Anyone know anything about appealing a submitted sorority priority list during rush?
 

Hello,

My niece just completed formal rush. After preference she decided she wanted to withdraw from rush but was advised/pressured to submit rankings. She went ahead and ranked the houses she had visited and signed the Membership Recruitment Acceptance Binding Agreement (MRABA). She walked out and immediately was told she could not do informal rush due to this. She immediately regretted and tried to withdraw her form multiple times. They would not release the form. The counselor told her just not to show up to bid day, which she didn't, and Panhellenic advised her to go through the formal appeals process with Nationals. she feels horrible as she knows she took a spot from another candidate at a house but she felt strongly it was the wrong choice for her. Meanwhile she has does not have housing or any idea how long the appeals process will take or if it will work. Does anyone have any experience with appealing something like this?

Which school?

Can you clarify why she doesn't have housing? Wasn't she living in the dorm, an apartment, or at home during rush?

The MRABA (Membership Recruitment Acceptance Binding Agreement) addresses this (not being eligible for informal recruitment) very clearly and specifically, at least twice. It is also explained to the PNM at the time it is signed.

I am trying to copy it and paste it here for you.

Not sure what your niece could appeal. She signed the agreement.

University of Washington

I am sorry this happened to your niece.

She signed a contract. That means something. I have never heard of it being appealed or the decision reversed.

I don't understand the housing issue either. I don't know of a place where brand new members who are not yet initiated move into sorority housing. I am guessing maybe she is on a designated "sorority" floor in a dorm, but probably not the chapter that she walked away from.

At UW, New Members move into the chapter houses on Bid Day.

Wow, never heard of this set-up. Where are the actives living? And where do the PNMs live during rush?

Seems odd given that you can't predict who gets a bid and who doesn't.

Yes, NMs can move in at Washington. the houses hold upwards of 100 women. However, there is housing for those who do not go thru recruitment or who do not match. So she's got housing -just not in a sorority house due to her choice to not acknowledge what she agreed to. And yes, it is plainly stated on the MRABA that it is binding for a year. She might as well go try it out and see what she thinks. She can't rush for a year anyway so why not?

Once upon a time when dinosaurs were the main form of transportation ala The Flintstones, RUSH (not yet recruitment) on our campus was held 2 weeks before school started-- one week before the dorms opened. One dorm was opened for those going through RUSH. Most of the houses houses had beds available for PLEDGES to move in on bid day and the school pushed for PLEDGES to move in since the dorm waiting list was huge. I was one of those PLEDGES, lived in the house all 4 years.

Did not think that there were still schools with recruitment before school started and before PNMs were settled into their housing.

DaffyKD

Well slap me silly!! Learned something new & different. How awkward it must be if the new member drops out or doesn't get initiated, though. :eek:

Yeah - that has always been my concern as well....as a former director of housing I can vouch for how difficult it is to evict anyone from the house! Even the fired House Director!

I'd never heard of the practice of moving in on Bid Day either.

They did that at Arkansas when I was there; they had bed rush, so called because quota was how many beds a group had available before rush. And then the pledges could move right in.

If you didn't get a bid, you had to go stand in a long line at the housing office and apply for one of the worst dorms and move right into one of those, as the best ones had been filled up months before.

Well, that would certainly be an incentive to happily and gratefully accept the bid you are offered! ;)

Well, the problem was that with bed rush, less than half the rushees were placed. I have a yearbook from the seventies in which it said something like 838 girls rushed and 353 got bids.

I knew several women who had perfect rushes up until the last day, including their 2 favorites for prefs--and no bid. This group included my roommate, a legacy to one of her pref groups, and one of the other cheerleaders.

Titchou,

Wonder if we shared the same House Director? :) Just saying, it's hard.

Waaay back in 1950 when my dad was at MIT, this is the way fraternities did it. The men were in temporary housing when they arrived and moved into the houses on bid day. I know not everyone went through fraternity rush but most did.

Maybe if it was in California - truly they smoke a different kind of crack there!!

That was still true in the 1990s when I was at MIT. All freshmen were given temporary housing in the dorms. Fraternity, sorority, independent living group, and dorm rush happened simultaneously. (ILGs are comparable to coed GLOs, but one (WILG) is all female and another (Student House) is only open to those who can demonstrate financial hardship.)

Yes, we had dorm rush. You were temped in one of the undergrad dorms, and during rush you were supposed to visit all the dorms and rank them. Every dorm had its own culture. You were then matched to one of the dorms. If you pledged a fraternity or ILG, your dorm assignment was irrelevant, because you moved into the house the moment you signed. If you pledged a sorority - only one sorority (out of 4 NPCs, a local, and an NPHC sorority) had a house when I rushed, and there weren't enough beds for the sisters, never mind new members, so you spent your freshman year in a dorm, so dorm rush was a must. If you were interested in joining a fraternity or ILG, again, dorm rush was a must, in case you didn't get a bid, or got a bid but chose to decline it.

MIT has since changed the rules. Freshmen can pledge FSILGs but must spend their freshman year living in an on-campus dorm.

The PNMs stay at Haggett Hall, on campus, during Rush. As has been stated, they move into the chapter houses on bid day; many of the houses have sleeping porches. New members, including Freshman, of fraternities can also live-in their first year, so most of them moved into their chapter houses this weekend. In fact, most fraternity chapters require new members to live-in their first year, at least.

Sorry to hear about your niece; hopefully it all works out for the best.

I have heard of moving in on Bid Day. Waaaay back in my time my house had a pledge porch. USC would ok the girls from the dorm contract, refund the money which would go to the sorority. This cleared that way for girls who couldn't afford a dorm and a sorority to join.

At the University of Tulsa, a NM or 2 (not the whole class) can move from the dorms into the sorority house after receiving a bed with a no penalty -- if there is room. The living quarters on the sorority houses were built by the University (having the living quarters owned by TU was a way to get around a large scholarship endowment that prevented sorority housing). Plus, the rooms/suites are the same for each house, so there's no recruitment advantage as the space/footage are the same.

At UCLA, the entire pledge class used to move into a pledge room (of 14 ppl) immediately after bid day. From info from long-term alumnae who had reunions at the chapter house, I think this stopped in the 1960's or 70's, when most chapters were full before recruitment.

I'm curious, since we've veered into a discussion I haven't seen before-what happens if a new member for either a fraternity or sorority moves in and then drops during the new member period, or is removed from the chapter?

This happened when I was an active (small school, less than 5 sororities at the time). Our Greek housing was considered on-campus housing just like dorms were. Like others mentioned, if a woman in the dorms chose to move into her chapter house before her dorm contract was up (within 2 weeks of her accepting a bid, I believe) they'd refund the money and send it to the sorority house to pay her housing fee.

When a woman's membership was terminated for any reason while living in house, she was immediately required to move out and find her own place to live. Most often, this occurred at a semester break, when it's easier to find somewhere to stay than in the middle of the semester; however I do remember at least twice we had a woman choose to terminate (not a NM, but a fully initiated collegian) in the middle of a term - both times they chose to keep their plans a secret, moved their stuff out in the middle of the night (one over a holiday weekend when the majority of the school was out of town), and submitted their resignation paperwork after they'd moved out so they wouldn't have to worry about trying to retrieve their belongings. If a woman terminates during the NM period, the same situation applies.

You get to have a heck of a time evicting them. It's not as easy as one would think which is why NPC groups definitely don't like it. the room contract covers it generally but enforcing it when someone doesn't want to leave is not fun. I've had to help chapters do that when I was our Director of Housing.

That's hard to understand.. Somebody drops or their membership is terminated, but then they refuse to leave.

Why would they want to stay?! (rhetorical question)

Because a) they didn't want to be terminated, b) they don't want their parents to know, c) they are cray-cray, etc.,,etc., etc.

I think option c is probably at least a little part of it no matter the situation.

You would be correct - esp in one case I recall! Now the House Directors- could write a book about how to get them out.....

Back in my day at MIT, if a freshman fraternity or ILG pledge depledged or deaffiliated, whether by their choice or the GLO's choice, the housing office would immediately find him/her a spot in the dorms. It might be a bed squeezed into a quad-turned-quint in the crappiest dorm on campus, but it was a bed. I can't recall any incidents where a freshman whose GLO made him depledge didn't go quietly into the dorms - why would you want to live in the house of a GLO that didn't want you there? Nowadays, all freshmen must live in the dorms, so it's a non-issue.

I'm honestly not sure what happens if a sophomore, junior, or senior depledges or deaffiliates. I think the housing office tries to find a spot but it's not guaranteed. Certainly a senior who deaffiliates shouldn't expect to be placed in a nice big single in the dorms - someone in that situation would probably go for an off-campus apartment (assuming they can find, and afford, one - housing in Boston/Cambridge ain't cheap).

In our housing contracts they can stay in the house until the end of the semester. Usually, though, they move out as soon as they find somewhere.

Since this has veered so far off topic, I have to wonder if housing contracts are as binding as other BINDING AGREEMENTS an individual might sign.