just in case weather doesn't cooperate during the day?)

Some of the houses are too small for comfortable pref parties of more than a certain number of women, so those homes may need to utilize a 4th and/or 5th Pref Party as their number of preffing PNM's may exceed comfortable division by only three parties.

Very common at many campuses for all rounds. Even Alabama with its mega houses does it.

I have been told that each chapter must take a minimum of 50. Last year two chapters did not. One COBed to 50, the other deliberately did not want to take 50. I have been told that chapters may take more than 50, but those who do not will face sanctions.

Yes, it is common to have more than three pref party slots in larger recruitments. Not sure if every chapter participates in each time slot or if possibly chapters might sit out on the first slot or two and have parties the last three slots.

Does drink round mean that sororities can serve ice water?

I think they can serve water, lemonade, tea, sodas, coffee, etc. They just aren't supposed to do anything fancy or that requires multiple ingredients. Most chapters stick to the basics due to cost.

Usually the smaller chapters will have the fewer parties and PH tries to equal out the number of PNMs at each party so that it doesn't appear that any chapter has obviously fewer guests.

Usually it's sodas or water for the initial rounds of parties because of the sheer number of women. Once you start narrowing down, you usually get hot chocolate, punch, sparkling grape juice, colored mocktails, etc

I've also seen it firsthand the other way, where smaller chapters invite back far more women to their parties because their return rates are lower and so there's more PNMs per party and more parties overall than at stronger-recruiting chapters who don't have to invite as many women back or hold as many parties.

That, too. Basically, PH just adjusts the parties to accommodate the particular situation so as to try to make it look the same for each group.

There is no way for IU to not have a massive drop between rounds without adding another round to the process. And I don't think ANYONE wants that, especially in January in Indiana.

Best of luck to all involved. Getting the popcorn ready for all the drama that is guaranteed to start coming our way. Because everyone at IU wants the Greek system to be what it is, right up until it means girls go unplaced. Then it is wildly unfair, exclusionary, and should be stopped at all costs.

I don't think the parents want the system to stay the way it is, and they're usually the only ones complaining. And much of the time, girls do it to themselves by thinking certain chapters are beneath them. Greek life isn't for everyone, especially Greek life where you're living in for your whole college career. There may be a forced minimum of 50 bids, but are all those members retained through pledgeship or until they graduate?

Obviously as with any university, some chapters have higher retention rates than others. About half of the chapters now have live out plans that can include juniors if the chapter house is full. The chapter houses vary widely in number of beds, so some chapters require 1-2 years, while there are still that require 3 depending on the occupancy rate.

I do think that going from 9 to 3 is quite a jump. I would assume it would be more difficult for PNMs who get their 7, 8, 9 ranked chapters for pref than for the PNMs who get their 1, 3, and 4 chapters back for pref.

Wow, that schedule is brutal. Just looking at it from a logistics perspective, these girls are not being afforded a proper opportunity to eat. They're jamming them through a 13-hour marathon with just one 2 hour and 20 minute break for a combined lunch/dinner?? :eek: Then many of these girls will be sitting for a couple extra hours afterward each night when making their decisions and marking their cards. I hope they're strongly encouraging snacks inbetween rounds, because just eating one meal in 13+ hours for a few days in a row is not appropriate or healthy.

And let's not even mention the fact that classes start up on the 11th. This is a nightmare.

May the odds be ever in your favor

Back on the old days... :rolleyes: we used to come back to campus earlier than the chapters and PNMs do now. We were usually back no later than Jan 3. That gave us time to have all of recruitment completed prior to first day of classes. We had 5 rounds back then, with the first round being held in the fall. In January, we started with 15, then 8, then 5 then 2. It seems like going down from 9 parties to 3 parties is steep, but then again we had a round in between.

We had 5 rounds back before electricity too. With 15 chapters. Positively decadent compared to now. I think we went 15/12/9/5/3.

The splitting up over 1st and 2nd semester is intriguing to me, especially for the huge schools. I'm picturing having a first round EARLY in the semester. Cuts are made and the girls know who they've got. Then they can have some time to see that the list they have is still good (because, you know, they're ALL good) and then be ready to go ahead, not devastated by a shortened list that doesn't seem to have their favorites anymore. Then maybe a second round at the end of the semester and 3 more rounds before school starts? I know it probably wouldn't work, but for that large of a school doing deferred rush I think it would be worth testing. Because my opinion counts. LOL.

Yes, it does! To me! Oh, wait, I don't go to IU and I am old. LOL

Almost forgot to check Greek chat to get caught up on IU recruitment. My step daughter who attends IU is Recruitment VP for her chapter this year. Hoping to get some scoop. :rolleyes:

Can I just say I HAAAAATED coming back that early the year I rushed (back in the Dark Ages)? It felt like I barely got a winter break!

Because we did barely get a winter break! And you'd always start the spring semester sick and exhausted.

I was freaking out about getting my course website finished up by Monday, and then my boyfriend pointed out that classes don't start until the 11th.

Dumb question: How do you force a chapter to take a minimum of 50 NMs?

To take an extreme example, say you have 22 chapters, but one of them (call them ABC) is That Chapter - the WRC with the bad reputation, the one everyone thinks is about to close because they have all of ten actives when all the other chapters are in triple digits, the one everyone wants to drop like a hot potato.

After open houses, every single PNM ranks them dead last. Some PNMs will end up with ABC on their lists (if I understand RFM correctly, that's pretty much inevitable), so they reluctantly return to ABC and again rank them dead last. Same thing happens with the second invite round. Then pref rolls around, and there are some PNMs who still have ABC on their schedule. So they drop out of recruitment, or they leave ABC off their MRABAs. Therefore, ABC matches NO ONE in bid matching. They issue some snap bids, but since the PNMs would rather chew glass than join ABC, none of the snap bids is accepted. So ABC tries to COB - same thing.

So ABC gets penalized because, even though they've rushed their hearts out, the PNMs don't want to join??

I might be wrong about this, so feel free to correct me. My understanding is that the chapters set their own quotas, so I'd guess that the penalty would be for chapter(s) that don't set their quotas at or above 50.

They can tell if that sort of thing happens. I doubt they would be penalized if they followed all the invite number guidelines given to them and just didn't get the expected return rates and therefore didn't make the quota they set for themselves.

I'm guessing if they can show they issued bids, they wouldn't be penalized if they got no pledges.

Also, if things changed and the numbers were no longer insane at IU, then I'm sure that rule would be modified. At this point there is no scenario where a chapter couldn't take well more than 50. The only restriction is willingness.

Wait...we have electricity now? :eek:

Ugh. This recruitment schedule looks brutal, absolutely brutal! I felt tired just reading the schedule.

This morning round two began. Hoping everyone involved has a good day! So glad the temperatures are not as cold as last year and that there is no snow or ice to deal with!

While everyone is waiting for more IU recruitment updates you can check out the many IU chapter recruitment videos. It seems that Tri Delts ran away with the most popular one last year. This year they have another good one but have some stiff competition from Chi O, ZTA, A Phi and Pi Phi. Good job ladies! And good luck to all the IU PNMs.

It is snowing in Bloomington. Today's high is supposed to be 20 degrees. (3-5 inches on the ground). Lots of black quilted coats and hunter boots...

Yikes. I was watching the IU basketball game and the announcers kept talking about how crummy the weather was down there.

IU
 

Needing some IU information and recruitment stories! Come on Greekchat nation!!!!

Seconded, when time appropriate, since I know of one young lady from our area who may receive a bid.