Sorority Rush as a Two-Sided Matching Mechanism
 

Anyone ever seen this article? It's from 1991 but should still be interesting.


http://www.economics.harvard.edu/~aroth/sorority.html


This paper concerns the formal process by which women at American universities join the social organizations called sororities. The history of this process, of the problems it has encountered, and how it has evolved to meet them, have striking similarities to (as well as important differences from) the history and organization of the American labor market for medical interns (see Roth, 1984a), and of the several similar entry-level labor markets for physicians in the United Kingdom (see Roth, 1990). So by studying this process we can also hope to learn more about other matching processes, and to assess the generality of various hypotheses we might form about them.

OMG, I am applying to Med School, and I have always though of Residency process just like rush.... Who ever though this was academic?!?!
Maybe it will help me get a job later.
-M

I'm picturing medical students going around to hospitals where they want to work and the doctors come running out singing...

With a G - E - N and a E- R- A- L!
H - O - S and a P- I - T- A - L!
Go General
Go General
Go General Hospital!!

or

Boom Boom Boom Boom I wanna work at General!
Boom Boom It is the very best hospital!

:p

UGAGal,
FASCINATING article! Thank you so much for posting the link.
I've actually never heard of it nor have I have seen or heard any NPC women reference the material.
thanks again for posting,
violets

Thanks for posting the paper, it's very interesting so far, especially since my sister plans to go into medicine, and I plan to rush in spring...

~Sarah~

Bump
 

Interesting article.

This is interesting. My PR internship is going to be like that too. I'll have interviews with three companies and I'm almost positive I get to rank them in order of preference. I'm then offered a placement in one of the three places. It's possible that I'll be unmatched, but I'm then put in whatever company has spots available.


Coming soon in the Careers & Employment board .....Taualumna's Internship "rush" :)

Here's Matt Karo's take on it, from his "Ruminations" column on collegehumor.com:

-I’m just fascinated by med students. For instance, next Thursday is residency program “Match Day,” which is when all fourth-year med students find out where in the country they will be spending the next five years of their lives. (Sounds a little like sorority rush but with neurosurgeons, doesn’t it?) After finding out if and where they matched, our nation’s soon-to-be-doctors proceed to go out and get rip-roaring shit-blasted. But here’s the twist. This year, Match Day falls on the first day of the NCAA Tournament…and St. Patrick’s Day. In other words, it’s an alcoholic perfect storm.

LOVE Matt Karo. Ruminations brightens my day when I get them.

Does anyone have an updated link to the article from the OP? The link's not working for me, and I'm too tired to google it...

I am pretty sure his name is Aaron Karo.

The link in the original post is broken. If you want to google the article, the authors are Susan Mongell and Alvin Roth.

http://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/...i3p441-64.html

It is, was tired when posted and therefore stupid. :)

I just finished reading this article and when I Googled it to look for more information I found that a thread had been started on it in Greekchat (albeit more than a decade ago).

I have a question for the ladies who have participated in bid matching. This statement is from the article; is it accurate?

"The most striking feature of the data is the high percentage of rushees who chose to list only one sorority on their preference card. This is particularly striking in view of the fact that this practice is explicitly discouraged. Of the twenty one rushes observed on four campuses, there were only three in which the number of rushees suiciding was less than 50% of those who submitted bid cards. Even on campuses C and D, which each have a dozen or more sororiities active in formal rush, relatively few rushees list more than two sororities on their preference cards."

I had always thought that suiciding happened rather rarely.

I suspect they are looking at the wrong statistic. They should be reporting how many women listed only one sorority on their preference card GIVEN THAT they were invited to more than one preference party.

Thanks, DBB!

This was also written pre-RFM or early before widespread use of RFM. I know that many more people ISP'd when I was a new member than do now.

In my experience hand bid matching within the last ten years, the majority of PNMs ranked the exact number of pref. parties they attended. If they attended two parties, they listed both groups. Some did ISP, but no where near the number mentioned in the article.

The rules were very different in 1991 when this article was written. There was no such thing as QAs. ISP was more attractive then because if you really didn't like the "other" sorority, it did no harm to ISP. Now, they still have a chance at their first choice, even if they don't get matched, because they can be a QA.

I don't know if they explain that to PNMs. When I did bid card signing for U of A, we were not supposed to talk about QAs with the PNMs. They mention that you have a better chance of getting a bid if you maximize you options but don't go into more detail except to expand on the fact that you will be held to whatever bid you received for a full year.

I think some do explain it this way, to everyone's detriment. The girl doesn't ISP because she has a better chance of getting her first choice if she lists both (not accurate) and then drops and is mad because they lied to her (not true but it's too late to fix the misunderstanding). I don't know if there's any way to explain it to a girl who is up to her eyeballs in stress in a way that won't be misinterpreted. What she hears is blah blah blah blah first choice blah blah blah.

Well, there is a small increased chance that she can get her #1 choice, so that isn't a lie. The problem comes in that PNMs don't hear the part about more likely getting their second or third choice. It's a poker game...you have to take your chances. Some people just aren't cut out to gamble.

Maybe the best way to explain listing all of the chapters on your preference card would be to back into the numbers. Discuss first that the vast majority of QA folks get their #2 or #3 choice and that very few get their #1. That might get the PNM's attention.

I think U of A had the right way of thinking. PNMs don't understand basic bid matching rules so QAs will blow their mind. We explained that listing all of their choices gave them the best chance of getting a bid. They were given the MRABA to read and sign. If they didn't want to list one of their groups, I'd ask them, "So, you'd rather not be Greek than XYZ?" A few said they wouldn't, but the vast majority said they hadn't thought of it that way and put the other group down.
Planning on being a QA may make them do something they wouldn't otherwise do.

Alumnae Panhellenic Council members who don't have chapters on campus help out on Preference Night at UNC Charlotte with the PNM card signing. I have used the "So, you'd rather not be Greek than XYZ?" question many times. Typically only 1-2 of the women that I see will end up SIPing, and I can't promise that anything I said made the difference. But I can promise that every woman I meet with that night understands how her choices impact her likelihood of getting a bid to her first choice and of getting a bid at all.

What I find the most exciting is a woman only attended one Preference Party, and it is exactly the one she wants. On that campus, and with QAs, she almost always ends up in the chapter. I love it when the women walk out happy and hopeful.

That's exactly why I was at U of A. Such a great experience!

I did the same thing with Duke preference in 2012. I had to go over the MRABA with them and have them sign it. Then, if they needed more discussion on their choices, we would talk about it. This didn't happen often as by the time they came to me they had spent time talking to their Pi Chi/Rho Chi/Rho Gamma...whatever they are called at Duke.

I had a maybe 1 girl ISP even though I encouraged her to list all her choices and even after I told her that she would not be guaranteed a bid (Duke does guaranteed bids to all the PNM's who list all their parties on their bid card).

For me the exciting part was when I met PNM's who put ADPi as their first choice. I wasn't allowed to share that I am an ADPi so inside I was shouting with happiness. I actually texted myself the two names of PNM's that put ADPi first and when recruitment was over I emailed the Recruitment VP of the chapter and asked if they received bids. They did, and I wrote them little congratulatory letters welcoming them to ADPi.

I'm really hoping that I will be able to help out this fall with either Vanderbilt or Austin Peay.

There is something else that RFM changed abut ISP. I will be blunt.

Before RFM, many "selective" campuses had many large sororities, many medium ones, and a couple of really small ones that were known as "those" groups. Lots of PNMs, especially after tent talk, did not want to be seen at their parties or in their letters. Setting quota after first or second parties made this far worse.

Let's say a campus had 510 PNMs and 10 groups and quota was set after first parties after 10 girls dropped out; it would be 500/10=50. But--back then, the big cuts of PNMs came much later in recruitment. Therefore, a system might end up with 400 after prefs but quota was still 50 and the more "desirable" groups would've ended up filling up first, leaving very few PNMs for the smaller groups. (Let's say that 5 groups were the really desired ones, so 250 girls go to those groups, leaving 150 to be fought over by the other 5.) Not to mention that huge numbers of women had already cut the smaller groups because back then you could cut as many sororities as you wanted early on, so that many of the 150 had already cut the "less desirable" ones. Students would look at these much smaller pledge classes and surmise that they must stink to be so small and the cycle was repeated year after year.

Nowadays at those campuses, primarily because of RFM or whatever the best term is, there's a much more level playing field. Sometimes all the groups make quota (they may lose a lot of new members but that's another story). There are many more women who are open to pledging any of the groups, often because they've been released by so many in early stages. Many women do have to decide if they'll go XYZ or not be Greek.

I also wonder if heavier cuts earlier in the process put women more in a "choose for themselves" mindframe. I remember when I got my really harsh round of cuts (second invitational), it still seemed like EVERYONE I was talking to on my dorm floor was still going to all the same chapters without me. In the end, almost none of them pledged together, but it sure felt like that was what was about to happen.