2007 Thread for Moms of PNMs!
 

A lot of us have been corresponding! Let's see if we can get some good discussions going here!

My daughter went through recruitment at a large Midwest school Fall 2006. If anyone has any questions, I'd love to help!

My D went through formal recruitment in Spring 2007 at a southern LAC with a high greek population. I advise a chapter of my own GLO at a nationally ranked university with fall rush. I second the offers of advice!

Thank you for all offers of advice because we can use them!

Although I have had 5 daughters rush and pledge, every recruitment is new and anxiety-inducing. As y'all know, anything can happen. Legacies can be dropped, PNMs can get bad rushers, you name it!

My daughters went through rush Fall of 2006 at a large southern university. I would be happy to answer questions.

ZTA 72:)

my daughter(now my sister) pledged fall 2006 and i am the recruitment advisor to a nearby chapter. i would be happy to help,too.

Okay, as the first mom to report in: my 6th daughter rushed this past week, got a great bid, and is very tired and happy today. As usual, rush was a mixed bag;some good things and some not so good.

Her recruitment counselor told them that they had to go to 2 prefs if invited. I don't believe that can be enforced because they would then be penalized if they suicided. So then their RC told them they couldn't suicide at all. Definitely wrong! Although it didn't hurt my daughter, I have to wonder how many women it could have affected.

A friend's daughter just rushed at GSU, and was told that she couldn't suicide a particular group. She had friends who suicided and got the sorority they wanted, but she got her second choice. She is going through with pledging, but was very disappointed - she felt that if she had suicided and did not get in she could have rushed later in the year.
My daughter is going through rush at UGA, so I am anxious to hear her round 2 invites tomorrow morning.

I understood that not going to the max number of prefs or not listing all the parties that you preffed would be treated the same way: not maximizing options. So you couldn't be a quota addition, but that you could be snap bid or COBed. Is that not how you understood it?

Well, if they'd suicided but not gotten a bid, they still could have COBed, just not received a snap bid, I believe.

It wouldn't make much sense to have different outcomes for a girl who didn't attend the max pref or didn't list all the groups, to me anyway. Either way, they declined the interest of one group. I don't think either one should be penalized, unless not being eligible for QA is a penalty.

The rule about being forced to ATTEND Preference parties is a campus-to-campus thing. For instance, one campus that I work with has the rule that if you do not attend all parties to which you are invited, you will be released from recruitment by Panhellenic. ** I should note that the NPC MOI does state that the quota additions process should not include those women who failed to attend events for which there was room on their schedules. Not a unanimous agreement, but still a strong recommendation. So some campuses can choose to boot PNMs altogether for skipping parties unexcused, but others would just exclude them from QA.

However, no campus can force a potential member to RANK all chapters that they preffed. The only "penalty" or consequence of suiciding (intentional single preference) is the risk of not getting matched through regular matching or quota additions.

As an example: Many many campuses are now using ICS for recruitment (fabulous). ICS keeps track of all parties that PNMs are invited to and that appear on their schedules. If a PNM is invited to two preference parties, but only physically attends one and then ranks only one, ICS still shows her as a non-maximizing PNM. It shows that she received two invitations and therefore should rank two chapters. If a PNM receives only one preference invitation and then attends and ranks only one, she shows as a PNM who maximized.

So when we are assigning quota additions, we look only at those who maximized their options but remained unmatched. The non-maximizing are immediately set aside. While a woman who ISP'ed and didn't match is ineligible for QA, she is eligible for snap bidding - though chances are good that she will not accept the snap bid since she already indicated that she would accept a membership invitation from only chapter.

Thank you for enlightening us there! Two of my daughters have been at campuses where they were told they had to rank both and I've always wondered what could have resulted from that.

Can someone explain how the continuous open bidding (COB) works....my D was invited back to 6 of 12 events today...4 were her favorites, and she is a legacy in her number 1 choice with personal recs from my sorority sisters who've known her since birth. If, heaven forbid, she is cut out of her top choices tomorrow, I see her as not going forward. If that happens, can she receive a COB, and who really does that? Our chapter always made quota.

Confused and hoping for the best . . . .

The chapters that will be COBing are those who:

1) Are at total but didn't make quota - can open bid up to quota
2) Aren't at total but did make quota, but quota failed to bring them up to total - can bid up to total
3) Don't make quota or total - can bid up to total

Which would be 33girl's #1 situation.

The situation I was thinking of is if a chapter wasnt at Q or T at the end of formal recruitment - but I figured #1 was the same as what I was asking - which is why I deleted it...just not fast enough. Hah.

I have a daughter at UGA going through Rush this week. Despite the incredible heat in Athens, seems like everything has been going well for her.

Did you send gifts to your daughters after commitment day? If so, what are some ideas? Any particular web site that delivers gift baskets with sorority para?

COB, suiciding, etc
 

I missed the parent meeting at UGA on Friday -- is that why all these terms are "greek" to me? (sorry for the pun, couldn't resist!)

Is there somewhere to find the meaning of these acronyms or slang?

My d was invited to either 8 or 10 today ( i forget which she said) Is this encouraging because she has seen girls with all 12 - do some girls get called back to only 1 or 2 and then possibly cut out of the process by tomorrow? What are the chances of having 8 or 10 call backs and getting cut out of the process? With 1300 girls rushing how many spots are there in the 17 sororites for this year? Last year we were told about 7 didn't get in at UGA.

Also, a friend of mine told me she knows of another girl who visited Athens all summer and basically was "invited" to join many sororities....her boyfriend was there with the frats and I know that some of the guys have already accepted their bid because they partied up there this summer but I didn't think the sororities could do that.... see why I'm clueless? I'm confused!

www.bulldogbaskets.com

This company is based in Athens and they have been in business for several years.

last year when my daughter pledged, we sent her flowers-not white violets, because they are nigh impossible to find-but white flowers with grey and turquiose ribbon.flowers delivered to the house always seem to make an impression on the new member and the initiated sisters!

when we attended parents weekend a week after bid day, we brought a zta frame for her. i also gave her several gifts for her initation. even though i attended her initiation, i shipped the gifts. enjoy shopping for your daughter!

dear clueless-8 to 10 invitations on 12 party day is good. for any pnm , not receiving any invitations is always a possibility, on any day-we can't give you odds. the best advice i know to share, is for your daughter to maximize her options and accept all invitations that she can.

sororities are not allowed to extend bids prior to formal fall recruitment. if a pnm believes that she has been extended a bid during the summer, she may be very disappointed when the actual bids come out on bid day in the fall.

fraternities operate under totally different rules and at some schools it is okay to extend bids to men in the summer.

COB is the continuous open bidding....that was my question, too. Suiciding is attending the Preferentials round and then putting only one top choice....again, not in the PNMs best interest. Rank as many as you are invited to attend.

I'm still getting clarification on numbers of call backs, too. However, a good way to look at this is that if you didn't attend 12 events today, you didn't get as hot, tired and sweaty (and perhaps overwhelmed) and maybe were able to put your better, cooler, fresher foot forward. Also, perhaps you were able to better narrow down the sorority that fits you.

Oh yeah, I have a daughter going through rush, too!
 

All of her friends will be done by the time my daughter starts recruitment at "an undisclosed location" on Saturday. There will be four girls from their high school going through together. Three of them ended up on the same dorm floor (this happened to my older daughter--the only 4 girls from our high school all ended up on the same floor!) My daughter lives in a different dorm and her roommate is also going through recruitment.

She is excited, we have everything ready to go after getting the stamp of approval from her older sister.

Good perspective. It's always tough to receive heavy cuts in the first few rounds, but in some ways, I think it can really help a PNM sort out how she feels about the remaining sororities. It's been a mantra on here, but we all know "it only takes one." If you've found the sorority that you love and that loves you right back, it won't matter if you had the pick of the pack or been cut by nearly everyone.

legacy ?
 

I was surprised to hear of a legacy with no grade problems cut after first round?? Oops, mom who told me only had 1/2 of a text message-- sorry

Welcome to the SEC.

Next question- after day one, niece was told to list top favorites and rank bottom four- found that odd; would think you would rank tops?? any feedback

Some schools use a computer system where they rank all favorites a #1 and then the rest of the chapters as 2, 3 and so on.

When my daughter went through recruitment two years ago, they had to pick up their invites and if there were extras, they declined; then they had to come back to get their schedules and go to their parties.

Ranking cuts out that step of picking up invites and declining extras--if you get too many, they know who to leave off and then the schedules are already done. Her school started doing this last year and it saves time on the panhellenic side, obviously.

My daughter and her roommate finished their rush week at the University of Southern Mississippi yesterday. They are both very tired, but extremely happy.

My daughter is now a very excited new member of Delta Gamma and her roommate is a Kappa Delta.

Random hijack - I'm always happy when girls pledge 2 letter chapters! I know there's been so many times when I get "Sigma Kappa what? Don't you have a third letter? Why don't you have a third letter? Are you jealous of groups with a third letter?" :rolleyes:

/hijack

I'll clarify this because I know your neice is going through at Mizzou- in years past, PNMs wouldn't rank after they visited the chapters at the end of the day. Instead, they would meet with their Pi Chis at about 6 am, receive their invites for the day, and choose to which houses they return. This took awhile, and it was always a little embarrassing for the girls who didn't have as many choices, because their slips of paper were noticeably smaller than the other girls'.

With this new system, the girls are still cutting 13 chapters down to 9- but this way, they don't have to get up early, because Panhel can easily match them up with their top 9. If any of those chapters don't invite them back, then they pull from the bottom 4 they ranked. This way, no one has to get up so early, Panhel has more than just a few hours to put everything in the computer and get everyone's schedules, and it usually saves the PNMs from having a list of chapters that is waaay shorter than their neighbors.

Congrats to your daughter and her friend. I added them to this list

Congratulations to your daughter and her roommate! Fun times ahead! :)

USM Mom I sent you a private message. Thanks and congrats to your daughter and her friend.

My daughter called today and got called back to 3 at WSU. She could have been called to 6 so she was a little upset. Her top choice didn't call her back:(

wmac, i hope that you daughter was able to enjoy herself at the houses she was invited back to, and that she now has a new favorite!

I was at FSU this weekend watching my daughter's sorority's skit dress rehearsal and I realized I haven't been on Greek Chat in forever. At one time, I was addicted. Now, it seems strange that this is my daughter's final year as an active. It has been such a wonderful experience for her and we have had the opportunity to meet so many of her dear sisters over the past three years. I hope they will be her life for years to come.

New moms, I think back to how stressful rush week was for my daughter but know that even if she hadn't gotten her first choice, she would have been happy in several of the other houses.

Bid day is tomorrow for my daughter at UW. I am planning on sending her flowers at her new house...is that a good idea or shoud it be something else? Does anyone know of a good source in Seattle?