ICS Recruiter
 

Does anyone work with a school that is using ICS Recruiter in the fall in lieu of D&D?

Are you using D&D or keeping manual lists as backup?

How many PNM's are expected on the campus?

I know CU Boulder, Bowling Green and Texas Tech are going to be using it, but am curious about contingency plans.

LD

Ummm, what is ICS? Or for that matter what is D&D?

My first thought was Dungeons & Dragons, but I doubt that's what lauradav was referring to. :)

D&D make SoRush, the dos based computer program most college panhellenics use for recruitment. ICS Recruiter is a new web based program that will allow chapters to enter their information online and PNMs to enter their information online and should cut down a lot of time and pain in the FR process.

We are using ICS for the first time -- we are going to keep records both on the computer and hard copies just in case there are any probs!

My biggest concern with this (think small campus) is that originally it was brought up that a PNM could view her returns without a Recruitment Counselor present. I was worried because I think it would be disheartening to a young woman to see that she was dropped by a group (much less two or three) without someone to explain things to her (ie, your GPA was less than required, etc.) -- but we have tailored ours to be that each person will see her results with a Recruitment Counselor so that if there are any problems, she will have someone to discuss it with.

Another problem that we solved was that the active Panhell members could potentially see the bid matching results (big NO-NO) -- but the password will be changed so that only the Greek Affairs Advisor and the Chapter & Recruitment Advisors will have that info.

I think that ICS presents a nice package, but I'm anxious to see how it plays out in the real world.

AXO Alum, when is your rush? How many PNMs do you expect?

*bump*

This got pushed out by the bumping up of last year's rush threads and I am very curious to know if anyone else has heard anything about ICS.

LD

lauradav - I'll PM you :)

Anyone else have any feedback on this program?


I would appreciate it!

I believe Oklahoma State will be using ICS for the first time in the fall of 2004. I am helping out with it some so I may be able to tell y'all something after recruitment. Oklahoma State usually has quota of 60-70 and there are 11 chapters, so my guess is that somewhere near 1,000 usually register. I will have more solid numbers and information after recruitment begins.

OK if someone can give me some detailed info, it might help my campus a lot!

We used to have SOrush, however, we have since lost the program due to our Greek Advisors resignation and we might have to get a new one or do everything by hand. I would like more info about ICS cause that might be a program that we will be interested in using instead.

How difficult is it to set up and use?

Thanks!
Andrea

I believe it's pretty easy to set up. I think you definitely are going to want a program. Unless you have a very, very, very small greek system I would not want to do matching by hand. We had a workshop once where we did some matching by hand so we could see why we use the computer (even though the computer can be down and only one person at a time can use it). Matching by hand was a nightmare.

Huh? Did she take the disc with her when she left or something? :confused:

Not exactly.....long story that I shouldn't really get into....

We are using it for the second year at Ole Miss. It is wonderful! It helps the collegiate members and the Recruitment adviser out so much!

We've done by hand before but it takes entirely too long but if we don't get the program back or another one set up....they might have to. I can't really say what PHC and the office is doing about this problem, but I'm just trying to find alternative methods if they come to me (a past PHC pres) for advice.

The University of Tennessee Knoxville used the ICS system for the first time this fall for recruitment with great results from what I understand. Only one chapter did not make quota out of 14! I'm not sure of how many PNM's did not receive bids though...

ICS is AMAZING! I'm the Panhellenic President at UT and worked with the system a lot. Last year I was a Gamma Chi when we used the "old" system and will never go back! It cut down on time, very easy to use and with the new quota setting method (quota range) we were able to place 661 women with just a touch of a button. Only 4 women did not recieve a bid due to "SIP" otherwise known as suicide.

It is truely is the best invention ever! Chapters loved it because it cut down on time for them and they all felt things ran much smoother.

I encourage every campus to get this! :)

BY HAND!? i can't even imagine that! although at my school we have upwards of 1100 girls rushing. my school uses ics and i think it's nice. no problems from what i've seen.

Aaah ...the THRILL of hand bid-matching ... sitting a cramped room around a table ... bid list in front of you ... anxiously waiting to hear if she put your chapter as her first preference ... aah the release of being able to say "match" .... I say, BRING ON ICS!!!!! Yea!

This is Ole Miss' second year using ICS...so far so good. There were a few problem this past Friday with the server...but that has been fixed promptly and all is well again. It helped us last year with release figures and it also keeps a great chapter roll for us as well as doing our own chapter roll. There are all sorts of wonderful things it does. My fave is the way each sorority can pull their legacies and print a legacy list! Very good stuff!

Yes by hand! But we are lucky to get 250 girls rushing and have only 6 sororities. :)

Allegheny, who has a small greek system, did bid matching by hand until formal recruitment in spring 04. We then went over to ICS and I heard nothing but positives about it. I'm sure there was some tweaking done with how it was used by Panhel and such, but I know our Recruitment chairs found it to be a cinch to use. And since PNM's could sign up and access their profiles online, we maintained/increased slightly the numbers who signed up whereas there may otherwise have been a drop.

We just finished our second year using ICS. It is truly a marvelous tool!! Our recruitment advisor used it exclusively (I figured I didn't want to get on there and mess something up :D) and she was able to see all the PNM's registered and their info and all. Bid matching is done by our GL Adv who presses the button and voila - a printoff with everyone's matches. It also lists everything such as a PNM's first, second, third choice, and all kinds of stats.

During the "off" season (aka - not formal recruitment), ICS can be used as a chapter management tool. Its the perfect way to keep our roster up-to-date, and the GL Adv has access to it, so we don't have to use paper trails anymore.

I am the Grad Assistant in Greek Affairs. We have always used D&D Compute-a-Rush (why-because it has always been done that way-grrrr). They upgraded to a Windows version this year so it is so much better. I talked to the Dean about using ICS but she was concerned about the cost ($ per chapter and $ per PNM and $ for the program) so I guess it makes sense. But I still like new things. :)

ICS is amazing!
 

There are so many reasons that I loved using ICS this year. We had 650 women go through recruitment and it was a breeze.
The matching process took seconds, which was a awsome. The program is very easy to understand. Paul and Peter offered 24 hour support, which was really helpful. They always took/take the time to answer any stupid questions I had.
D&D takes a lot more time, being that you have to insert all the scantrons, etc.
All of the PNMs were done with their selections within an hour or so. The only problem we had was that our chapters have wireless ethernet. Their own building problems created a it of a connection issue for them, but it worked out.
I would suggest that EVERYONE change to ICS. They are constantly evolving and will stay ahead of the issues. For example, they are adding a COB file, so that women will be able to sign up for COB. Then the chapters participating in COB will be able to access those womens information.
All in all...the perfect program...year around!

I can not believe how great this program was!

We were able to log on from our house to submit lists, no running through the rain.
The schedules were posted online for us to see. This really helped our chapter because we had information earlier than ever.
Our advisor liked it because she could log on from home and go over our selections with us instead of being up at our house until 1am then drive 30 min home.

I used the old cards last year and it was a pain.

Everybody I know was soo glad we used ICS. I said, welcome to the 21st century.
We will NEVER go back to the old way.


BTW its www.icsmg.com