Random: Recruitment
 

So I'm feeling antsy and starting this thread. Recruitment starts in about 9 weeks. My sixth daughter is rushing at a school where she's a legacy to at least one group and her best friend is in another.

Two things I consider to be myths:

1. You will end up where you're supposed to.

This may happen at some schools but at big (think SEC) schools, deserving people don't- just because of numbers. Fabulous women end up bidless. Women who should have ended up in house A, B, or C end up in X, Y, or Z. A lot. Some end up happy anyway, others don't.

2. Legacies always get a fair shot at their legacy houses.

Recently, the majority of legacies we know have been cut from their legacy house, especially if they were from out of state. Please don't count on a bid from your legacy house; stay open-minded.

Boy, this sounds depressing and I don't mean it to! However, I've watched 5 daughters and dozens of their friends rush since 2000 and hardly anyone ended up where they thought they would. I guess what I want to say is: don't go into recruitment saying that you're definitely going AB or CD.

Who else has a random comment to make?

carnation, I totally agree with you about #2 and part of #1, but not ALL of it.

I totally agree that there are fabulous women who end up bidless in recruitment, especially at schools like mine... although frequently these bidless women choose to go bidless because they will not give houses that are not "top tier" a try. However, the women who thought they were "supposed" to be in A, B, or C who end up in X, Y, or Z often end up being devoted members of those orgs and can never imagine having gone X, Y, or Z. I can think of multiple girls from my sister's group of friends who went into recruitment hoping to pledge certain houses, got cut, and ended up happy in the houses they pledged, thus "the houses they were supposed to be in."

I guess it all comes down to whether you believe in sorority recruitment predestination or not? ;)

Myth #3: Girls go into recruitment open-minded.

Even if a girl knows nothing about the houses going in, she is going to hear tent/bus/sidewalk talk about the houses. Even if she doesn't pay attention to that, she's still going to be able to figure out, to some extent, which houses fit into which groups. Being open-minded at the start will not stop this from happening, and if things like "old row" and "top tier" matter to a girl, she's going to take note of these things whether or not she has an open mind on day one of round one. It's nice to think that a girl will give every house an even shot, but I cannot name for you one girl from my own rho chi group or from any of my rec-writing experience who gave EVERY house a chance.

Myth #4 - You should never, ever suicide.

If you get to that place, and you KNOW you will only be happy at ONE of the houses you preffed, and you KNOW in your heart of hearts that you will not be able to even give another house a fair shot, go ahead and suicide. Or, even better, if you have the option (we did), put your #1, and then a house that cut you Round 1, as you obviously won't be on their bid list. That way, you'll still have the option to accept a snap bid, or COR.

This is GENUIS! Was this option discussed with PNMs at your school or was it just not against the rules?

When I was filling out my bid card, I put ASA #1, but then the other house I didn't really want, so I asked if I could put somewhere where I got cut round 1, and they said I could. I picked a house I didn't think I'd mind being in, just in case...

What I see a lot of is that a group of girls from AB High School will go to the same university. Several of their older buddies from AB are in a certain sorority there. They envision that all, say, 5 or 6 of them will pledge together and join their friends. It rarely happens because the sorority isn't likely to pledge 5-6 girls from AB, they have to spread their pledge class out geographically so they can be attractive to PNMs from all over the state. Realistically, 2 or maybe 3 from the same school will make it into the same group.

Or Laurie Legacy from Birmingham wants to pledge her mom's sorority at Bama or Auburn. Guess what? There are 150 other legacies of that group rushing and quota is 50 and mom's group isn't going to take all legacies anyway.

In a perfect world, all sororities would be attractive to all PNMs but it's not gonna happen. Even if a PNM is open to 90% of the groups, she might get left with the other 10% and she might have decent reasons not to pledge those. For sure, there was 1 (out of 14) on my campus I wouldn't have pledged.

Every year, I look forward to recruitment and get all excited while I'm writing recs. But then...I also dread the cuts, especially the giant ones after second parties.

Myth: The prettiest girls are all in the same house.

Ha! I have a friend who is model beautiful. She went through recruitment, and was consistantly ending up in the "model houses" even though they were very low on her pref lists. She ended up dropping herself out because she couldn't really even stand them. She is a very conservative person in every regard and she was ending up in the houses known for partying and lude behavior. It just stuns people when she said that she never wanted to be a so and so. Though, I would say that I put the model houses at the bottom of my list too when I did it my freshman year. You just gotta know what you are looking for in a house...some people are after sisterhood... and other people are looking for a party scene.

She did end up joining a house her sophmore year ( I won't say which). ;)

Lots of good points.

This is what I want all PNMs to know: Have enough confidence in yourself to realize YOU could be the one NM to start the pendulum swinging in the other direction if the "best" GLO releases you and you are offered a bid from another GLO. We've all heard that it only takes one or two pledge classes to make or break a GLO and a lot of us have firsthand knowledge of this, whether in our own or another GLO. Whatever GLO you join, put your heart and soul into it. Your enthusiasm will make a difference.

I know someone who joined a smaller GLO while a supposed friend of hers joined a larger one that they both were interested in. They both wanted leadership opportunities, but my friend got them in spades while the other girl was just another face in the crowd. She resented my friend, and they grew apart. My friend is so glad now that she gave her GLO a chance--what opportunities she would have lost by pining away for a GLO that released her instead of joining the one she did!

Yes, I realize there are times when joining a 2nd, 3rd, or more choice is just not going to work out . . . but sometimes it does.

Myth: You have to go greek because mom/aunt/grandma wants you to.
You can be perfectly happy at college without going greek. I had just as much fun with my taekwondo club friends as my sisters.

Maybe these girls would have been happier if they'd been told ahead of time that if you don't wear the right shoes or carry the proper LV purse then you'll be ostracized, that way they could save up all their money for the right clothes along with the atrociously high dues! These girls have this idea that joining the rich girl group will suddenly make them happy. My opinion on these top tier, old south groups is that they are filled with MRS. seeking, junior leaguers who are more concerned about their future husbands' careers than their own. This may actually be why girls quit...they realized that they want more in life than that! I'd take a bottom tier group filled with ambitious women who want to enrich their own minds and define themselves by their own works not their husbands over a top tier group any day.

Well, one thing that spurred me to start this thread was that today I got an im from a mom--she's not Greek but her older daughter has been a sorority alum for a year--and she said, "Ashley will be going to ___ University and pledging ABC like her sister did.":eek: I hope she's not counting 100% on that. I hate, hate, hate seeing girls get hurt in recruitment.

I agree. The fall 2006 new member class of my sorority brought our chapter GPA up from # 6 out of 7 groups to #1 out of 7. This year, we were also Most Improved Chapter of the Year. You never know what can happen!

KSUViolet....excuse me for sounding mean....I've just spent an hour reading old posts about Top Tier groups after reading BamaDad's recent thread. I just found one from UT that summed up Top Tier groups in big southern schools very succinctly. (Though the article was written to brag on these groups, it just made them sound shallow and silly.) I'm sure every NPC has a chapter like that out there, but that kind of mentality amazes me! Not to mention, having grown up in the deep south, I'm so sick and tired of reading about these "old families" who are made up of people who have never done anything personally to merit a second look. I'm sure some of these girls are great, but having the right rolex, the right haircut and a daddy who controls a Fortune 500 company does not mean you're going to be worthwhile.
Also, I do know girls who joined top tier groups at LSU. They were told how to dress, sent back to their rooms because they were wearing the wrong color shoes and many other snobby things. That's the truth about top tier....it's not always pretty!

Well, during recruitment, if your shoes don't match your dress (and match what you're supposed to be wearing for the round) you're going to be sent upstairs to fix the situation. That's not just top tier, and it's not just LSU.

I was a legacy to a sorority on my campus and went through Rush thinking about all of the things my Mom always said about her enjoyable sorority experience (and not thinking about the fact that she was in college 35 years before I was and at a different school no less!). Looking back on things, I thought that I had a pretty fair shot of getting into my legacy house (my Mom was a former President; but again at another school) and was absolutely crushed when I got dropped. Granted that was also a year this chapter could've filled to quota just with legacies. But I still found my home--and on bid day when I looked over at my legacy chapter, I saw a couple of girls from my floor (who I was not fond of) hugging their new sisters. And right then I knew that them dropping me was the best thing they could've done. I think had I joined that particular chapter I would've been a completely different person than I am now.

I did rush at a smaller school (but one with a fairly good-sized Greek system), but I definitely learned a lot about what it's like to be a legacy and the pressures that come with it. I know at the time I was dropped from my legacy house I think I was sad because I thought I let my Mom down. She handled things really well and I think she was just happy that I went Greek period--she told me that she didn't care which sorority I joined; she just wanted me to have great friends like she did in college. I know when I have kids (if they're girls), I would like for them to rush--but I'm not going to force it. I also think I put a lot of pressure on myself to get into the house I was a legacy too, which may have caused me to do things at that house that I wouldn't have (and shouldn't have) normally.

So I guess another myth would be: Parents put more pressure on kids to join their groups than their children do.

That obviously was not the case for me.

Of course in recruitment that would happen...we had uniforms for each day that dictated your outfilt, shoes, jewelry, etc. I'm talking about everyday....going to class, to the library. And I'm not talking about shoes that didn't match...I'm talking about shoes deemed not good enough.

Sometimes I just want to smack high school girls up side the head! A girl posted a big long "the reputations of each sorority" list on the girls housing site on Facebook for my younger daughter's school. Another girl in my daughter's class has been going to fraternity parties at the school and asking "which one is the best sorority?" and then talking about it with everybody she knows and telling everybody which one she is going to join.

The one thing that I have always, always, always stressed with my daughters and any of their friends with whom I have any influence is this.....KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!!!

Good advice....unfortunately some of these girls can't fathom that the group they want may not want them, especially after going around bragging that they are a lock for a bid!

I often hear these kinds of comments:

"I don't know which ones I want to rush." You want to rush all of them! It's OK to have favorites or lean towards one over another, but consider all of them.

"I'm interested in ABC and XYZ." That's fine and dandy, but give the others a chance. Once you get into the process, your feelings may change, or ABC and/or XYZ may release you.

Well, in that case...

That's just plain nuts.

Myth #5 (?): IF a sorority cuts someone, that means they didn't like her or there's something wrong with her

It ain't necessarily so. Every member that a PNM met may have thought she was likeable, fun, and potentially an okay addition to the house. But the reality of the release figures / quota-total system (or other system for some schools like Indiana U that go their own distinctive way) can mean that X number of PNMs must be cut by a house.

Admittedly, it's not very comforting to realize that some cuts can be part of a numbers game of sorts. On the other hand, obsessing over "why didn't they like me"
may be a case of missing the point about what really happened.

By the way, NUBlue&Blue gave great advice, IMHO: "keep your mouth shut" about reputations, what chapters you did or didn't like and why, etc. You never know who's listening and, equally important, who they may be "reporting" to. Ideally the other PNMs in a recrutiment group or in the dorm will never be on the phone or IMing with friends or biological sisters already in sororities, and would never talk to mothers who are alums. On this sad little planet called Earth, though, you never can tell.

I just wanted to 2nd this- I am sure we all have heard stories similar to this- my best friend's cousin is 5 yrs younger than me, she went to my alma mater. Her freshman year I took her cousin to an early season b-ball game @ my school and we met up w/ her cousin. I asked how her 1st semester was going & if she was going to rush- she said yes, and asked if I had been in a house, I told her my affiliation and she said "Oh" then told me that she was really only interested in a few chapters and named them- none of them being mine. I told her that she should go into rush with an open mind because you never know.

Sure enough spring rolls around, she goes through and she accepts a bid to my chapter. I was a little surprised, but happy to call her my sister.... still it caused me to chuckle and think a little bit of "what if..."

So if you weren't on ASA's bid list, you would have been just fine accepting COB from them the next day?

not a myth, but some advice:

pnms, i would advise you to wait to attend fraternity parties until after recruitment. if sorority members are at the parties, it can be ackward for you, since they cannot talk to you-but believe me, they will be watching how you are behaving yourself!! there will be plenty of parties to attend AFTER recruitment.

also, DO NOT listen to guys when they try to tell you which sorority to join. they have no clue how well the sisters get along with one another, and may actually not even know any of the members, but are just passing on info. they have heard. Would you let that guy tell you which fraternity guy to date, what you should eat for lunch in the cafeteria or what you should major in? then don't listen to their opinion on sororities!!

That list gave me a chuckle. Especially funny that the list wasn't even generated by a student at that school, but a current college student at another university.

I have seen way too many girls post on facebook/myspace profiles the names of the chapters that they are hoping for at UGA/Auburn/Bama/Ole Miss/LSU/You Get the Idea and it ends in tears more often than not. Why can't anyone keep her mouth shut?

Hahaha, this is good advice. I remember my brother's brothers (as in, the guys in my blood sibling's fraternity) telling me that ABC and DEF were the best sororities, even though those sororities would have nothing to do with them. The guys were really all dating XYZ's and MNO's, and I ended up liking the latter sororities much better.

Read these very wise words, commit them to memory, and re-visit them often.

Carnation, good luck! I can't believe it's that time again.

Sorry to get on my soapbox in your new recruitment thread, but I think it's important to clear up the misinformation in the post by Alpha Frog.

While Alpha Frog is correct that you should never ever list a house on your MRABA if you will not give them a fair shot, it is important to understand that listing a house where you did not attend preference does not meet the definition of maximizing your options as a PNM and I believe the current MRABA strictly precludes it as an option. This means that you will not be matched as a Quota Addition under the RFM (only maximizing PNMs are eligible to be QAs), though you would be eligible for snap bidding or COB (of course even those who ISC (also known as "suicide") and don't match are eligible for snap bidding or COB).

Also, just as an FYI, most campuses set up their recruitment management software options so that the software only shows the chapters attended for preference.

When I was in school I always found it interesting that guys would tell girls a myriad of reasons why they shouldn't pledge us but would also say that we were the chapter they would want their sister to join!

Here's another thing: when you get into situations like the ones bruinaphi is describing, your Rho Chi will NOT know the rules in many cases. I would guess that only about 2% of collegiate members fully undersand bid matching, the green book, and campus rules, and they are the presidents and rush chairs, not the rho chis. If you want to be sure you will be eligible for snap bids and COB, talk to your Greek Life office, or better yet, e-mail them so that you later have it in writing.

I wasn't a rho chi, so I don't know, but wouldn't that be part of their training? I would think it would be ultra-important for them to understand fully the implications of the advice they give.

yes. when in doubt check with your greeklife office!!

my daughter asked me today if she would be violating any rules if she wore her sorority t-shirts to class during the summer session she is enrolled in. i told her that the best advice i could give her was to look up the rules on line and if she is doesn't feel that she has the answer then she must call the greek life office to get the definative answer. don't earn a rush infraction for your sorority just because you did not know something.

on some campuses, recruitment guide training is very extensive and thorough and the rho gammas go thru intense screening. sadly, that does not happen on a lot of campuses and many pnms are given false/bad information.

It depends upon the campus. A lot of Greek Advisors have taken rush counselors out of the picture for preference signing, which means you have to go to knowledgeable people to ask questions and there are not as many side issues. Training rush counselors can be challenging b/c many of them are women who do not like recruitment or who didn't have a positive recruitment experience themselves. I can think of a handful of campuses that have really great rush counselor programs, but most of those campuses do not use the rush counselors for preference signing.

Just to clarify...because I've been out of the rush loop for awhile. But if A PNM didn't max her options throughout the entire rush week...by accepting as many invitations as she could and attending the parties...putting a house down on her her pref card that released her after Round I won't make her eligible to get a bid if she ISPs. am I correct?

I would say that I am rather well-versed in green book bid matching procedures, but that is because I sought the information. It is definitely true at Maryland that 90% of the Rho Gammas know very little about release figures, bid matching, etc. The Rho Gamma coordinators took an "ignorance is bliss" approach and seemed to emphasize crisis management over knowledgability. We had two classes where we learned the same things about crisis management. We were supposed to have a class where they explain recruitment as a numbers game but it got dumbed down when a bunch of girls were complaining that they didn't understand. The RG coordinators ended up saying "Ok well if one of your PNMs has a question that you don't know the answer to, then ask someone on recruitment team." Problems arise when Rho Gammas THINK they know the answer to a question but give misinformation. They also thought that if we knew too much we would explain things to the PNMs that they shouldn't know.

It is also true that at least half of the Rho Gammas decided to do it because they didn't want to participate in recruitment with their chapter. They think it'll be less work and it's definitely not. They have an apathetic attitude and their PNMs notice. PNMs who are on the fence are more likely to drop with a crappy Rho Gamma.

Basically, the Rho Gamma training and selection process needs work at Maryland.

I just wanted to say that this thread has been very educational for me. I have not been through formal recruitment yet as I was a founding sister of my chapter. I am very excited about Rush, and this thread has helped me to understand many things more fully.

I also wanted to comment on this quote:


This is very true, and I have also discovered that legacies do not always end up in their legacy sorority. A friend of mine rushed and was a legacy yet ended up not liking the legacy sorority chapter at her school so she joined another GLO.