"No Frills" Recruitment - Need advice
 

For as long as I know of, our campus has had a very eventful recruitment - three nights of water party, skit party, and pref party, each of which had themes, coordinated dress, decorations, and other planned revelry. We've heard about the campuses that have 'no frills' recruitment where girls are basically put in a blank room and educated that way, and we've always been very grateful that we're allowed to do such fun things to entertain our new girls.

Well.. all things must come to an end, right?
Our campus has a new Greek Life Coordinator this year, and he is completely wrecking into our system. Now if we want shirts (be it for fun, for fraternity mixers, for sorority mixers, anything) we must get them approved by (we assume) him. Our fraternities on campus have some rather funny double entendres on their shirts. Sororities don't, but apparently we need to get them approved anyway, just in case.
And now he's introducing a no-frills rush system. We aren't entirely sure the specific changes made, but we know we can't have themes, we can't have unique shirts (must be plain with just our letters) and we aren't allowed to perform a skit anymore.

I'd like opinions, please, from people who have done the no-frills deal before, and people who went through rush in such a system. If anyone has been on a campus that switched over, those opinions would be especially appreciated. Everyone here is quite distraught over the whole situation. I know there are pros and cons for both sides, but right now we're just disappointed.
Thanks.

I'm assuming he's approving the fraternities' shirts as well? Obviously, he is including the sororities as to not practice gender discrimination. He is 100% right in what he's doing.

Contrary to what you've heard, no frills recruitments are not in a "blank room" - you are allowed to have sorority memorabilia and some decoration, and it is often held in the sorority houses. It simply means not spending $10,000.00 to cover the walls of the room with gold fabric or favors such as mini Limoges boxes or nonsense like that.

NPC first recommended all campuses go "no frills" in around 1994. Unfortunately, the resolution had no teeth in it and so here we are 12 years later with campuses that still practice a very frilly rush.

It is honestly going to make your lives so much easier to go from frills to no frills. You will spend a lot less time preparing stupid skits and decorating your chapter house, and more time enjoying your membership. No more staying up until 2 AM to practice a dance that is supposed to represent "sisterhood and diversity." More time bonding as a chapter. More time on summer vacation as opposed to coming back to school early for "work week." Less with the cookie cutter matchy-matchy clothes and more opportunities to dress uniformly yet distinctly within your own budget. An end to t-shirts that bash other GLOs or make the Greek system look like a bunch of morons and a return to classier times and friendly sportsmanship without losing your competitive edge.

By moving to no-frills you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Embrace the change, enjoy the money and time saved. I went through recruitments on both side of frills and no frills. No frills was such a happier experience for everyone involved from sisters to PNMs. And I actually got to eat, sleep and enjoy recruitment. Imagine that.

It may not be as bad as you think. The idea, if I have it right, is that "no frills" recruitment allow more time to focus on sisterhood, the ideals of the group, and getting to know the girls. I think it's also supposed to make recruitment less expensive for the chapters. In theory it makes sense, you aren't investing in decorations as much, the time that used to be spent performing the skit can now be spent talking to PNMs, etc.

I'm not sure how it actually works out: I don't think preventing bulk ordering of clothing makes girls spend less on what they wear during rush. I suspect the focus just shifts to something else that you are still allowed to do, and things don't change that much.

Wait and see and try to give the guy a chance. My guess is that someone was really offended by the fraternity shirts, and he was probably directed to get them under control. 33girl is right that it would have probably been weird for him to have too many different policies for the girls than the guys.

Edit: ADPIUCF has had direct experience with the change, and she says it's good. I'm probably too cynical about changes in general.

You can still decorate your house and make it look nice. That isn't going away. You're just not tasked with having to turn your formal living room into a desert oasis. Maybe instead you'll have a beautifully painted scene on a banner covering one wall, some balloons and potted plants. Instead of buying red polo shirts in bulk, each sister is tasked to buy her own-- they can be from Ralph Lauren or Target so long as they are clean and neat and fit her properly. There are some new rules to observe, but they're definitely going to benefit you and everyone else.

I totally agree!!! :)

I'm not second guessing you, KSUviolet; I'm just thinking through frills vs. no frills.

Wouldn't really be less "frilly" to bulk order everything? It would probably end up costing each sister less than each buying her own things, and if the point to quit spending time and money on unimportant stuff, then having uniforms for each day really cuts down on that: everyone is dressed appropriately; it could be casual and cute, and you can show individual flair with accessories and styling.

If you look through the "what did your group wear for rush" thread, the schools who do the most dress alike or identical dress are also the ones who probably end up with the least expensive outfits.

I have to disagree here. For sororities where every single girl has the same exact outfit, the sorority usually pays for all or part of the outfit, which costs the sorority more money. It's a lot more money to say "we're ordering everyone Seven For All Mankind jeans and a black Lacoste long sleeve polo," than it is to say "everyone wear nice jeans and a black polo for round 1."

Oh, this is surprising: I would have though each girl would just pay for hers, like the way we did T-shirts in the olden days*, and I was also sort of assuming that if you went bulk, you wouldn't go designer, for the polos, at least. (I wouldn't think bulk ordering of jeans would ever work: too many fit problems.)

*Everyone has an account with the group, and expenses that the group voted on would come out of it.

Another thing is, if you say "wear a red polo and khaki skirt" a lot of people probably already own those items. It's silly to make people order things they already own just to be "uniform."

My university has had no-frills recruitment since the year we transformed from locals to NPC. The year I rushed (the first year of NPC) there were, however, skits on one day. After that year, decorations were more limited, philanthropy day was added in place of the skits, and everything else pretty much stayed the same. The second round party remained a slide show/video day.

As others have said, outfits were not supposed to be "costume-y" or identical. However, you can still coordinate or pick a general color scheme. For example, instead of buying the same GAP red pocket tshirt, members pick their own red tshirt from whichever store/brand they want. The idea behind no-frills rush is to give the PNMs a look at the REAL chapter, which is why they don't want everyone dressing the same. You don't normally dress identically, do you? :)

Although we were able to have rush themes for the week or each day, decorations at my school were heavily regulated. I think this had more to do with money, since some chapters had more to spend than others. For each day they usually gave us a budget and perameters we needed to follow (ie only two walls decorated, only 200 balloons, etc.). The only day that we could go hog-wild on was preference. There were no rules on decorating for that day, and chapters really went all out. Our rush was held in classrooms (we didn't have houses), but you couldn't tell...we'd cover the walls in black fabric, tablecloth/slip cover all the tables and chairs, and cover the ceiling in balloons with curled, sparkly ribbon hanging down. Flowers were all over. Amazingly, they even let us use candles on the tables. So, you might still be able to decorate!!!

Regarding drink/food, the only stuff we had was water, plus food provided by panhellenic at a snack break between a couple parties in the first round. Since some chapters were worried PNMs would judge chapters on the type of water they offered, panhellenic designated a brand.

We still sang enter and exit songs at the door, so i hope you can. The PNMs love them (though they're startled at first if they're not expecting it), and they sometimes are very helpful when it comes to keeping each sorority straight.

One more regulation we had was regarding alumnae or actives from other collegiate chapters on the rush floor. This may not apply at your campus (and I suspect many), but some chapters on our campus would sometimes enlist the help of collegiates from neighboring chapters if they were afraid there might be more PNMs than actives. It helped them avoid double-rushing, and sometimes gave the PNM a big-picture view of the sorority. Alumnae were sometimes used to communicate with Rho Chis, get more water if needed, or other tasks that might be needed during a party. If a chapter wanted either these collegiates or alumnae on the floor, they were limited to a number set by panhellenic.

Honestly, when I went through rush, I hated watching the skits at each sorority. I thought they were cheesy, and told me nothing about what it was like to actually be a member of that sorority on a daily basis. I would've rather spent the time meeting more members so that I could make decisions on whether I fit in there. No-frills formal rush is really not intended to "entertain" women so much as it is to help them make an informed decision on membership. Instead of focusing on cute dances/lip syncs, they focus on conversation with members. Most of the women on my campus liked the no-frills way - although the rules can be a bit tedious - and couldn't imagine doing it with frills.

Before recruitment is planned, maybe think about meeting with the greek advisor to discuss the really important things you'd like to keep. Try to keep in mind, though, that the no-frills way of recruitment is actually the way NPC wants things done now...the greek advisor is just following the trend.

I think part of what throws me off is that rush at my school was so dressed up, relative to clothes being described, (and I think it still is.)

I'm sure letting people wear clothes they already have saves money, but I think it was the norm at my school to buy some new stuff. We got dressed up for football games too, so I think you sort of shopped for things you could wear for both, which may sound insane, I realize.

I think I have matching clothing equals less expensive clothing incorrectly stuck in my head because of the shift in type of clothes too.

It sounds like from what PeppyGPhiB writes, there's still lots for a chapter to do for a "no frills" rush. Did the Rho Chis count balloons?

Usually we already had most of the stuff we were told to wear for rush. Jeans/denim skirt, khakis (it was the 90s!), black skirt, black slacks, different colors of shirts, black dress, black heels, etc. The key was picking wardrobe staples instead of creative or unique items. As you said, we could be creative with accessories if wanted.

Re: counting balloons...you know how I said things could get tedious? Yep, panhellenic exec. went into the rooms prior to the first party and counted balloons, checked outfits and other decorations. It was actually really fast and easy to do.

I'm glad it went well and that your overall impression is positive.

It does seem like everyone would have the clothes that you described, and that you would look cute as a group.

I was just afraid that rather than being low maintenance, "no frills" was just a different kind of high maintenance. I'm glad to hear that it doesn't work out that way.

I personally don't like the sound of no frills recruitement.. it sort of takes the fun out of it although I do see the reasoning... I just see it as if a girl wants to be in another sorority because they have cool shirts or cool themes then I don't want her. Girls going through that are quality and have honorable intentions aren't going to care about that stuff. So why not just let us do it?

One more thing...I don't know how rampant rush violations are at other schools, but at mine they were practically non-existant. Probably because of how orderly no-frills rush tends to operate. The first year there were several, mostly because people were unfamiliar with the rules, but after that I don't recall there being many issues.

Well, I guess it depends on what your chapter sees as "fun." Some chapters enjoy doing the skits, but many don't. My chapter would have hated it. In our case, taking out the skits made things more fun. When it came to identical outfits, that really wouldn't have worked on our campus, where each chapter had women of all shapes and sizes. It was hard enough convincing my chapter that we should coordinate colors/outfits. Sure, it would have been fun to be able to decorate the whole room, but any of us that had spent hours decorating the preference room knew how long it took and we were happy to spend those hours earlier in the week sleeping.

I think the biggest advantage of "no frills" is financial. You've got to consider the return on your investment. The money we spent on food, favors, name tags, invitations, etc. was outrageous and my school was a mid-west, blue collar type of school. Without all those expenses, we actually had more money to cover formals, mixers, and sisterhoods. And, as several people pointed out earlier, the time involved in all that planning and implementation. It was exhausting. And, you can spend more time during each event actually TALKING to the PNMs so they get to know you and you get to know them.

I still find it a little odd that, no matter which sorority you got a bid from, each PNM had numerous favors with letters on them from all the different groups. It seemed ok at the time, but seems strange in retrospect, especially when the debates go on here about whether new members can wear letters.

Even at the "lowest frills" campuses that I'm familiar with, they still dress similarly, sing their songs and have formal preferences with ceremonies.

LOL. Then clearly you have never been a teenager.

That sounds great to say, and it's true that it's a stupid reason to join just because you liked a chapter's outfits or decorations. But it's not reality. People DO look at decorations and such when they step into a recruitment party, they look at how everything is presented. If having no frills puts every chapter on more of an even footing than girls will be more likely to choose based on the connection they felt with the women they met. (In theory)

Some schools have taken "no frills" to mean counting balloons, calling rush infractions on other groups because a PNM walked out w/ confetti on her shirt, etc. That is NOT what it's supposed to be about and completely violates the whole spirit of the idea - just as making ridiculous rules about sorority members having any contact with freshmen completely violates the intended point and spirit of deferred rush.

I honestly think it would almost make things easier if the sororities could all get together and say "we're going to do so and so, show this movie, this is our skit" and be fair and open about it. The reason you have silly crap like counting balloons is no matter what, everyone's afraid they're going to be one-upped somehow. It's easy to make rules about no frills, to actually make people understand WHAT THE REAL POINT IS is the hard part.

Let me say I've got no problem with things like skits and songs - they're fun and let the rushees relax and just be spectators. But when you only have a total of 5 hours to spend with women in rush (i.e. a girl rushing you from Meet the Greeks on through till pref will be in your company a total of 5 hours) and you eat up 45 minutes of it with a skit, then is when you should stop and think. Especially if the rushees are 95% freshmen women you've never set your eyes on till they walked in the door.

The Kappas at USC (S. Carolina) had to remove something out of their centerpieces because the centerpieces could only be 8" tall (I think). The actual flower part of the arrangement was, but they had these gold twirls coming out of the arrangement that made the centerpiece exceed the limit. Things like that seem kind of petty to me.

Doesn't surprise me. For example. the U. of Kentucky Panhellenic guidelines for 2006-07 recruitment go into detail about the size and number of floral arrangements. I'm having a vision of a dedicated Panhellenic officer or recruitment counselor marching around with a tape measure.

The UKY guidelines are in PDF:
http://www.uky.edu/StudentAffairs/Greek/06RECGUI.pdf

Right, and this is why I wonder sometimes if "no frills" is actually worse. In full-frills rush, are there rules like this too, but we don't here as much about it?

A couple thoughts on no frills:

The year I went through recruitment, they mandated that the PNM's wore the designated PNM t-shirt. Obviously, most of us paired it with some variation of jeans/khaki pants/skirt. So, when I walked into houses where the sisters were wearing sundresses, I felt ridiculous. It just makes sense for the sisters to be wearing something equivalent. (BTW, what other schools give the PNM matching shirts? In retrospect, it is a great idea, and Illinois is still doing it)

Yes, it was expected that most of the stuff you wore as a sister, you already had in your wardrobe, i.e. black skirts, pink tops, sundresses, etc. However, it is CRITICAL that you do a fashion show a week early and let the recruitment committee see everyone's outfits. You probably do this for pref dresses anyway, but let me tell you, there is always that one girl who thinks the slit all the way up the side of her skirt is not a problem.

If your first round lasts for more than one night (as ours does), and you all have matching t-shirts that you ordered, you better believe your rush chair is not going to let anyone wash those shirts in between. You won't want to show up on day 2 with eighty different shades of pink. Therefore, you spend about eight hours in the August heat wearing your shirt, and can do nothing but febreeze it overnight.

We went through a back-and-forth every year, because we hated doing a skit at open house. We only had 25 minutes, and when you have approximately 50 PNM's coming to each party, that is barely enough time to do an opening song, introductions, talk to the PNM, and get her back out the door. However, most other chapters did skits, and with as many groups as we had, we needed to do something that the PNM's would remember. It was even better if a chapter had a theme that they repeated for each stage of recruitment.

From the PNM's side, the skit is usually the part where you get to sit down in a real chair and zone out. If you get caught doing this, however, you may get released because they think you are not interested. It is like they've set a trap, and the more grueling the rush schedule, the harder it is to stay alert and smiling while someone dances around to "we are family".

One nice thing about decorations is that they sometimes hide flaws in older houses. Of course, if you are still allowed to hang photos and stuff like that, it can accomplish the same effect.

And finally...if you do no-frills for three rounds of rush, it makes pref that much more special. Remember the first pref you went to, and what the house looked like? I would never want decorations to overshadow the meaning of pref, but how many PNM's are certain they could only join one chapter, and pref helps them see all chapters in a whole new light? Pref night is magic, when you give the PNM's a glimpse of ritual, and it should be as special as possible.

At Auburn during Philanthropy round (2 days) the PNMs all wear the same shirt, provided by Panhellenic.

I love the Panhellenic t-shirts for PNMs during recruitment. UCF doesn't do that. They give the girls t-shirts for registering, but they're never required to wear them. It just seems like a nice way to begin the week on a somewhat more equal playing ground.

That's cool that they've change that. You used to get all of that stuff at Greek Forum. On bid day, some girls would wear them and some wouldn't. I like the uniform look and I was implying that using them earlier in the week would be a nice addition to a no-frills recruitment.

The matching shirts are a great idea... as long as Panhellenic doesn't ask the PNMs to wear them during Round 1! It would be impossible to remember what girls you met if they were all wearing the same shirt, I think.

You would actually be surprised. Like DeltaBetaBaby said, the girls pick their own accessories, bottom half of the outfit, and shoes. Plus the PNM decorate thieir nametags to reflect them...or at least you hope there is something that will be distinguishable. Are there a lot of girls to remember? Oh yes! But that means you're concentrating on the nametag (which obviously, name!) and the other accessories they picked to be unique.

We had two days of round 1 open house, and we had to wear our green shirts the first day, and our white shirts the second day, AND our name tags were made by panhel so they were all the same!

Wow, um...they tried to make it real easy for you didn't they? :p

At least you got to wear two different shirts for round 1, the women in the houses had to wear the same blue shirt two days in a row! I honestly think that this is a result of UK not being used to having round 1 in two days. Girls were changing shirts between groups & on breaks to try and keep their one blue one clean. Hopefully PHC will reconsider for next year.

Iowa State does and I think it's a great idea too. The PNM gets a white t-shirt with red letters to wear for the first day. Each chapter also has a shirt to wear for the first day, except the chapter gets to pick two different colors, i.e. purple with pink letters or whatever. The only difference in the shirts is that the respective chapter has their name at the top of the chapter "wheel" of sorts on the back of the shirt. I think this also helps so that the chapter nor the PNM is too dressed up on 14 party day.

I agree with adpiucf's point when she said "clearly you have never been a teenager." Though moderately surprising, girls here (and everywhere, I assume) truly do base their opinions (when it comes to ranking and choosing a sorority) greatly on the clothing and other "frills" involved in recruitment.
I remember hearing girls in various Pi Chi groups saying, "Oh, XYZ sorority was the only sorority to wear all dresses on the first day. That was so classy of them! That really stood out to me."
On the contrary, I'd hear girls saying, "That sorority had really ugly shirts and nasty tasting drinks. Their house was really drab. They didn't wow me, so what would make me want to join their sorority?"
The conversation can be fabulous, but great clothes, decorations and fun songs really are memorable.
Especially with that dress thing, I've hear recruitment chairs talking a great deal about going with that idea to impress PNMs. While conversation is important and girls SHOULD base their opinions on character, apparent strength of the sisterhood, etc. as oppossed to who had the cutest outfit and most memorable song...it sadly isn't that way.
As we all know, a lot of girls rank based on physical appearance (whichever sorority has the prettiest sisters), so obviously clothing comes into play. After that, they take into consideration the beverages, decorations and songs. They notice a carefully planned recruitment and consider sororities that go all out to be the most desirable.
On my campus, we are not technically allowed to ALL have identical outfits...I believe half of the girls can have one item and the other half can have a similar looking but slightly different item. Some people change the clothes around by throwing on different color ribbons or tucking in straps on dresses. We are, however, allowed to have other things that may or may not be considered "frills" like all matching t-shirts on one day, door songs, and drinks like smoothies, pina colodas, root beer floats, etc. for every day but the first ice water day. However, we do not have a skit and as of this year, house tours are no longer allowed. Instead, on the day they used to be given, they were replaced with a sisterhood video and longer conversation.
I can definitely see how a "no frills" recruitment can be more peaceful and easier, esp. financially, but some frills are fun and I appreciate that we can still have them!

during my time as a PNM, i heard about a girl that was basing her top choices on how nicely designed/decorated the houses were. Like, "oh this house had a piano and i really liked their color scheme,so im ranking it first. and that other house that was more victorian but didnt have a piano, are going second even though the girls were just as nice or nicer." that to me seems so silly, and u cant change the HOUSES themselves..like the color of the walls and such.

personally i cant wait to be on the other side of recruitment next year. im excited about the themes, the decorating and learning the songs. id be upset if it all was taken away..besides, where is the fun in that? if girls arent smart enough to see through the glitter and glam, then perhaps they arent mature enough to be in a sorority.

[quote=DeltaBetaBaby;1362366]A couple thoughts on no frills:


If your first round lasts for more than one night (as ours does), and you all have matching t-shirts that you ordered, you better believe your rush chair is not going to let anyone wash those shirts in between. You won't want to show up on day 2 with eighty different shades of pink. Therefore, you spend about eight hours in the August heat wearing your shirt, and can do nothing but febreeze it overnight.


This reminds me of what happened to my daughter when she went through rush at Ole Miss in October....they had really cute T-shirts to wear to the 2 nights of Philanthropy parties, and after the first night she was starving, got a hamburger, and managed to get ketchup all over her shirt. She took it to the basement to wash it and before she could get back down to get it someone stole it out the washing machine. Her Gamma Chi managed to get her another one to wear for the next night's parties, but believe me it was a "prozac moment!"

The way we do it is, what I would call, light on frils. It's not bare minimum blank room no matching at all type...we just can't go overboard. We don't do rush in our houses, we do all of it in different rooms in the student center. They changed the rules a little this year so that we can only have baloons and food at two of our parties (I suppose this is assuming that we'll use the "shiny" things where we feel they're the most important). We still wear matching outfits, but only to the extent of we order shirts for three parties and say what sort of bottoms/shoes to wear, and wear our black (ritual) dresses for ther fourth set. Some groups do skits, some don't. Basically it's cut back enough that the focus winds up being on meeting people and getting to know people, and not how pretty someones decorations are. Though, that still happens no matter what.

I think how we do it works out pretty well, because it still lets us do the fun slightly frilly part of rush, but keeps it from being insane and super expensive...and really it keeps it from being a "who can spend the most and be the most impressive with stuff" competition.