Deferred recruitment questions
 

I have some questions.


How common is deferred recruitment? It seems more concentrated in the northeast and maybe some of the central part of the country. Are there any southern campuses that do deferred?



Is this is more recent innovation? How long have schools been doing deferred?



Any info on which campus has had deferred recruitment the longest?

I would say that it is less common for deferred recruitment in the south. U of Miami(Fl) has deferred but it is merely located in the south. Same with Elon College in NS. I believe Furman U in SC and Emory in Atlanta have deferred rush as well as Duke and Vanderbilt.

Deferred was around when I was in school 30+ years ago in the Northeast, and I would say it was fairly common.

It's always struck me as odd the coldest parts of the country seemed to have more deferred recruitment, since it seems like the least desirable time of year for rush there. I'm just picturing a metric ton of puffy coats and boots piled at the door lol.

It’s not so much that, as much as the Greek tradition isn’t what it is in the South and getting freshmen who don’t know much about it to show up before classes even start is a lot harder. (Or to get parents to agree to it)

Baylor has deferred Recruitment

So does SMU.

In the south it would be the private schools that are more inclined to it. Public ones usually aren't.

That's interesting - any particular reason why (or are the bigger recruitments at non-private schools)?

I can't even imagine how a big school handles recruitment once school has started. At the universities I attended, there are so many parties that they go all day for several days.

Stanford has recruitment in April...nearly at end of the school year .Initiation usually takes place the last weekend in May right before dead week.

I wouldn’t say Case is a small Greek system. While the campus is small (~5000 undergrads) the greek community makes up 35-40% of that population. There are 10 sororities that participate in deferred recruitment.

The one great thing about deferred recruitment is that PNMs have had one entire semester to adjust to University life. Since nearly all NPC groups initiate within 8-10 weeks, the New members don't fully understand the time and financial commitments. I have been on Alumnae Advisory teams, and seen way too many new members want to quit after the start of the new semester because, they did not make grades, cannot handle the time commitment with jobs, commuting, studying etc. (many times their parents are making them quit.)

Having endured a few summers in the southeast and mid-Atlantic, I cannot imagine trying to look and feel my best in 90+ degree heat with dew point in the 80s. it is so much easier to add a few layers (and yes have to shed them when you enter the houses.)

Not to mention the women who transfer out of school completely after initiating, and then end up on a campus where their GLO is a terrible fit, or isn’t there at all, and they lose out on 3 1/2 years of collegiate Greek life because of one semester.

Although I think the less demanding pledge programs are probably as much to blame for the things you mentioned as first semester freshman eligibility.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet what's probably the biggest deferred recruitment there is. Midwest. State school. The largest number of NPC sororities anywhere. Horrible weather. It's Indiana of course.

Last I heard, the University of Michigan is being forced to move to deferred. It's causing great concern for filling the houses. I think that's the biggest driving force for fall recruitment is housing. Housing in college towns is typically difficult to find so students sign leases in October/November for the following academic year. That means with deferred recruitment, sophomores can't live in. You have to fill a house with Juniors because Seniors usually don't want to live in (for a variety of reasons- being at legal drinking age, having internships, fieldwork, student teaching, etc.)

That's a really interesting point - how many of the deferred campuses have housing to fill and how does deferred impact it?



I'm thinking of how deferred would completely change the housing aspect at a school like the University of Washington, where new members move into the houses on Bid Day.


ETA: Why am I getting huge spaces in my posts?!?!

Vanderbilt and UVA have winter recruitment. The pnms have an entire semester to meet members and form opinions of each group, which I believe make the cuts that much harder - the pnms have stronger feelings of where they feel they fit in, and the mutual selection aspect is tougher to take.

No idea why you're getting huge spaces in your posts :)

I know of at least one of our campuses someone mentioned here as deferred who are having a very hard time filling their house and end up with very large parlor fees to cover the expenses of having empty beds. It's not a good situation.

Do most of the sophomores stay on campus or move off? Would the university be willing to work with the Greeks to let people out of their leases, since they are the ones forcing this change?

Or is the school purposely doing this to throw a monkey wrench into the sororities’ operations?

I also just want to state that I cannot imagine what a living hell my sophomore year would have been had I been forced to make housing decisions in October of my freshman year, because to say my situation changed DRAMATICALLY by that time is a major understatement.

I think it would be easier for deferred at a school with smaller or no housing. University of Virginia does deferred recruitment, but the houses there are smaller...largest holds 32 last I knew and most only hold around 20 or less. I was at Virginia over 30 years ago and they were doing deferred then. The reasoning was, as others have pointed out, to let students become adjusted to college life and establish themselves a bit on campus before joining a sorority. But, I will say that January's in Charlottesville were cold. To get to one house, we had to go down wooden stairs, cross the railroad tracks and then go up the other side. One of the fraternities always thought it was a funny prank to pour water over the stairs so they'd freeze.

Worse than horrible weather! Always bitter cold, sometimes snow, sometimes ice. In the back of my mind, I always wondered if it was deferred to keep numbers down during the days of bed rush. If it was early August, more girls might be interested because they had not made friends yet in class or in their dorm.

Deferred isn't necessarily anything new, but it is gaining traction - from my experience working at a fraternity HQ on expansion.

It's mostly a responsive effort. If a fraternity/sorority community's grades drop or if there are risk management concerns, the standard among Greek Life professionals is to recommend deferred recruitment as a potential antidote.

My issue with doing so is two-fold:
- Deferred recruitment doesn't necessarily address the problem that students don't actually sell the real fraternity experience. There is too little clarity on the financial and time cost of membership, and without clear "pricing" (referring to time commitments as well) chapters can either overwork new members or find that many drop off shortly after initiation or their junior year because they never actually agreed to what was required.
- Deferred recruitment is another case of treating Greek Life different from other student organizations. Consider the Red Cross, an international organization. If they establish a chapter on a college campus, that Red Cross club basically has the liberty to do what they wish. Deferred recruitment makes the case that fraternities and sororities inhibit people, rather than that they help people excel (which goes hand in hand with the previous point).

So I think you'll see more deferred recruitment in the coming years because campus professionals switch schools every year or two and many just carry deferred recruitment policies with them. That said, it's always good to challenge the process, and deferred recruitment without appropriate recruitment training is not as effective as it is in theory.

What I don't like about deferred rush is that the PNMs are under a microscope that whole first semester, and few realize it. Many are away from home for the first time, and enjoy their own version of Girls Gone Wild their first semester. There's no chapter guidance as to "tone it down, Suzy!"

What is good about deferred rush is that the chapters get the PNMs' grades prior to recruitment.

Also, VTech is deferred.

I know MIT used to be deferred and now does fall recruitment - any other campuses change from deferred to fall? I feel like it's not very common to go the opposite route.

When I was at Arkansas, you couldn't rush until your sophomore year. They changed it to freshman fall rush in the late seventies.

Very few sophomores live in at Michigan. There's no room for them unless they are in a specialized live and learn kind of program. Dorm space is scant. Housing is hard to come by and extremely expensive.

I agree that it is crazy, but it's their reality.

The difference between joining a Greek organization vs the Red Cross club or whatever is, if you drop out of the Red Cross club you can join the Clara Barton club or another similar group with no problem. You also probably aren’t going to join an alumni chapter of the Red Cross club or be involved with it when you’re a senior citizen.

Fraternities and sororities AREN’T like any other club; let’s not pretend they are as an argument against deferred rush.

And they have one entire semester to listen to all kinds of rumors, tier systems and other gossip and crap. Does anybody really understand the time and financial commitments until they experience it themselves?

It's my experience (to my surprise) that the heat, humidity and frequent afternoon showers are more of a leveler. Everybody's hot, sticky and sweaty - even the members in houses because with that many bodies, the A/C has a hard time. Those expectations are lowered by necessity!

True, but usually only a tiny percentage transfer.
When I was a regional officer, I had chapters that were deferred and chapters that recruited in the fall. The advantages and disadvantages balance out. Mostly it's people who are used to one way telling the other side they're wrong and vice-versa. There's no one right way to do it.

CSULB just decided to change to a deferred recruitment. It was not voted upon by the sororities, the University made the decision unilaterally.

I saw where students at USC were trying to sue the school to move recruitment back to the fall. (Saying it violated a person's right to free association.)

The greek chapters at CSULB sent out a petition to override this decision. I received it from our chapter at CSULB.

Good for them.

Tons of schools in the north take this approach and I do understand where they're coming from with it. It lets a freshman adjust to college and get a feel for the different sororities on their campus before rush. I just wish they didn't host it during a full week of school, which can get busy! If they did rush the week before school came into session after Christmas break I'd be all for it.

My school rushed in the spring. Then rush moved to fall of sophomore year. Northeast liberal arts college with a surprisingly strong and intense greek system.

I always viewed deferred recruitment as a positive. For one, life at the start of your freshman year hardly resembles life at the end of that first year. And I knew plenty of people freshman year who, even with deferred recruitment, made poor decisions rushing as a freshman and would have done it differently. It is very easy as a freshman to get caught up in what you think you are supposed to do and like, versus having the confidence and better understanding of your decisions. And I would argue that when rush moved to sophomore year, it made that specific system even stronger. And it has grown. One chapter sadly closed due to low numbers and 2 new ones came on and everybody is reaching quota.

But that worked at my school. That doesn't mean it would work at all schools.

This is what Washington and Lee switched to my daughter's senior year (2016), and they've stuck with it. Previously, they had recruitment the first week of class in January, and with 75% of the student body involved in Greek life, it was a bad way to start the semester at a highly academic school. They also went from 4 rounds to 3 at the same time...I think both changes have been an improvement. There was no need for 4 rounds with only 6 chapters at a small school where everyone had gotten to know people first semester. So now everyone comes back a little early for fewer rounds, and they're done by the day before classes start.

Also, this for fraternities and sororities - the fraternities have a semi-structured recruitment with invitations at the same time.

Most of my daughter’s friends that have deferred recruitment are bummed about it. They feel they have to really carefully mind their p’s and q’s all the time. At smu the girls have rush dates all semester. Also, most are finding it difficult to find “their people”. They like their roommates and have met a few people in clubs and dorms but it is not the same feeling that you belong to an organization with a new pledge class of potential Friends almost immediately.

^^^ I just noticed in another thread that your daughter joined Pi Beta Phi -- my daughter is also a Pi Phi. :)

I can see where those who have to wait for deferred recruitment would have some "missing out" feelings when they talk with friends at other schools who have happily joined and are sharing stories about their experiences. The main advantage I saw with deferred is that my daughter absolutely landed where she was meant to be, with no second thoughts ever, and that seemed to be typical. I think your daughter's friends should view rush dates as a way to meet people and subtly check out where they see connections. My daughter went on a lot of rush dates, too, but W and L has forgone those now, in favor of open house activities at each chapter once each during the fall.

I went through a deferred rush back in the dark ages. One of the positives is you have a true college GPA to work with. I was in a strong recruiting chapter with the highest GPA. So when we pledged girls, they almost always made their grades and were initiated the following semester. We had very few people not/initiate or de-pledge. Frankly, I can't think of anyone from my pledge class that did not become an active. But that meant we pledged in January and were not initiated until late September. So almost two full semesters of being a pledge.