University of Pittsburgh recruitment 04
 

Hey it worked last year....maybe it will work this time!

Meet the Greeks is September 2nd. Recruitment starts on the 9th. Keep your fingers crossed.

From what I understand, they put mailers in all the mailboxes in Towers (something like that) and there were sheets for recruitment in all the orientation folders. Yay! Some of the rules have been changed as well so. Keep your fingers crossed.

we also are returning to hand bid-matching :D

Good luck to all your chapters!

what rules are changing? PM me if you don't want to post here.
Also, any word on how the new advisor is working out so far?

Best wishes for a great recruitment at Pittsburgh! :) :D :cool:

Good luck to the Pittsburgh girlies:D

<--- Still can't believe that I got talked into going to Pref on my birthday!


Did I hear correctly that they all move in this weekend?


OOPS! And good luck to all!! Let's hear it for a high Quota, and that everyone takes it!!!

ta kala,

from what I was told they are planning to go no -frills either next year or the year after.

IMO, it couldn't happen soon enough!

I'm excited about the possibility of tons of PNM's, but a little scared too haha.

Totally no frills? Does that mean NO decorations, NO food at all?

Or are they just trying to cut down on the cheesecake consumption? ;)

lol, that's a common misconception of "no-frills"

in reality you can have decorations, they just limit what you can have.

For 11 rounds they are only serving water, so many balloons, no coordinating outfits.

I can pm you why I think it's good. I did for kddani as well.

HAHAHAH - I'm sure they will ALWAYS have cheesecake.

Please PM me, then - but hold the cheesecake! ;)

There's a DPhiE who works in the law library who was wearing her letters very proudly today. Cute blond girl. Yeah for good PR for the Deephers!

Just as a random note about recruitment this year--
Something that will make it interesting this year is that almost all the sororities will be on equal footing this year, which is a drastic change from when I went through. At that time there were drastic discrepancy in numbers from chapter to chapter, it was almost ridiculous. In my eyes, most of the sororities have a good shot of reaching quota, and even total this fall. Or at least one could hope :)
Good luck to everyone!

FYI, as I've been helping my mama clean some things out (she wants to move to a condo sooner or later), I found still more Pitt yearbooks! Where these have come from, I have no idea!

Anyhow, I checked them out and will post some interesting bits after Recruitment, like who was on campus and the numbers. It just seems wrong to do it beforehand, though!

I second what TPARose said. Let's hope that EVERYONE reaches ceiling this year! How great would that be?

And yay for seeing people wearing letters! I wonder who it was, lol.

I have workweekend next weekend with the chapter. Should be fun!!

Bumping in great anticipation of the start of Pitt Recruitment!



Any news of how many women have signed up?




Edited to add: Yes, let's hear it for EVERYONE making Ceiling!!!

I saw one of my littles at the recruitment table in Towers lobby today... i think around 190-200 are signed up?

I know for meet the greeks they had over 177 women looking at NPC organizations and those are the women that paid the registration fee so here's hoping. (there is an article in the pitt news archives from MTG)

Panhellenic, IFC, and NPHC have really put forth a strong effort publicity wise so here's hoping!

Plus a few women usually sign up prior to recruitment so I'd definitely say we are looking at the 200 mark! That's awesome!

here's to all of the women finding the sorority home they are looking for. If they do, quota will be close to 20, putting almost ALL groups at ceiling! yay!

Good luck to everyone. Anyone going to be at any recruitment events?

I'll be there, but I'm not sure which days. Originally, I was going tonight, but I have to take my mother to an appointment. I'm probably on base for tomorrow, and either Sunday or Monday.

I'm thrilled about the (roughly) 200 signing up!! With drop outs for grades etc, looks like quota will be about 15-ish!

anyone know when they're going to set quota?

I'm hoping that having it early this year will have a better turnout. So many girls always said they didn't rush b/c it was a pretty stressful time of the semester, especially for freshman. First round of exams is usually around the last week of Sept, when rush always was. And so many dropped out b/c they had to study!

Here's hoping it doesn't rain on the girls tonight!

What is the schedule of events?? Good Luck to all!!!!!!

11 rounds will be today and tomorrow, 8 rounds Saturday, 4 Sunday, Pref (can pref 2 houses) Monday, bid night Tuesday? That's the normal schedule. If it's not working that way this time, i'm sure Fire1977 can correct me :)

I wish there was a bigger cut instead of 11 to 8. I think most people can rule out 3 of the eleven right away when they rush, and houses can cut some girls. IMO, it's a much harder and bigger jump to go from 8-4. I'd rather see it 11-7-4-2. I'm sure there's pluses and minuses to both.

I agree that there should be bigger cuts. When I rushed, we went from 11 to 6 to 4 to 2. I remember much angst between six to four!!

I hope it doesn't rain, too, but that might be wishful thinking. We're lucky that only involves the one house (in reality), but I think every woman feels better when they're "frizzy"!

Here you go!

Recruitment Party Schedule Fall 2004

11 Rounds- 4 parties on Thurs, 9/9/04
9-915
925-940
950-1005
1015-1030

11 rounds - 7 parties on Fri, 9/10/04
6-615
625-640
650-705
715-730
740-755
805-820
830-845

8 Rounds-Sat, 9/11/04
11-1130
1145-1215
1230-1
115-145
2-230
245-315
330-4
415-445

4 Rounds-Sun, 9/12/04
1-145
2-245
3-345
4-445

Pref-Mon, 9/13/04
9-10
1015-1115


Bid Nite- Tues, 9/14/04
930 in front of WPU

I agree about the drastic cut. I'd like to see either 11-7-4-2 OR 11-8-5-3 for preference. I just think more women would be placed with an additional preference party.

At least it's not 11-8-5-2 like it was the one year!

I'll try to keep you all updated on any info that I get! I'm glad that it's earlier too Dani!

WOW, that's a huge drop in rush numbers then. if there were 200 girls, 10 rush groups, there should be 20 girls in each. Heck, even with 100 girls registered, that would still be 10 in each rush group.

Why can Pitt sororities consistently NOT get a good amount of girls to rush? To more girls think they can just join through COB?

I love that there are so many Pitt alum on the boards! :)

Dani, maybe having more interaction with campus would help promote Greek Life-- like holding events for women in the residence halls (IE: Resume-writing workshop and career night, Aerobics Night, Movie Night, all sponsored by Panhellenic), a Block Party, teas, etc... not only can help COB but also promote Panhellenic to underclassmen and get them interested in formal recruitment? Or, if Pitt is more successful with COB, is it feasible to use a loosely structured formal recruitment that is more COB in nature to pull in more girls? What are some of the ways Pitt promotes formal right now?

adpiucf, Pitt has a rather bizarre history, especially when it comes to the Greek System. Pitt has a huge commuter population, so Recruitment has to be commuter-friendly; FR dates change EVERY year as someone finally realizes that the original dates included the High Holy Days (about 1/3 of Pitt is Jewish); the urban campus gives students so many other options other than going greek; and having three major schools with greek systems within a 5 mile radius doesn't help (Pitt, CMU, Duquesne, not to mention 11 other "minor" colleges)! Nine of the sororities live in Amos Hall, another in the hall across the quad, the eleventh off campus.

All that said, COB can be a relief after Formal Recruitment!

Let's just say that more than half of the women dropped out that paid the registration fee. (I'll give official after recruitment is over)

I don't know why, it just seems to be happening more in the last two years. And they did do a great deal to promote greek life this year - so who knows.

We did a pilot program for NPC a few years ago which was like the partially structured model and the other model that I can't remember the name of (the one where they can go where they want) and it was catastrophic to say the very least. (at least I think so - I think Dani might agree with me too).

I think fall formal recruitment is the best time to join at pitt- there's just soo much excitement behind it. It's a shame the these women don't realize it.

And the weird thing is - I don't think that the attrition can be associated with dirty rushing and whatnot - so who knows. And grades are really good for ALL the groups.

BTW - If I remember correctly Pitt has over 300 some student organizations, so we have a lot of competition from outside arenas. The Greek population is less than 10% of the campus population.

ETA: Panhellenic has a shuttle running through to the Kappa. So they don't have to walk.

They promote formal recruitment at the student activities fair. Tables throughout the few weeks. They handed out fliers at one of the orientation event. There were fliers in the orientation folders and they put fliers in the on-campus mailboxes. I think part of the problem is that our greek community is too closed off. There isn't anything they do that really is campu wide as a community. Another thing is that a great deal of sophomores go through recruitment and maybe since the fliers only reach freshman we should try to reach out to older/non-traditional students, you know commuters and the like.

the partially structured or whatever it was thing was hell. That's what I rushed through... you just came and went to parties as you pleased, only invites/cuts were for pref. Some groups would make it so uncomfortable to leave! So girls would go into XYZ and not be able to go to ABC, or just wouldn't go. It didn't force anyone to be realistic.

How did today go? It's almost over. I hate to hear that so many girls dropped.... cause you know a lot drop today b/c going to 8 parties on one day SUCKS majorly!

See, that might be part of the problem - I think with that kind of rush people are afraid to get "too" formal. You can still have parties with specific times, half an hour or whatever. You have to stay for the whole party, but you only go to the ones you want. I think that arriving/leaving in the middle of parties would be really uncomfortable, for the sororities and for PNMs.

man, 10 for fall rush? that's sad :( if everyone got quota, it would be okay, but you know that never happens.

Good luck tonight for prefs everyone!

:( on Quota.

:) Good luck to everyone on making Quota. Frankly, I'm worried about it...

If quota is only 10, that means every single house (I don't know numbers, but just guessing) would need to COB. And/or snap bid.

Which makes me worry big time about dirty rushing tonight. Are some of the more "popular" houses going to somehow imply to the girls that they'll snap them at 10pm (or whatever time it is this year) tomorrow?

I'm just curious as to why a campus with so many organizations would have quota at 10 girls. Is there a strong anti-greek sentiment at Pitt? Or has there been risk management problems. I just know Butler is having risk management problems and I'm hoping it doesn't affect recruitment numbers.

There's really not any risk management problems... at least not with the sororities. Nothing big has happened.

I think a lot of it is that we have many commuters and many people live off campus. Also, there are just so many things to do. And, there was a football game this weekend, and that may have something to do with drops. There's so much to do on our campus and so many things to join.

And another random reason that comes to mind is that there are a lot of kids from working class families that come to Pitt. There's not always the expendable money. Though I think our costs are relatively inexpensive. There's also no tradition.... there are a lot of kids at Pitt whose parents didn't go to college and weren't greek, so it's not in their culture. Or if their parents were greek, it was at a smaller school and it wasn't as big of a deal in their lives. I also think Northerners tend to keep up their greek affiliations less, so we have less active AAs and the ones that are there aren't very strong.

I wish the Pittsburgh Panhellenic (not that it's the strongest) would maybe take up the issue of increasing sorority awareness or something with the local high schools. We have Pitt, Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne, and Robert Morris that have greek life in the area (many other colleges that don't). GL isn't particularly huge at any of them.

Though, 20 miles down the road at Washington and Jefferson college, the greek system is huge (percentage wise, it's a small school). But then again, there's nothing to do there.

/random thoughts

In general, schools in the Northeast are more likely to have 10 groups of 60 each than 4 groups of 150 each.

I wasn't aware of this. I know my sorority's chapter at a few northeastern schools have been supposedly struggling but maybe that is just the way the chapters are in the north. (not struggling, but smaller than our chapters in other locations) Thanks for clarifying kddani and 33girl!

Snap bidding is being done by the advisors.

I don't want to talk about any times or anything until recruitment is over.

I am EXHAUSTED! lol Good luck to everyone tonight!!!!

Is this the first time this has been done?

no - I'll pm you

I can feel the young, nubile arteries clogging with cheesecake, even as I type....



I never heard of advisors doing the snap bidding! What's up with that?

At my school, advisors always snap bid. Even collegiates from Panhel are barred from the room.