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My institution is looking at establishing Greek life for the first-time ever. However, the administration has agreed to do so with the following condition:

All those who go through Recruitment must be accepted.

Can this be done? Does anyone else do this?

HELP!!! Any info that you can provide would be most beneficial!

Recruitment is a two way street. There is no way for GLO's to guarantee that everyone gets a bid to the place they want. Just because a girl gets a bid, doesn't mean she accepts it.

There is a something some schools do called guaranteed placement. Use the search feature to see if there are specific threads on it.

That being said, guaranteed placement also has some rules that the women must follow and it would not actually place each and every woman that goes through recruitment. If all chapters released a woman then there would be no way to place her through that formal recruitment period. She would be eligible for COB but she would not just be placed with a chapter.

So, my thought is that the University needs to be more specific on what they mean by "all those who go through Recruitment must be accepted". Does this mean if they are invited and maximize their options all the way through to signing of the preference card (basically what guaranteed placement requires), then no problem. If they say that once you sign up for recruitment, you will be placed in a chapter, the NO WAY. I can't think of any GLO that would go for that.

There's usually two votes

1 - to offer a bid to become a "pledge"

2 - to initiate, following a period of learning and testing

It's unlikely any of the national fraternity-sorority groups would establish a chapter on your campus unless both votes were allowed.

You could allow "local" chapters to start and exist, and have any rules you want (assuming yours is a private school). Locals, though, lack the officers' manuals, training conf., traditions, and leadership that national affiliation allows.

There are several schools which only allow locals, and one campus website I stumbled across had local fraternity pages showing hazing - which would have gotten any national affiliated chapter suspended.

When I went through rush at the University of Alberta, in Canada. The way that it was stated is that every girl who rushed was offered a bid to one of the three fraternities. We still had preference and the chapter voted. It didn't mean that each girl ended up with their choice and it was up to them if they accepted. It did not go against the panhel rules if they decided not to go anywhere. I am not sure what they did in the situation if a girl is dropped by all of the fraternities but I am pretty sure that they have rules to guard against it, because I do not know of anyone who was not offered a bid. Please take into account that this was the early 90's and now there are 4 women's fraternities on campus but I am pretty sure that the rules are the same. I would assume that these are the types of rules that your school would like. To tell you the truth, I was much older than I was in university before I realized that not everone got in and there was a lot of competition. That's what I get for living in Canada I guess! I think that the rules partially exist due to low numbers, my pledge class was 22 and that was about 1/3 of the girls who rushed, out of a school of over 30,000.

You don't want a "No one can be excluded" rule. Trust me. The former locals at the college where I teach did this for awhile and it was disastrous.

We, as private organizations, have the right to determine who we choose to extend membership to and who we do not choose as members. No university has the right to tell who and who not we should allow as members. There is a court ruling on the issue. I will have to do more research to find the specific one. You cannot force a chapter to take on a girl that doesn't meet their standards only because she needs placement.... That is lame and screams not only bad news for your chapter but the ideals you were founded on.

There are some bad apples that go through rush.

I think the schools that have guarantee placement have all sorts of rules the women have to follow in order to be placed . Such as: they must attend ALL parties they are invited to during the entire rush process. If they do that up until bid day, they'll be offered a bid SOMEWHERE. So there isn't much of a chance for a PNM to cut a group...only for a group to cut a PNM. I'm not sure what happens if all groups release a woman though. Maybe someone from a school like this can chime in?

Exactly. I've never heard of a guarantee that states that everyone who participates gets a bid- only those who make it all the way to Bid Day with X, Y, and Z stipulations will be guaranteed a bid. So any of the "bad apples" :o would surely be dropped by all chapters before they got to that point.

This is what happens when you're forced to take bad apples: they create scenes in sorority meetings or cause drama or their behavior in public--in letters--humiliates sisters and the good people quit. Think of the worst people you read about in the thread "Weird Rush Stories" and then imagine being sisters with those girls. Um, no.

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Y'all are wonderful!

I appreciate your help tremendously. Any insight on court rulings that state that a University may not impose a policy that all students must be placed would be super helpful.

Each of you has given me such insight. Thank you!

check with UT. they have the "guarantee" with the stipluations that if you go all the way through and maximize your options (listing as many groups as possible for pref) you get a bid. contact them for all the details.

as for my own opinion: the school should not expect a chapter to accept any ol' woman who signs up. basic expectations need to be established and the membership expectations of each chapter need to be respected by the campus. also, remember that according to the NPC MOI or Green Book, a college panhellenic is not supposed to set a GPA requirement to go through recruitment. i know most do. those that don't still ask for the gpa and then are sure to let all know what the minimum gpa requirement is for each chapter.

Bama has a similar "guarantee" with the following provisions.

- PNM must be invited to and accept invitations to 3 GLOs on Pref Night (the max number).

- PNM must attend all 3 parties on Pref Night.

- PNM must rank all 3 GLOs on her pref card, void if she lists only 1 or 2.

- PNM will then be guaranteed a bid to one of those 3 GLOs. Should each Chapter already be at quota, she will be a quota addition.

There is no control over a PNM being dropped prior or only invited by 1 or 2 GLOs to Pref Night . There is also no way anyone could control a PNM dropping out of Recruitment by her own choice.

When I went through at A&M, there was a GPA requirement of like a 2.5 to go through rush. I asked someone about that, and they said that they can't tell someone that they CAN'T go through rush because of a lower GPA, but that it would make it MUCH more difficult rush experience, and they would not be very likely to recieve a bid from a chapter.

Judging by this, I think that the GPA requirement was put in place possibly to kid of weed out some of the girls who most likely wouldn't get placed because of her grades anyway.

Edit: I am also very curious about how this "guaranteed bid" program works for a girl who is dropped by everyone. It seems to me that if ALL the chapters drop you, you shouldn't just be put with some chapter to keep up the "everyone gets a bid" policy. I can see that causing nothing but problems. Has anyone been able to find out about that?

I'm pretty sure that here at Ole Miss we have a guaranteed placement system, IF THE PNM PLAYS THE GAME and attends all parties she is invited to, maximizes her potential (as they call it here), etc. She will most likely find a home on bid day. It is still a MUTUAL Agreement though.

Not only that, but if an administration says that "All who go through Recruitment must be given a bid" then you'll have the problem where organizations might haze like crazy in order to "weed out" the people they didn't really want before initiation (in other words, they'll treat them so badly that the New Member will resign from the group on her own instead of the group "rejecting" them).

NOT a good scenario.

PsychTau

VERY good point!

I have seen chapters be forced to give bids to people they didn't really want. Then, some of the girls will be down right MEAN to them to try and get them to quit. So sad. :(

My understanding of "guaranteed placement" with NPC sororities is that if a PNM follows the rules, maximizes her invitations, and fills out her pref card completely, listing all sororities whose pref parties she attended, she will get a bid. It may not be from her first choice sorority. (ETA: She does not have to accept the bid, but if she does not, she cannot accept a bid from another NPC sorority for one year.) If a PNM does come through recruitment and is a nightmare, she'll be released by all sororities prior to pref, and accordingly will not receive a bid. No sorority would have her forced on them.

One of the characteristics of GLOs is selective membership. Each chapter has the right to choose which PNMs to invite to the invitational rounds of formal recruitment (including the order of their bid lists) and which PNMs to offer bids to during informal recruitment.

So if my understanding of "guaranteed placement" is what the administration has in mind, that's fine. But if anyone can come along and sign up for rush and it's stipulated that they must receive a bid no matter how nightmarish they are or how low their GPA is - no way.

Yes, a guaranteed bid. But not a guaranteed acceptance........

Your best bet is probably to contact NPC and get their help. This might be a campus that they would be very interested in getting onto so they may be able to sit down with the university administration and talk with them for you.

www.npcwomen.org (hopefully that's right).

Not something I had thought about, but PsychTau has a very valid point. Something else, a Chapter could cancel a pledgeship too. Given the confidential nature of GLOs I don't think a University would be entitled to know why. Wow, I'd hate to see any of these things happen.

Sounds like to many variables could be thrown into the pot.

If some of the things mentioned like hazing, then it could become a quagmire and the good reputations of the GLOs would go right out of the window.:(

As was stated, go to Your individual HQs and try to get some input from them.

Then, it might give a truer picture.

I've always heard it makes the big bigger and the small smaller. I dunno though, anyone share this feeling?

They used to have it at Creighton and that's definitely what happened. Not the guaranteed bid, but the guaranteed you can pledge wherever you want crap.

i don't think there is ANY organization...mgc, nphc, or local that does 100% acceptance. i also don't think the school can force it. it seems like the school is just doing this because they don't want you to start an organization. they know that no organization will take everyone.

there was an administrator on my campus that believed this was the best way to go, too. one year there was a big thing, that he insisted we give everyone a bid, blah blah blah. anyway, it didn't happen. the following year, one woman was dropped from all of the houses prior to pref night. the greek advisor asked us after bid matching why we all dropped her. we all replied at once that she had a joint (sans marijuana) on her name tag and proceeded to talk about how much pot she liked to smoke at every party in every house. even the administrator understood why no one would want to offer her a bid.

Yea, this questions is only answered easily if, we understood the dynamics of the specific university in question.

I assume it is a smaller university (less than 5000). If that is the case and you only have one GLO I can't imagine offering every single "random" a bid.

I can also assume it is a religious university, in which case, I see why they would not want any one to start a "secret society" with out them having control of the admittance policy for whatever religious reason they chose.

However, if an organization were to start up and be the one lone sorority then, then formal recruitment wouldnt be necessary anyway, and only a COB type of invitational party would be recommended. In which case, you would only invite the women you were interested in anyway.

Does that make any sense? (it did in my head)

Made sense to me :D

For UT guaranteed placement my understanding is that it is what has been described above: maximize your options each round. Back in olden times (when I went through rush ) you didn't have the option to go to less than the max number of events for that round.

Ex. There were 14 chapters and you got to go to 10 max. You had to go to 10 even if you had decided you only liked 5 of them (which of course would be silly and why you had to go to 10).

My understanding is that now you only have to go to the ones you want - so you could go to 5. BUT if you want guaranteed placement you have to go to 10.

It's the same through all the rounds - except for pref. You are required to go to two events but have the option to go to three. For guaranteed placement you have to go to all three. You are then guaranteed a bid from one of the three that you attend that evening.

Of course if anywhere along the way you are invited to less than the max number you can attend, you would still get guaranteed placement, you just have to go to all events you are invited too. So if you were only invited to 8 you would have to go to 8 (on the 10 day) you couldn't just go to 5.

In the instance that you are release from all chapters, you drop out of recruitment or at anytime don't go to the most events that you can, then you would not be eligible for guaranteed placement. You are also only guaranteed a bid from chapters who's preference event you attend - since per NPC guidelines you are required to be somewhere on their bid list. You are not required to be on someones list who you decline or who did not invite you - so you can't expect a bid if you didn't attend the event.

Please feel free to correct anything that is wrong here. This was how it was explained to me in the first years that UT did it. It could have changed since then.

There are a number of religious universities that have sororities and I don't think they have any issues.

Marquette
St. Louis U

My school is very small only a little over 1500 students if that, so we only have locals and we run under a guaranteed bid format. We also take only one course at a time so because we run on a block schedule our pledging is way different than national so I dont know if our bid process would be relevant. The way we do it everyone is open to go to open parties and pre- pledges. After pre-pledges are done you have until a certain time to preference. If you get a bid you are guaranteed into the group, even though actives give the pledges the impression that there is a 'revote' which encourages pledges to get the most out of pledging like learning the history, family lines, traditions and such, for fear of not getting into the group. In the end however everyone makes it through if given a bid. Hope this helps.