Smaller Groups-how can you make PNMs feel chosen?
 

I received a pm from a GCer who's a member of a smaller group on a big campus. Without outing her group, she wanted me to ask y'all how they could make PNMs feel like they were "chosen", not like they were all their group could get. She said that frequently they're in the position of having to ask back girls who have cut them and that frankly, a lot of girls who are crying at their prefs aren't doing it from happiness.

So GCers, how can they make their guests feel special and not let them think they're the "leftovers" in recruitment?

I think one key would be for the individual who is rushing the PNM to make a special point of telling her that she is so happy to have another chance to spend with her - another opportunity to share the sisterhood that has meant so much to her.
HTH -

Although it's much harder to do since they probably don't feel like they have the same about of control over who is coming back (they are likely inviting back more people than accept), if they could try to spend more time sharing the accepted party lists with the chapter far enough in advance and in a context where members can perhaps review their notes about who they met in the previous rounds, I think it would help.

You may already be doing this, and I apologize if I'm promoting something that has long been a staple of more computer based recruitments.

If every member knew which party the guests she had previous met (particularly the ones they had "picked up" and principally hosted) were going to attend, as a group you could really try to give the impression that your members were specifically looking for the return of the PNMs who are there. You could try to systematically build it in to the rush groups that as much as you could, you'd loop PNMs back for a few minutes to see the members who had meet them already to build on a sense of personal relationship and a sense that it's wasn't an accident that they in particular had been invited back.*

These next comments will seem sketchy in light of recent conversations in other threads, and I sincerely apologize for for the pettiness/sketchiness, but when we perpetuate the idea "quality over quantity is just an excuse for lazy recruitment" and "good groups always pick members who stick around for four years," we also affirm the tent talk that at least partially contributes to these groups staying smaller because we've basically openly said small equals bad. We don't even give the group members themselves much room to be proud of who they are.

*I think it's also going to help your PR on campus generally because even the PNMs who don't pledge your group are going to feel that they had a strong personal connection at your chapter, and if they have any self-confidence at all they can appreciate that people who liked and wanted specifically them to join might as a group have some good taste.

Did the sorority vote to invite these rushees back? Did these rushees have some good conversations with these women (in the sorority's mind, anyway)?

If so - then they WERE chosen!! Maybe the girls didn't choose the sorority, but the sorority chose them. Don't get hung up on the fact that they're "stuck" at your chapter. You don't know what they're feeling inside. Maybe they're a triple legacy to XYZ and got cut from XYZ, but it's not that they dislike you, it's that they have to tell their 98 year old granny they aren't going to be an XYZ.

However, if the chapter is being forced by whoever have you in authority to invite back members that everyone hated and that the chapter DID cut - then that's another matters entirely. I don't care what your advisor says, I don't care what national says, I don't care what Panhellenic or the rho chi or your rush chair says. If no one in the chapter could find anything redeeming in a woman, DO NOT HAVE HER BACK. It creates feelings like Carnation's above scenario. If this woman is such a hidden jewel, she can come to a COB event or two and maybe she'll make a better impression.

I think some women get so distressed about voting in general (especially if they're in a smaller chapter) that they let people off too easily. You're not voting on whether to ever talk to this woman again or to shun her from the campus or something. You're voting on whether you're going to spend a large part of your college years with this person and possibly live with her. If you don't want to do that, then don't vote to the contrary.

Just because your chapter is smaller - don't settle for crap. Your crap may be someone else's shining star, and vice versa. Invite and cultivate the women at rush that you like for themselves, not just because they're cute or what have you.

I got the impression more that the chapter did really want these women but since a certain segment of the women who were coming back were only coming because of rules about maximize options, the sense of mutual selection was off.

Carnation's OP wanted to know how they could make these women, who they really do want, feel as chosen at their chapter as the women at the 100% return rate chapter feel.

And when release figures let you invite a lot of people back but only some of them accept, it IS complicated to communicate that they are there because you really want them, not because they were so undesirable elsewhere that no one had any choice.

Really, if you HQ says you have to invite as many women as you are allowed, I wouldn't go against that.

If it's okay with Carnation, maybe we should open the question up this way:

At every size and strength of chapter, what do you do to attract your top girls, your rush crushes, your legacies, other people's legacies that you want to poach from their legacy chapters, and any other PNM that you have designated as a VIP?

What the the techniques that you use within your chapter to make sure that these girls are going to have an especially great experience at your chapter?

Sure we all know that you rush every girl as well as you can, but you don't take chances with the GLO's international president's daughter or your founder's great-great- granddaughter do you?

HQs do this constantly - I've read about it multiple times on GC - and I don't know why they all keep thinking "throw a ton of poo at the wall and see what sticks" is an effective recruitment strategy.

As a wise woman said, it's easier to be forgiveness than ask for permission. Cut them if they're cuttable and keep them off. PERIOD.

I mean, if your HQ is OK with you rushing and bidding women with zero social skills who no one in the chapter clicks with, whose grades are in the toilet and who, most importantly, want NOTHING to do with your chapter....yeah, good luck with that. Just because Pi Pi chapter is over quota and total every year since 1950 and Mu Mu is just as consistently under both...this means Mu Mu should give bids to anything that moves and Pi Pi can cut women if they don't have a 4.0 and 80 zillion Lily dresses? Sorry, but no. Plus, what if you give invites/bids to all these women and they keep saying no? That gets arond and makes your reputation even worse.

This isn't a "we want quality, not quantity" argument. Quantity can breed quality, but it can also increase the chances of pledging a woman or women who's a complete disaster. Sorority membership does not automatically transform someone - if it did, we wouldn't have selective rush to begin with.

Umm - talk more to the girls who have good attitudes and be just polite to the girls who have bad attitudes?

I know that's not a very PC answer, but honestly, there's not really much else you can do. If Susie the XYZ groupie is only at your party because she thinks XYZ might open bid her and she knows she has to maximize options to do that, even though there's a snowball's chance in hell it wil happen, and she's sullen or rude, I don't see why anyone should have to suffer through that. Spend time with the girl who's happy to be there.

33Girl,

ETA: I just saw your response to me. The real deal is that they aren't often rude. The rude girls do usually get cut. The others are as sweet as can be, and in some ways that's part of the problem. The group can't tell who really likes them and wants to join, and who is just so socially good that she's not going to let herself be a bad guest. She's not going to tell you that she's crying because she thinks your group sucks.

And about open bidding, that's not even a factor at some places. They know that the groups they had as favorites don't open bid. But they may still be preffing at a house they think they want, and they to continue with rush, they have to go to up to a certain number of who they were invited to. Or they may be trying to give you a chance, but you still have to make them want it. How do you do it?

My original message started here: Sometimes, I'm sure that you are right. That a smaller group might be better off to go with only girls they love. I can especially see why it might be true in a smaller system with established groups of varying sizes where COR is a common practice. If you were allowed to choose well, you could have the chapter you wanted and the reputation you wanted. I honestly wish the NPC way of doing things allowed more of this. It certainly seems possible with IFC groups. They aren't all the same size. They have different reputations, and yet a lot of times the groups with 60 guys are considered as good as some of the 100+ guy chapters, especially if it's a 100+ guy chapter with a reputation for taking too many guys.

But other times, in NPCs, getting smaller pretty much means you are going to go under. And the honest truth of it is that at large recruitments, especially competitive recruitments, we're not really talking about giving bids to just anyone, especially people as bad as what you have described.

We're talking about groups figuring out how to find the women they really like who are open to joining a smaller group and make them know that they really are wanted by the chapter and that joining the chapter will be fun.

Because the problems isn't with the PNMs really. It's with how getting invites back is an unpleasant wake up call for girls who expected to join other chapters. They are more than aware of where they ranked your chapter and where other girls ranked your chapter, even if they liked you, and when they get the invite lists back and find out that they've gotten cut from their "favorites," they feel like losers. They aren't losers. They'd be great members. But after that experience, they're not feeling the NPC love.

And then, you've got to pref them at your group.

How do you do it when not doing it isn't an option?

My correspondent says that this hits the nail on the head. Her group is also aware of where these girls ranked them and that these girls want to be at other sororities with their friends yet they keep having to go back unwillingly to her group and she feels like they dread the idea of opening an envelope on Bid Day with their name on it. At which point they'd drop it and leave and her group has 10 girls show up instead of the huge numbers all around them.

I understand that this can be a difficult thing to deal with because the sisters love their org so much.

Something that we have been dealing with a lot in my SAI chapter are girls that want to get initiated, but then don't want to show up to meetings etc. I have come to the realization that I would rather have 5 super dedicated women who are excited to be sister than 35 women who don't really care, just want the letters.

Of course, we don't have a quota. It's probably harder for NPC groups to aim for that when they have a national leader hounding them to get numbers up, not worrying about the dedication of the new women.

a friends daughter(who was a legacy to 2 groups) was rushing last year at a competitive school. the school has the pnms list their top "x amount" of choices and then rank the other sororities in the order that they would like to receive an inviation if the "x" number of #1's don't all invite them back. she did pretty well, but was dropped by some of her top choices and had to accept invitations to sororities she would have preferred to drop. it became quite frustrating to her and other pnms that they were not allowed to decline an invitation to a sorority they did not want to join. she is a polite, well mannered young woman and i am sure that she was as gracious to the sorority members as they were to her.

i understand the concept behind "maximizing your choices" and i understand that panhellenic is trying to level the playing field and hopes to help smaller chapters increase their membership. i just don't know if forcing pnms to return to chapters that they have no desire to join, is the way to do it. does it actually increase a smaller chapters chances of increasing their total chapter size, or does it perhaps emphasize to pnms who did want to be there, the campus stereotype they may have to deal with for the next 4 years?

to answer the original questions: i always put our best rushers on our rush crushes. we make sure they meet the campus movers and shakers, the chapter officers, as many sisters as possible without overwhelming the pnm. the previous days rusher will make sure to go over and say hello and remark on how glad they are to see the pnm back today.

Honestly I think this can backfire. After looking through the retro recruitment threads, many posters have had an active tell them the deal-maker sentence at pref, "I'm so happy you're here"...including myself.

However, if a PNM was forced to go to a party of a chapter that they didn't want to be a part of (to maximize their options) and they knew that this chapter is struggling for members... having a sister say "I'm so happy you are here" could make the PNM think "Well DUH you're happy I'm here-- you need members!!!". This would be especially true if the PNM did not rank the chapter very high.

Although I have not yet done recruitment on the other side, I think that one of the best tools that chapters used to get me to feel important was when they told me how I could contribute to the chapter. So many times recruitment conversations focus on the people- high schools, sports and activities, interests. And I'm not just saying "Oh you played volleyball? Well we have a great intramural program...!!!" I would say compliment the heck out of them, and tell the PNM how you could see her taking on leadership roles, inspiring younger members in the future, and seriously contributing to an already-fabulous organization!

Now, this may freak some PNMs out. But when the chapters I rushed talked to me about opportunities for me to participate in the chapter, I felt like I was a part of their chapter, I was just interviewing for how I would contribute. This also returns the focus to the PNM, and downplays any chapter activities that might not be so great (poor campus reputation, trouble with scheduling socials, not so great attendance at greek events...?).

But again, if you were to take this approach you would have to be very careful. There is a fine line between "You could really contribute and be a part of something great" and "We need you to be an officer because we don't have enough sisters to fill officer positions".

Another idea- although drastic- is to change the way you go about your pref ceremony. If the PNMs have not been interested in you all along, they are probably not going to be interested in candles, ritual, and sisterhood. So, my idea would be that when you match up PNMs with actives to make sure the actives don't go straight into "This is why I love my chapter" story. Have them repeat things from previous days- philanthropy you support, any good socials or events you have that the PNM might not know about... because more than likely the prior days the PNM hasn't even been paying attention. Doing this may give them the chance to re-evaluate your chapter and the PNM will give your pref ceremony a shot.

I think the idea of having them connect with a familiar face is also a good one- just make sure the PNM likes the active!

How far are we forcing these women to attend? Do they have to go to pref? If you feel like the presence of these women is jeopardizing the integrity and beauty of your pref ceremony - which for some groups has ritual overtones - then I don't think you should have to have uninterested rushees there. The Panhellenic needs to change it. The last thing I as a rushee would want to remember my pref by is some other rushee standing beside me looking like someone shot her puppy.

A lot of times it seems the things Panhellenic does to "help" the smaller chapters hurts them instead - this thread shows that. There's only so much you can do to help a group - when it comes down to it, ABC still has 50 girls and all the other sororities have 175. Some girls don't care about that, and the fact that ABC can't get the chance to focus on those girls because others are being "forced" to come is unfair to everyone involved.

If she's THAT far gone that you need to start from square one rushing her, you might as well not even count on seeing her at your house the next day, even if there is a bid card printed with her name on it.

I totally agree. There are always some PNMs who are unaffected by tent talk, but almost all the ceremonies I went to for pref were full of girls who seemed genuinely happy and excited to be at that ceremony. I would feel really stupid if I was happy to be at a ceremony that others were upset to be at.

I think it may be key to seek out the members who would best fit your membership early on in the game. Of course, every chapter wants the HS Cheerleading captain, the valedictorian, or the rediculously pretty girls. But we all need to be realistic. Find the girls that you would be proud to get to know and, like FSUZeta said, get your best rushers on them. They may not be the prettiest or have the best resume, but they would be great for your chapter and you can't afford to lose them early on when the PNM needs to narrow down from 7 to 5 chapters (or whatever!). Most of us can figure out early on in the game who's going to go where, so don't waste your time with girls who are obviously not a fit for your chapter.

Maybe alter that with "I'm so glad you came back - I wanted to ask you about that Sex Pistols bootleg you mentioned the other night." In other words, you're happy to see her as a PERSON, not just a potential member, and even if she doesn't pledge, you'll continue to be happy when you see her.

The only problem is in telling the difference between girls who know they would rather drop out of rush and be independent than join these groups and the girls who never even really looked at them because they were still getting asked back elsewhere.

How will the second group even know that they should give these groups a look until their favorites release them?
If we give girls the power to cut groups even when they don't have have full parties in the first couple of rounds, I think they'll be a lot of girls dropped from rush after third. Girls who may not have realized what the real situation was until it was too late.

We could allow girls to cut groups even without full parties only at the preference level. If they aren't going to list the group on the bid card, it doesn't really do much good for anyone to make them attend pref. I think pref can make a difference when a girl is even partially open to the group, but if she really has a "I'd rather join Al-Qaeda" (remember that quota?) attitude, it may be pointless and even detrimental for her to be there.

But since I don't think having to go to a party that you don't want to go to is really that big a hardship in life, I really don't have that much sympathy for the "why do I have to go back there?" PNMs, and I guess it shows. I understand the point about how it might not do any good to make them go from the chapter's point of view; but the only way to figure out that "yes it does some good" is to find out that there are even worse outcomes for the struggling chapters.

ETA: once it catches on that "cool girls don't even pref XYZ," isn't it likely that returns will go down even more?

A large percentage of PNM's are going to have their minds made up about you before they walk through your door at recruitment b/c of the rumor mill. There is no overnight solution, but I think a big part of the solution involves building chapter morale and strengthening your campus image during the school year. It's also about knowing how to rush someone, to make a personal connection with a PNM and getting her to click with you and what your chapter is all about.

Once the PNMs come into your event, they already have a perception in their heads, and you have less than 30 minutes to turn that perception around. There's a lot to be said for the notion that recruitment is "365 days a year." You have to have an internal and external PR plan for your chapter, keep members motivated and excited and spread that spirit to the rest of the Greek community.

Absolutely. I agree completely. (And this is part of why I think GLOs miss the boat on what gets communicated to smaller chapters. Instead of lifting up and focusing on the positive and trying to help make the positive shine. . .)

But for chapters going into recruitment this fall, what are some of the techniques a chapter could use to help members develop personal connections and try to click with PNMs?

If you were helping with a pre-recruitment workshop on rushing, what would you tell people?

I'd remind them not to be on the hard sell for the group. I think it's more important for a girl to feel like you really wanted to get to know her and that you liked her than it is to tell her anything in particular about your group. So if the PNM is telling you about something or interested in one topic, follow her conversational lead and her interest. Don't feel like you have to hit every possible point of interest in your house tour conversation or tell her every aspect about the philanthropy. If she wants to talk about her volunteer work, be interested in her volunteer work. Ask her about that and follow that lead. Make her feel clicked with, basically, as much as you can. And then after the party write down notes about what she was like and interested in and think about who in the group shares her interests.

Which brings me to a another point, at big chapters make some effort to make sure everyone actually knows each other well in terms of hometown, majors, interests etc. Ideally, you'd do it authentically with sisterhood activities throughout the year. But it seems like there are some stealthy out of house members who will retain some enigmatic qualities to all but their closest friends. So at the very least, play funny games in work week or give out witty bios, maybe based on fake facebook pages.

So that if PNM College-Radio-Station-Girl comes back the next round, XYZ member College Radio Station Girl can look out for her and talk to her [ETA: as a person with a shared interest] , rather than having XYZ intramural softball and BSU member tell her what XYZ means to her [ETA: in some kind of generic connectionless way].

I know what I'm saying probably seems ridiculously obvious.

But I know that when I was nervous, I reverted to travel-guide-and-sorority-historian-giving-a-lecture mode. Luckily, it didn't happen with real PNMs that I remember, but I can remember mock rushing one of our alums, and she was either playing the part of silent PNM or as a matter of personality she was just kind of a nodder rather than a conversationalist (she was regal with white hair and seemed very aloof; it was sort of like mock rushing the queen of England ), but I got nervous and was much more worried about the stuff I was telling her being right than I was about "rushing" her.

Don't 'over-rush' PNM's... If you sit for 20 minutes and talk all about how much your sorority means to you, and she's sitting there staring at you with a blank expression on her face it means you lost her somewhere. If you go up to her with 15 of your sisters everytime you see her and tell her how much you love her, it'll make you look creepy and desperate.

We're all trained to tell PNM's all about what a wonderful sisterhood we have and all the facts, etc, but I was most impressed with a sorority during recruitment when they answered whatever questions I had concisely and we spent the whole party talking about something completely random. I remember talking about shoes with one active during a recruitment party and that was the day I decided I absolutely loved them!!

It's normal to feel like you have to "sell, sell, sell" when you are the underdog, but if you over-sell yourself girls will actually become less interested in you than they may have started out (if that makes sense).

excellent point.

One of the groups I rushed I really liked...but they were SO "gung ho" they scared me. Nonstop talk about GHI activities, living in the GHI suite, GHI mixers, GHI's motto....it was a relief to go to ASA the next day and converse with normal girls who just happened to be in a sorority and who had lives outside of it, too. I was right about GHI, because one of my dormmates pledged them and they gave her crap about getting an apartment with someone from another sorority and not staying at the mixers long enough.

Honestly, the thing most pnms want is to make a connection, not hear a laundry list of your accomplishments or philanthropy events.

I think it applies even when you aren't the underdog. The less you have to consciously sell your group because instead you make people feel comfortable and at home and feel a connection to you as people the better.

At some point, usually prefs, there has to be something completely specific and wonderful about your GLO, but even then should be the authentic sisterhood which shows rather than a narrative you tell.

ETA: Carnation, what did you tell her? What did your group do for your VIPs?

It would be hard for me to give her advice because I haven't been in her shoes. As a Greek advisor, I've seen the pain of PNMs who had to go to parties where they didn't want to be while their friends had full schedules. I've watched the "less desirable" groups gamely try to carry on their parties with sparsely filled rooms. I've seen the hurt of those groups when they got their very short new member lists and again when half of those girls didn't bother to show up.

I really feel like the best advice will come from people who have personally and successfully dealt with this.

I was afraid that was too narrow and perhaps self-conscious a group to expect hear much from, but I'm certainly interested to hear what the chapters formerly so struggling the PNMs cried but who have turned it all around have to say.

Every year, we had a few women show up to bid day in tears. Generally, it was best to pair them with women who had similar experiences in previous years, and had since come to love the chapter. Also, these are usually the women most concerned with social status and such, so we really spent a lot of time emphasizing our social calendar to them and making sure older girls invited them out a lot.

For the unhappy girls at rush parties, remember that the ones who still have top chapters on their lists are not likely to cry, they will be more bored/annoyed, or, if they are well-mannered, pleasant. The ones who are crying have been cut from all the chapters they wanted, and either have a less-than-full schedule, or a schedule of chapters they think they are too good for. Therefore, they now have to get over themselves and choose the one that is the best fit, or withdraw from recruitment.

33girl gives great advice about just talking to them like you would a friend, not like you are trying to sell your sorority. To add to what she said, pair her with a rusher who has something in common, and say something like "I'm so excited to meet you. Rachel told me that you are just crazy about foreign films and wanted us to talk."

That is fantastic! And so fast too! In two years!

Who lead you in developing the marketing plan? Was it just your chapter?

I know this is off-topic from this thread but I would LOVE to hear a marketing/imaging plan for a chapter.

Not necessarily. I think by the time recruitment starts winding down, and you are left with chapters you weren't looking at joining originally, a PNM has to think if she still wants to be greek or not. I know that when this happened to me- when I got cut from 2 of my favorite chapters- I kind of had to say "okay, what's left?", and really look again at the chapters I had previously dismissed.

You're never going to get some girls back, but I don't think it would hurt to reiterate some things that were talked about in previous rounds so that the PNM can get a handle on the chapter before she completely dismisses them because she can't remember a darn thing from previous rounds.

I agree wholeheartedly. For several years, my undergrad chapter struggled with formal recruitment, we were great at informal but when formal would come around some of the members who'd joined via informal weren't comfortable with the setup of Formal Recruitment. It took a long time for them to realize that while it was a different method of joining the chapter (then they had) it wasn't something awful to be feared and it was a lot less time consuming in the long run than COBing 5 days a week, every week of the semester. That is so draining on a chapter.

As many of the previous posters have stated, the solution isn't going to happen during a recruitment party with an unhappy PNM who doesn't want to be at your party in the first place. Chances are good that you know she doesn't want to be there anyway. Especially if it's pref. I think that in that situation it's probably best just to be as kind and gracious to her as possible but spend more time focusing on the PNMs that want to be there and will hopefully be joining your chapter the next day. That's not to say that a conversation that you have with her couldn't turn it around, she won't love your ceremony, the speeches won't strike some chord in her, but if she's just killing an hour until she heads off to ABC...

The real solution is a 24/7 PR effort, it's developing a PR plan and then implementing it. The undergrad chapter that I attended and used to advise started developing a PR plan a few years ago. AFAIK, this is something that all of Thetas undergrad chapters have to do. I also think it's important to have a committee develop the plan, but at some level, other members of the chapter have to be aware of the plan. Otherwise, how can you expect them to participate? Honestly, I also think this is where my undergrad chapter has started to see some of their success. Yes they continued to COB (so does every other chapter on campus to some extent), but they aren't getting 9 girls thru formal and 18 girls via informal anymore, it's more or less the other way around.

And Faith4Keep I'm going to be sending you a very longwinded PM!

The thing that I think turned things around for my chapter was really spending a lot of time pre-recruiting (we have deferred recruitment) in addition to a new PR plan. When we got to know our rush crushes very closely outside of recruitment it was a lot easier to get them to forget about a stereotype and join the group with the girls they love. Sometimes all it took was three or four sisters being very close with them and really motivated to represent the chapter well. I think the important thing for us was that we didn't get to know them as sorority women.. we actually became friends and naturally introduced them to our friends (and v/v they introduced us to other freshmen). It becomes a lot easier when you know the girls to make them feel chosen-- they obviously know that you want them to be your sister since you are already friends..
My pledge class was about a third of quota my freshman year bringing our chapter size to about half of total.... Once our class got initiated, we got motivated and determined to turn it around. We took almost 2/3 of quota the next year and my class alone knew almost every one of the new pledges personally before recruitment began. We kept it up the next year with close to 2/3 quota and then my senior year we took something like 3 less than quota (with only 3/7 actually making quota) and ended up over total.

"chosen"
 

I would look to see if any of those new members had a personal rec, and then have any alums who wrote those personal recs write notes saying something to show that they were pulling hard for her all along. You need to give these girls something to hold on to. This post has been on my mind since the day I read it.

Are chapters allowed to give PNM's notes/ written letters during recruitment parties in formal rush as long as they take them back at the end and don't allow the PNM to keep it? I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't be like showing them something on a poster or a brochure... So, if a sister couldn't be there for some reason and had a close connection with a girl, or if there is a not-in-house legacy in the group, or something to that effect could they write a letter to the PNM and have an active member give it to her? Could an alum who knows her and perhaps wrote a recommendation for her write a letter that is given during a party?

I feel like it could be a very powerful recruitment tool in some cases (depending on how well you know someone). The thought that someone obviously took the time outside of recruitment to write a personal letter would mean a lot to some girls. Speaking for myself, I've always been more moved by writing than someone just speaking to me (but it could just be me)..

Anyone know if that is allowed??