Some thoughts about "I didn't feel a connection" and the stronger recruiting chapters
 

Amen and amen!

Yes and yes. Some people in general have this gift. My stepbrother is one of them. He's a good looking guy, and he has a way of talking to anyone in a room and not having a problem with it. If Leonardo DiCaprio walked in, he'd be the one person to casually walk over to him and be his best friend within five minutes. At the same time, he's also the guy who would walk up to a homely looking girl at the bar and make her feel like a million bucks.

No surprise here, but he now works in sales.

When it comes to recruitment, these women are just good at what they do. They've got it together. Everyone thinks they're amazing, but clearly not every PNM can be part of their chapter. And many times, they're not "supposed to be" part of that chapter; they only think they are. And unfortunately, some PNMs can't open their hearts and minds to any other group; groups that they would be perfectly happy joining, that have amazing members who aren't the epitome of perfection during the insanity of recruitment.

Thanks so much for this post. I have counseled a few girls going through recruitment this fall about this. One context I tell them to really think about is the "show" of recruitment versus what's real. My BFFs daughter went through and was very enamored with an extremely strong recruiting chapter the first day and still liked them a lot the second day. Thing is, said chapter didn't align with her values and most of what she liked about them was surface, whereas most of what she liked about the chapter she eventually joined (who did not put on a good show on day 1) was deeper and more in line with what she wanted long term. Thank goodness she had smart people to get her through that, because by the time Strong House cut her before pref, she didn't even care and really liked the house she eventually joined. She is happy as a clam now!

I am also going to venture an opinion that they are good at either pulling a conversation out of the flames or dragging someone in who can do so without freaking out.

Makes me wonder how some GLOs can be so strong in certain areas of the country or schools and weaker elsewhere, primarily in terms of their return rate. Do national organizations look at this and try to help? Perhaps some workshops on the skills it takes to run a successful campaign? I think of it like sales training -- helps the team get stronger, improve those return and retention rates?

It's because of what a "big deal" a group is in that area of the country. Put bluntly, the girls with stronger people skills tend to join certain groups in certain areas of the country.

I'll use my own chapter as an example of this, at the risk of sounding like I'm bragging. My undergraduate chapter is that top-tier rockstar recruiting chapter, with incredibly high return rates and pledge classes full of women who wanted to be there more than anything in the world. Our success is a combination of all the things everyone's shared.

Girls come in to Clemson knowing the names of some sororities ahead of time, including ADPi. The university is about 70% in-state students, but it's a lot higher in my chapter, and virtually no one is not from the South. We had at least six younger siblings of active chapter sisters join this year as well as goodness knows how many other legacies, and oodles more who knew someone from cheer/dance/pageants/church groups/high school. Girls who already know someone in the chapter have a leg up in recruitment (and this is true everywhere) simply because it's not the first time two strangers are meeting each other and sizing each other up for fit. We already know if you will or won't fit because four chapter sisters spent three years cheering with you in high school.

Being an ADPi in South Carolina also "means something" in a way that joining other chapters doesn't. And I say this as a lifelong New Englander from a corner of the world where joining a sorority means as much to the public as your shoe size. But there's a lot of chapters in the state which produce a lot of alumnae and legacies, a lot of prominent women or family of prominent women who are members, and when your chapter churns out Miss South Carolina candidates every year it's not hard to see them and think "this is the chapter for beautiful, accomplished women, and if I join them I will also be beautiful and accomplished". Seeing runner-up Miss America Ali Rodgers speak at Preference Night worked on me.

The other secret to high return rates that hasn't been touched on as much is only inviting back women who want to be there. When 1000 PNMs go through the first round of recruitment and you can only invite 300 back to the next, you want to invite back women who you already know want to come back. If 200 of those 1000 PNMs want nothing to do with ADPi for whatever reason, we had the luxury of not inviting them to the next round. That's RFM working as it's supposed to, but I think there's a difference between the chapter everyone wants and the chapter who knows who wants them and only invites those girls back.

I disclaim all this by saying that I personally don't embody a lot of this, and I think y'all know that-I'm from the North (very few of us in my chapter) and I didn't do cheer/dance/pageants/church groups/high school with anyone from my chapter. I also was never the recruiting face of my chapter, and while I resented it at the time I now understand that we weren't trying to recruit more Northerners with no in-house connections.

I think this approach is repeated with different chapters in different areas of the country: they know who they want, and they make those girls feel wanted along with everyone else by association, then the cycle repeats itself the next year.

As I continue my alumnae journey and maybe because I'm getting older (eeekk), it has become a bit more heartbreaking to see that sometimes the young women who need the sorority experience the most are the ones that sometimes get left behind.

When I think of the collective power our NPC groups (and the other councils too) have to transform the lives of young women I am in awe.

I have advised that young woman who was shy and watched her find confidence in herself and her abilities. I've also advised that top of the class go getter and watched her accelerate the pace at which she achieved her goals.

In reality, while we all want to have strong successful chapters (however we define success), those other chapters might be exemplifying the values of our founders a bit more deeply by providing a meaningful and potentially transformative experience to those needing it most.

There is room for everyone if we could break free of the need to all be the best at all times. Hard concept for many 18-22 year olds, hard concept for many adults.

For me if you have a chapter of debutantes - rock on! If you have a chapter of future computer programmers - excellent! If you have a chapter with both - magical!

At the end of the day when we live our values and mission, we the sorority women of the world are transforming lives and promoting the best of the sorority experience together!

I agree with everything said above! Oh, that every PNM could understand these wise words.

I'll also point out that this same phenomenon takes place in the real world as well. I was recently in the midst of a job change and was fortunate enough to have several interviews with different firms for positions that interested me. Some companies are GREAT at recruiting new employees! The headhunter whom I was working with was skilled at helping me look at the big picture of what each of these companies had to offer rather than get swept up in the glitter of a company who's best skill might be recruitment.

Oh my, yes. Again, some people are good at this and some people not so much. It's difficult, though, to get past that sometimes. Your relationship with your boss and your co-workers is not the same as that of your sorority sisters, and it's a different recruiting situation.

At the company where I just started, I had interviews with people at all levels - a recruiter, my supervisor, his supervisor, and two people who I would be working with directly in my department. They were all personable, and the conversation just flowed. They each had my resume in front of them, and clearly they had all actually read it and studied it. And in between asking me about my qualifications, they also said things like, "I see you lived in Hawaii. What was that like?" and "You're the editor for your sorority's magazine? That's awesome!" It felt like I was having a normal conversation, and even though I wasn't totally sold on the company going in, and I knew very little about it, I left that interview feeling great.

Then there was another job that originally I REALLY wanted. It was at a global company with a great culture, and it's listed among Fortune's list of 100 best companies to work for. I went on the interview and I met with a recruiter and four others. All of the conversations went OK, and then I met with my potential direct supervisor. Everyone praised her and said she's amazing, and all of her employees really respect her. And then came the questions (with no smile and barely any eye contact as I answered and she took notes)...

Name a time when you had a difficult request from a client and you helped them resolve it.

Name a time when you had a disagreement with a co-worker and what you did to negotiate a favorable outcome.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Then she gave me a quiz on insurance coverage.

Blah. I was completely turned off. But perhaps she really is a great supervisor, and her department runs like a well-oiled machine. If I had been asked back for a second interview, I probably would have accepted, but I would have been hesitant.

But hey, this could also be a lesson in learning to love your second and third and fourth choice. :D

I agree. I remember going through recruitment, as a second year. There was 1 house, XYZ, that I knew probably wasn't going to be a good fit for me, but they were great rushers. So I left Day 1 feeling like I did want to be an XYZ, and getting cut hurt, even though I knew it wasn't the house for me.

But yes, especially in the South, certain groups have dominance. It may vary by region but, everyone knows their name and those are the houses that the top rushees target.

However, it's unfortunate that "I didn't feel a connection" is often an excuse for being a snob and a PNM thinking that she's above that house, and then proceeding to trash them because they're "bottom tier", as we've seen in a couple of threads here. So then, when a girl comes says that, and worse names names, and people give her sympathy and tell her to try again, meh.

Agree. And based on things I read here and see with girls going through rush, I think there is also something else afoot, at least for some PNM's: that they believe that they're SUPPOSED to have an instant connection and when they don't, they go into a tailspin. Especially if they know girls who do have that.

It's kinda like dating - sometimes we fall in love with a person over time, other people know pretty soon.

I don't recall this being as big an issue when I was in school, so I wonder if some of this is connected to living in a more instant gratification society. Maybe not, but given how fast people can get things these days (online shopping, dating - heck you don't even have to wait a week for a new TV episode, you can get it all at once online), I think that can influence one's mindset, especially when you're younger and have limited life experience. And there are girls for whom things have come easily so if this is the first time they've not gotten what they want, that can be a shocker.

When you see girls in your chapter posting about how happy they are to be AOIIs or DPhiEs or whatever and you don't feel that way, whether they feel that way or are just putting on an act for the internet is irrelevant. When they post about how much they love their big and how their big is the best big ever!!1! and you don't feel that way, it reinforces your feelings of inadequacy. You start to wonder what's wrong with you that you don't feel the same way everyone else on social media is, even though the people who aren't happy either aren't posting or are putting on a front because they feel the same way you do.

I have become friends at work with a fellow recent grad from my university who was a member of a top tier/very strong recruiting chapter who told me that PNMs never talk to their weak recruiters who are forced to become RCs or are banished to the kitchen during recruitment. She said all the top tier chapters do this so what PNMs see during rush is not exactly what they get on bid day.

Ok. Gotta say it.

In my years of reading posts on GreekChat, I've seldom - if ever - seen a woman say she was too good for this or that chapter. There may have been a few implied, but ...

I wonder how many are reading too much into it.

If the woman went on a date, and came and home saying "we really didn't connect", would she mean "I am too good for that person"? No.

Sure, some chapters are better rushers. Some people are better rushers (I was awful, and still am). But not feeling a "connection" is a lot more, I think, that this board gives credit for.

And I'd bet even the concept of "tiers" falls away outside the south.

Just my $0.02.

No, it does not, at least not at some schools. When I traveled for my sorority as a consultant (granted, it was many years ago), tiers were just as strong at some schools in the Midwest and Southwest as they are at SEC schools. I was surprised given that I grew up in the SEC world. My cousin left an SEC school to go to school out West and tiers were and still are very fierce at her alma mater.

I've written recs in recent years for friends whose daughters have gone to Univ. Arizona and Univ. Oklahoma, among others, and I have sisters whose daughters have gone to USC and other non-Southern schools and the stories they've reported back tell me that tiers definitely still exist. Univ. Kansas is another school where tiers are in place; had a sister's daughter pledge there this fall. I think any school outside the South with an intense Greek system definitely has the tier thing going on!

I think that "I didn't feel a connection" is shorthand for "I wasn't feeling it here, but I don't want to be specific about why". In fact, the PNM may not even know why.

I'm sure some of it is gut feeling, some of it is about wanting to belong to the "best group", and sometimes, it's just luck of the draw. You may get rushed by the exact wrong girl. You get picked up by Marathon Runner Mary, and the sister right next to her, Baking Blogger Betsy, would have been your best conversation of the day.

It happens.

While I believe it's possible to make instant connections with people you've just met, it's happened to me only a handful of times in my life, and I'm grateful for all of them.

But, most of my most important relationships have been built over days, weeks and months.

This is a great read for PNMs! Especially the part about social media.

I’m going to make this about me for a minute. :-D

I was one of those shy, sheltered girls. Too many people in my HS didn’t realize I had grown and changed since 7th grade. Or maybe I was just a flavor they didn’t care for. At any rate, you could count the number of dates I’d been on and parties I attended on one hand.

When I got to college it was a wonderful new start. There was a great mix of girls on my dorm floor and I felt liked and accepted without trying too hard or pretending I was someone I was not. That year before I pledged a sorority helped me to grow and be confident about my choices.

However - if I had been thrown into sorority rush at our school before even having a class or meeting people, I’m sure all I would have cared about is “which sorority will make me popular?” whether it was a fit for me or not. And if I had been rejected from that chapter, it would have just been further confirmation to me that I was a geek who was never going to have a social life - even if I had met other chapters who had liked me as I was.

It’s easy to look from our vantage point and tell girls to give a chapter a chance. It’s harder if you jump back into your own 17-18 year old self.

Mine was/is a strong recruiting chapter, as was my other pref. But here's the thing. No mater whether you get your first choice or your initial last, it takes a lot of time and working with your sisters before you establish the strong bonds we all are looking for. My strongest bonds didn't come until we were all living in the house together, and even then, the ones I became closest to were not sisters I would have initially predicted would be my best friends. Our rush was deferred for a year, which gave us PNMs as well as the sororities more time to look each other over. So a lot of the sorting went on beforehand, and we had a better idea of the "personalities" of the individual chapters before the first open house. Even so, the dynamics of each house changes at least somewhat over time, so there is more fluidity within each group which one initially might imagine. The "feeling it" IMO doesn't come in a genuine way until much later and also depends on the extent that each member is wiling to put the work into it.

Agree. I think given how big some pledge classes and chapters are that it could be easy for the girls who are a bit shy to have a harder time or the girls who pledge a chapter filled with tons of "hometown girls" to feel left out. For some, just being in a huge chapter can be overwhelming even if they're the most outgoing person.

I think a big issue these days is the expectation that connections happen immediately. Technology has played a major role in younger people's lives and how they look for immediacy of what they want to happen since they can do so much without waiting. It's a big reason that college student counselors see so many students who begin suffering from anxiety that's been compounded for some students by having helicopter parents who did everything for them so they're not as skilled at making things happen on their own. Perhaps there's also an air of thinking that being in a sorority means instant friends - social media can drive that feeling.

I felt connected to a few girls when I pledged because we connected by being in the same rushee group, but the real sense of connection came when I moved into the chapter house a year later. Those three years of living in the house were incredibly special. I know today that chapters are so big that girls are lucky to get to live one year in the house.