Effects of the New Release Figures
 

Two things I've noticed that have happened with many, many PNMs we know as a result of the new release figures:

1. If you get cut by several of your favorites after first parties, you can very well end up pledging a "stronger" group than if you get your major cuts after second parties, when you had already cut a bunch yourself. We've known of far more people to drop out after heavy cuts after second parties because they didn't like their returns. Moral of the story: hang in there if you get dropped by a bunch after first parties.

2. At the really competitive schools, legacies have a hard time. Due to the numbers that many groups have to release, they very often release legacies of other houses (especially in-house) after first parties and if the legacy group releases the PNM, she's not left with many choices. I've personally seen this happen to about a dozen great girls in the last 2 years.

What are your observations?

My D's Panhel does new release figures. It is definitely a detriment to be a legacy at the non-legacy houses. I remember reading on GC last year that Panhel registration asks the girls if they are legacies and only releasing the info to the legacy house. However, actual rec forms from the individual sororities ask which specific NPC groups with which the girl is a legacy. So the anonymity is gone.

At the school where I advise (VERY different school), Panhel lets girls re-add groups if the later rounds don't go well. So if a girl has to cut for Round 2 because she has too many invites and eliminates XYZ, and then has less than the max number of invites for round 3, she can put XYZ back on her list. I'm not sure how XYZ feels about that, but that's the rule.

I don't have any significant insight into how the releases play out, but is it true that groups are giving more snap bids now than they used to be?

If so, maybe it's time to revive the idea of regret with interest, so that girls can pick back up groups they had to cut and the groups can recover from unexpected no shows or drop outs faster.

I know that someone tried to explain to me that return rates and release numbers get messed up if the groups invite back people that didn't attend that round, but maybe they could be statistically carried though somehow, so that girls would have full parties again.

I always have to remind myself that the outcome for the girls probably isn't that different than it ever was. A group that releases a girl today after first or second round probably didn't actually give similar girls bids in the past.

It may be very true that things play out differently for legacies though. Maybe not revealing legacy status to anyone other than the legacy house is the way to go.

Two years ago, I realized that legacy status was a definite problem when I saw a girl who would have been in demand anywhere else get cut from everywhere but 2 houses after first parties because she was an in-house legacy. Actually, she wanted to explore all the other groups but never got a chance. She had top grades, great activities, pretty, the whole thing, but everyone assumed she wanted her sister's group. She had a pretty lousy time during recruitment sitting in her room and waiting for everyone else to return from their 12 or so parties and go to her 2.

She pledged her sister's house and was okay with that but her mom says she will never forget the crummy time she had when she rushed.

I always try to imagine this in terms of UGA, but it's hard to think of going from 18 to two if you have great grades, etc.

Don't some groups get to invite almost everyone back because their returns are lower? Wouldn't that mean that some groups would keep other groups' legacies too?

Well, in addition to discouraging girls from listing legacies on the rush application, maybe we should keep in mind the harm of listing legacies or rec. forms since we always want the girls we write recs for to have a great experience.

What are the highest percentages that "weaker" groups get to invite back?

I swear that when the rest of my daughters rush, we're leaving out the names of all the sororities they're legacies to. We'll make sure the legacy groups get several recs.

If they rush at Birmingham Southern, though, we might have to list the names of the legacy sororities for a laugh. I would really like to see the looks on the faces of the Panhellenic reps when they open the application and see that here's a girl who's a legacy to 4 of the 6 sororities, lol.

Anyway, lots of PNMs come over here for rush advice and I'm trying to think of a way to tell them--especially if there's a good chance they won't make the groups considered A-1 (and I know that ticks off some GCers but many PNMs here go into rush with a list of those) that they should hang onto some of the solid middle-of the road chapters for second parties. After the massive cuts after second parties, they may wish they could still go back to those but too late, they cut them after first because they wanted to go back to the "name" groups. I just can't think of how to phrase it because every rushee in the world starts out recruitment thinking that she'll have her choice of sororities.

Just tell them that the more popular a group is, the more women they will have to cut - even if they're great women. I would compare it to college admissions. They've all been through that and know to have "safety" schools and not just apply to Harvard. If they did that, they would be sitting around at the end of their senior year with no clue where they're going or having to settle for a school they never thought they would end up at.

Assuming that you recommend getting recs for ALL sororities on a campus, will you specifically ask the non-legacy rec writer NOT to list the affiliations on the rec form?

I understand completely what you mean. It's tough to give tactful advice and it's hard to get even the nicest 18 year old to take it. I think you are right in what you are trying to direct them toward, but especially since the A1s are such good rushers, the PNMs are going to have a hard time accepting what you are saying until after they get cut.

This is one way in which I was glad that I rushed as a freshman who had no clue about sororities in general (and certainly no clue about the specific reputations on my campus). After the first round of rush, I cut a couple of "name" chapters - my Rho Chis looked at me strangely when I reviewed my list with them, and one of them actually said "are you sure you want to do that?" (She ended up being my sister in a smaller chapter and said it was so unusual for someone to do what I did, that she just wanted to make sure I had filled out my card correctly. She didn't want me to come to them upset later about it.)

It worked out well for me though - the "name" chapters that I cut would likely have cut me after 2nd round anyhow, and I didn't pass up opportunities with other great chapters just to get strung along by a "name" chapter. ;)

Oh, I know, alphagamuga. You go to those parties and even if there's no way you're getting in, they'll make you feel like the number one woman on their bid list. Then when the invitations come back...

And a lot of those recruitment brochures don't mention that you might not get your first or even eighth choice. Or last. They say, "as a new member, you will get to do this or that" and it never occurs to PNMs that they might not pledge. And then there are those songs, sung even on the first day: "We want you for the red, yellow and blue" and that kind of thing. Each PNM is sure they're singing to her individually.

^^^^^^
What she said. Amen!!!!!

That happened this year at one school, too, only it was a direct legacy, not in-house. Part of me understands that, with the Release figures, a chapter needs to make their best guess as to who would accept the invitations, yet the part of me who didn't go with her legacy chapter says, Give the PNM a chance to be her own person!

All that, and I think the Release Figures are wonderful!


Edited to avoid a double post: Actually, prior to even going to college, it was so highly stressed to me that the sororities select the PNM, not the other way around, that I naively thought that anyone who wasn't in a sorority or fraternity had tried to get a bid, but didn't succeed!

The newest recruitment page at UGA tells women that recommendations are not required for any group* too. It's almost as if PNMs are sabotaged at every turn by the official advice. Sure, it is officially the responsibility of the group to get you one if the group needs it, but I don't think it's a good idea for the girls to count on that on a highly competitive campus.

I think starkly realistic information from all sources would help young women through the process more than the consistently optimistic stuff they get instead.

*Correction added 4/7: This in only in the FAQs section. The actual recruitment guide does in fact do a good job explaining the importance of recs. I want to retract my claims about the fine people in the UGA Greek Life Office.

Agreed - statements such as these don't allow those who don't really know the system even the smallest of chances!

I agree with 33girl. All college applicants are told to have reaches, matches and safeties on their college lists. There are college admissions forums in which kids post their stats for their chances at various schools. Colleges have developed set formulae as to how they choose their students. Some schools focus on grades more than SATs. Some weight EC involvement more than other colleges. Of course the legacy/major donor factor comes into play for college admissions as well.

A difference is that adcoms for schools are composed of adults, not fellow students. We don't have alumnae choosing the new sisters, we have the actives themselves. Obviously adults and alums have more life experience than the collegians/actives and would perhaps look beyond a nervous PNM's poise and focus on her resume.

33girl said it best. tell the pnms the facts. after all, that is all you can do.

if pnms then choose to think that they know more about it than you, and they drop all but the "top" groups and then in turn, get dropped by the top groups, you shouldn't feel that you let them down.

i see the new release figures(nfr) as a positive thing. the problem with the new release figures is that it works better in theory. the nrf was instituted to keep pnms in recruitiment and give the smaller chapters a better chance to grow.

the problem is there is a choice. we know that panhellenic is going to make sure that the chapters comply with the required drops. the chapters still get to choose which pnms they invite back, they are just inviting a smaller percentage than the other chapters. the majority of the pnms want them and most of their invitations will be accepted, so the nrf has little effect on the top chapters final results.

where this breaks down is with the pnms. some pnms just can't accept the fact that the top groups did not invite them back and they drop out. had they continued on with the invitations they did receive, they may have found a chapter where they could be happy. perhaps if they were required to stay in recruitment until "x" party or until they did not receive any invitations at all, the nrfs might truly work as was intended.

Are the we just noticing the dropouts more now than we used to? Because the ones who do the big cuts surely would have released before prefs the girls who today get released after first or second round, right? What used to keep the girls from dropping out whenever they got their realistic options in the past? Do the drops look worse because they occur earlier in the process?

It does seem to be helping the smaller chapters, but maybe it's not only in the way people thought it would. In addition to getting girls to look at smaller chapters when the big ones drop them, it also means that a girl who is still around for prefs is pretty serious about accepting a bid from the groups she's got left.

Some DIDN'T release before prefs girls they really had no intention of bidding - they were still "padding" their parties, even then. That was part of the problem. It probably does seem worse when you're dropped earlier - "they hardly got to know me! How can they cut me!"

Then again, maybe cutting you AFTER they get to know you is worse, LOL. It all depends how you look at it.

Back in the day, there were few to no release rules and some groups would keep as many girls around as possible for "eye candy", then do massive cuts before prefs--where there were usually required numbers. For instance, some schools required that your pref party numbers be no more than 1 1/2 to 2 times the numbers of bids that could be handed out. This was also aided by the fact that at many schools, quota was determined early on; they might take the number of girls still in after first parties and divide it by the number of sororities. Both of these led to the big groups staying big and the smaller ones staying smaller-or folding.:(

I think we hear more about the cuts from selective schools like UGa because you have to be so outstanding to get in now. Certainly no freshmen are cut for grades and I have no idea how the heck the sororities are able to manage the giant cuts. Anyway, the women who are rushing have been rejected very little in their lives; they've accomplished so much and when these outstanding women get cut by 75% of the sororities after second parties, many, many drop out. Unless someone personally knows some of the outstanding PNMs who get cut (like, say, the women whom NUBlue&Blue knew last fall) they can not begin to imagine how fabulous these "recruitment dropouts" are.

Oh, I agree. I think I've mentioned before how more girls I know dropped out last year than pledged, and they were all excellent girls. They also knew enough about the process that they were seeking out recs and knew to provide information about activities, etc.

I don't think they would have been more likely to get bids from the A1 chapters in the past, but they would have pledged someplace, and I wonder what makes the difference.

Can anyone speak about an increase in snap bids? I heard they had increased too. Is that accurate?

At UGa, I really think that the increase in dropouts is due to the shock of the early, heavy cuts. Once on here, I posted about how one of my daughters was sitting in front of a freshman dorm during rush a couple of years ago and several buses drove up and unloaded dozens of sobbing women. Her friend asked one of them what was going on and she said that everyone on those buses had just dropped out of recruitment because they were cut so heavily.This was after second parties.

In the last few years, we've frequently heard about many of the big houses having to extend some snap bids. It's probably hard to figure out how the PNMs are ranking you.

And the dropping out probably gains momentum as more people see other people doing it.

I can think of one of the girls I followed, and she and her roommate both dropped out.

In her case, though, she explained that for greek life to be worth it, it was one of her top chapters from the first day or nothing at all. Ah, the eighteen year old mind, you gotta love it.

But at least it means that the girls who come back for third round and pref are serious about at least one group they have left. I bet there aren't too many girls who go through pref and then don't sign a bid card.

i believe it was said in another thread, that in the atlanta metro area(and i am sure other areas also) that it is a status thing to be in certain sororities at uga. maybe going home with an "xyz" shirt instead of an "abc" shirt would be akin to not pledging at all in these circles.

i wonder if these women who are dropping out at the getgo are being dropped by all the top chapters and the pnms figure that if they cannot be in one of the top 3 or 6 or 8 sororities on campus, then they just won't pledge.
i have visited many of the uga sororities websites and they all look good to me-of course i do not know which ones are supposed to be more prestigious than the others, so i am looking at them unbiased.

i agree with carnation that the nrfs seem to be doing a number on legacies. maybe it hits them particularly hard because most sororities as a courtesy will invite a legacy of that sorority back to the first invitational round-if the majority of the other sororities have already dropped her for fear that she will pledge her legacy house, and then she is not invited back to the legacy sorority for the 2nd invitational round, she is left with little to no choice.

it becomes all the more important who the sororities invite back when they have to cut 50-75-90% of the pnms after the first set of parties. they cannot take a chance that a legacy is coming into recruitment with an open mind.

wouldn't it be nice if pnms came in not having already heard the "tent talk" during their high school years and were completely ignorant as to supposed prestige of each chapter? and wouldn't it be great if the pnms took a good long look at themselves and realized that they just might fit in better and stand a better chance in a 2nd tier or bottom tier chapter? when i rushed at fl. state, i knew girls in several sororities, but i did not know any of the sororities reputations-panhellenic relatives had spared me that. i look back now and realize that i declined invitations to many of the top tier(at the time) chapters. i still managed to find the right fit for myself and had a full compliment of parties each day-of course this was waaaaaay before nrfs.

I apologize for seeming so skeptical, but can anybody really say for sure that any groups have to release 75 to 90% of the women after first round? Really?

That would mean that they went from 1200 to 300 or even 120 girls for 12 party second round.

Think about how weird it would be to have 10 to 25 pnms per party visiting a 200 girl chapter. I know that one of the Rho Chis tried to tell me that it was really true, but I tend to take what Rho Chis tell me with a grain of salt because the official word and reality don't always match up. (I also don't know how privy they really are to the groups' party lists and release numbers; not at all I'd guess.)

I thought that release figures always allowed a group to invite anticipated quota times the number of events back, even for the groups near perfect return rates, so cutting 75-90% doesn't add up with that.

Is anyone willing to either post or pm me the number that you chapter really had to cut after first and second round?

FSUZeta, I'm a skeptic by nature and I apologize that it seems like I doubt what you are telling me. I just don't understand how it's possible.

If we said quota was likely to be 55 and you had 12 parties second round, a A1 group would likely have to cut half the PNMs or so, which is plenty harsh enough. And they'd do about half again after second which would be severe again, and a group would be done to around 25% of the total girls who started rush by the start of third party.

I can see why the groups are looking for any reason, like legacy status, to release a girl who they think might not want them. Not that it's right, but it would be so hard to decide to invite back.

no need to apologize. no offense was taken :) !

i did not mean for anyone to take literally the figures i threw out there. i was just using them as a possible scenario. sorry for the confusion.

i would imagine that the groups that had to cut the highest number of pnms would have the same or at least close to the same amount of pnms at their parties. they would probably just have fewer parties than the groups who were allowed to extend as many invitations as they wanted.

i don't know exact figures that i can quote-i always hear the outcome of recruitment at fsu, but i do not get hard numbers(except how much quota was). the panhellenic system at fgcu(where i am an advisor) is new enough that they are not yet having to comply with the release figure component. i think that they will be ready to use it in a few years.

Thank you, FSUZeta; I'm glad you understood.

Does anyone know if at UGA the number of parties per group varies?

I also am feeling bad about saying that I didn't believe the rho chi about release figures. I suppose she could have been an expert because she attended the parties as the girls made the rounds.

Can anyone verify if all the school who do release figures allow all the groups to invite quota times the number of parties back each round?

Do the number of parties vary by group at UGA?

Both of my daughters did that, and I was the one who asked them that question. But things are very different now, than way back when i went through rush. Although they were direct legacies, I wanted them to make their own choices for themselves. They are so happy with their choice.

My best friend, who is from Marietta, ranked ADPi over another sorority after pref because it would "look better" to her friends back home.

This is the problem I see with deferred rush. Although 18 y.o. freshmen women SHOULD ignore the chatter and gossip of sorority reputations (especially when said by the fraternity men), many times they do not. Hearing for an entire semester about how one house only gets ugly girls, one has the trust-fund babies, and one is all athletes doesn't help.

So true. Arkansas got rid of deferred rush after I rushed and it was a good thing they did. During the summer before the freshman year, girls could have "rush dates" and it about killed the girls who didn't. At fraternity parties, they heard all the gossip, plus the freshmen lived together in halls...they had their minds set on which groups they would accept way before recruitment started. Probably most of them had a good idea before they even started school.

The silence rules (year long) were a joke!

But it seems that at places like Arkansas, Georgia, Ole Miss, the majority of the women coming in to rush already know that anyway. Wouldn't it make more sense to wait a semester to see if they can actually handle college classes and pressures?

There's enough of the reputations and gossip that still happens with-before-school-even-starts fall recruitment. I can't imagine what it would be like at Georgia with deferred.

There have already been a couple of posts on Facebook groups for incoming freshmen housing detailing the reputations of the chapters. Not good. Told my daughter and her friends that ***all together now*** "discretion is the key". I told my daughter that she may not understand right now that saying certain things is just not done, but as soon as she is in a sorority she will.

I hope.;)

33Girls,

I didn't see your post, but I wanted to throw in my two cents in response.

At this point at UGA, the admission standards are so tough that most of them are going to be able to handle it academically, and like a lot of other places, the all sorority GPA average is higher than the rest of the students average GPA. Joining isn't likely to hurt them this way, and it may create some positive pressure to do well.

I apologize that I can't remember what campus you are from and advise, but one of the weird things to keep in mind is the scale of UGA recruitment. Figuring out a way to take 1200 girls to 18 houses for first round and get the results to them etc, it a big job although it decreases a little as the rounds go by.

I do know they can manage it other places while classes are going on, but if you suggested to the members and advisers that in addition to everything that recruitment currently requires, they were now going to try to do it at the start of second semester, while classes were going on, I don't think it would go over so well.

I really would represent something of a revolution logistically and we all know how most people deal with change.

That's why I said "and pressures." They might hate the environment - they might miss their hometown - they might hate their major - the money situation might be more than they can handle - many factors figure into people transferring after a semester that don't really have anything to do with whether they can handle the classes academically. Of course, with the shortened pledge programs, most of them are probably already initiated. And there go your secrets and rituals out the door.

I know that theoretically once people are in a sorority they are more likely to stay on the campus, but some of the things I mentioned can't be remedied by sorority membership. I'm not saying once you're there for a year you won't ever transfer. It's just that high school to college is a big transition and I don't see the merit in piling a decision that will effect your life on top of it right away.

I don't think that the schools I mentioned can do rush while class is happening, but with the amount of women who want to participate I don't think there would be any problem in asking them to come back a week before spring semester for recruitment.

They already come back right after New Year's in the spring, I can't see them volunteering to be there a week early plus a week earlier than that for the actives.

Plus I just don't see it happening at most of the SEC schools--there's such competition for "the right girls" and heaven knows, cheating was absolutely, wildly rampant when we had sophomore rush at Arkansas. Freshman year was miserable for the girls who wanted so badly to be Greek.

I think it's scheduled as seven days right now, with the last, since it's bid day, overlapping with the first day of classes. Classes began on January 8th this semester, so maybe it would work.

You may be right. I don't know how it would play out.

If I remember correctly, I once ran across the results of a study into the possibility of deferred recruitment at UGA.
The studied how it worked on similar campuses and decided fall worked better. I'll look for the link.

ETA: Carnation is right about starting right after New Year; classes started on the eight but the orientation and registration stuff is earlier. I think campus opened back up and got rolling on the third or fourth. I don't think you could get rush in.