Univesity of Texas at Arlington- Greek Life?
 

If it's discussion about sorority reputations you seek, I'd suggest going elsewhere. We don't do that here.

Please pay close attention to the stickied posts in the Greek Life and Recruitment forums, thanks.

Oh sweet Jesus. Please, someone explain to me.........why in the hell it is such a big deal to 99% of the people on here to tell someone about the reputations and how well sororities/fraternities "stack up" at different schools. It's ridiculous. Guess what, every group has a reputation at every school. They aren't all "the same in their own unique little way." That's a PC load of malarkey. I would much rather someone give me a straight up answer than sugar coat one with a bunch of crap that you'll find out isn't true the minute you start rush.

Foxfire J.......I go to Texas and have some friends at UTA. I could find out pretty quickly about most of the sororities there.

Its about trying to be respectful towards all organizations by not fostering or perpetuating any rumors about any particular chapter.

We don't name names on Greek Chat because it's called being Panhellenic.

Because it is unfair to prejudice a PNM without giving her an opportunity to make her own choices. If she hears that the only "good sororities" are ABC and XYZ than she's going to immediately write off the others based on someone else's speculation.

What happens when she gets cut by ABC and XYZ and thinks that it is social suicide if she even considers any other sororities? Answer: she drops of recruitment.

Great. Now the PNM does not get to experience sorority membership and if this trend keeps up, ABC and XYZ will soon be the only sororities on campus, and eventually they will die out, too, because it will eventually be decided that ABC is better than XYZ, and so on....

And what if another PNM at another school stumbles on here and reads that ABC and XYZ are the only chapters to join? She thinks the same things apply to her school, and the cycle continues.

I obviously can't speak for the men, but sorority women work together for the good of the entire Panhellenic system-- not just our own sororities.

^^^ Exalt. :cool: I to hate the "tread lightly, you may get a slap on the hand" mentality about that stuff. We are all adults - I hope. Just talk the chapters up; don't talk the "bad" ones down, surely that would be ok? Or how about a coined-template end statement of "but they are all really good in their own rights" at the end of your post.

Some are adults. But the teenaged girls who are asking these questions are pretty easily swayed by illusions of prestige.

We don't want to set them up for disappointment and we preach that they should be open to joining a sisterhood that is a good fit for them, not a "title."

This isn't exclusive to Greek Chat. Every Panhellenic and Alumnae Panhellenic forum I've ever sat through expresses these same sentiments, and this is what we will continue to do.

I can see both sides.

If the ladies of GC want to be bound by panhellenic niceties, fine. The rest of us, however are not subject to such things, nor do we choose to be.

That said, it's impossible to know whether the OP is really someone worthy of a top-flight organization. She might be a better fit for a less prestigious chapter. In fact, I'd almost assume she is a better fit in one of those other groups since she has to ask the question in the first place assuming, of course that UTA is competitive.

It's not really unfair to prejudice anyone. When they go through rush, they'll figure out who is what. If their goal is to get into a top house, it may be important for them to get their letters of rec in order for that house. Being able to narrow the list a bit will do them a service.

And if they get cut because of their own prejudice? Fine with me. They need to learn to be realistic about their choices.

when someone asks about chapter reputations, and which are the "good" ones and which ones are the "bad" ones, you are depending on someone else's opinion.

when you decided which college to attend, was your decision based on someone elses opinion, or did you go visit the campus, have a look around and get a feel for it yourself?

in my opinion the best ice cream flavor is mocha. someone else might like chocolate or vanilla best. which of us is right? who decides who is right?

the best thing you can do is check out the sororities on your own and form your own opinion.

Opinions are like . . .
 

PLUS - an opinion as to the status of a particular sorority is just that - AN OPINION. You have no idea what the criteria of a particular person is (Most members? Most beautiful members? Sorority your girlfriend belongs to? Highest GPA? Party girls? Most panhellenic awards? On campus the longest? Biggest house?WHAT?). You ask someone who was cut by ABC, she will tell you that DEF (her sorority) is the best, and ABC is the snobby sorority. Fraternity men have their own perspective - but if you date a GHI, what are the odds you are not going to say they are great? If your sweetheart is a JKL, wouldn't you say they are in the top tier?
That's one of many reasons why truly panhellenic women won't recommend certain sororities over others. I'm sure everyone of us thinks our sorority is the very best - I would hope so - but we also know chapters differ, campus to campus, year to year. If you went to the University of Greatness 10 years ago, reputations may have totally changed.
PNM are, by definition, intelligent enough to be accepted to higher education, and if they are mature enough to pledge they should be mature enough to make their choices based on their recruitment experience. By all means - check out the national organizations, the chapter websites, talk to your friends, get to know some members if you can before recruitment - but trusting to an anonymous poster on the internet for your ranking of GLOs doesn't strike me as a good plan.
If you read recruitment threads, you see that often the preconceived notions pnms had of which were the "good" sororities are turned on their heads. I think its better to go in with as open a mind as you can.
As to recs - the advice to get as many as you can is always good.

Teach for America!
 

You really have no idea who you're talking to on here.

You might assume "FSUZeta" is from Florida State U and has the scoop on all the sororities there. But when we assume, we make an ASS out of U and ME. Maybe she's actually from Fitchburg State U, where she transferred after being a ZTA for half a semester at another school. Do you really want to trust her opinion?

People post stuff on here, half the time, just so if you google the group that's what will come up. If you don't believe me, look at some of the stuff that gets posted on Urban Dictionary.

(my thanks to FSUZeta for goodnaturedly serving as an example for my story. she really is from Florida State, though ;) )

I don't think that posting rankings would do much good because you don't know who the person is who posts them and you don't know the qualifications of the person asking to know if she has a shot at the groups you think are great anyway.

You really can basically create a lot of situations where the girls feel like they have to drop out of recruitment because the "best" groups cut them even though they wouldn't have shared the standards that the person doing the rankings used.

But I do think it's funny that we pride ourselves on being Panhellenic and then let the mask slip in other ways.

And I think we kind of over assume our own importance when we act like, well our opinions are worth reading on everything else, but tiers, rankings, and reputation, well that's just not spoken about. PNM are as capable of knowing whose advice to take about rankings as they are about recommendations, clothes, etc. There's just something jerky about participating in the rankings yourself.

Hey, we're only human!:rolleyes:

GC is a really nice and fun environment. It actually helps me get through many a boring work day. Where it is lacking "Greekness" is actual talk about real GLO's. That's all....

How about after someone says "The best on that campus are AXO and DZ", then says "in my opinion".

Is that ok?

Hey, no one is stopping you. I don't think we could if we tried - :).
But we are entitled to our opinion about doing so. And if a pnm is foolish enough to let some unknown person on a message board unduly influence her, she deserves what she gets. I just hate the idea that she might miss out on a super opportunity because she is dead set on ABC or DEF from the get-go, and doesn't give GHI or XYZ a shot. My goal is always to give pnm every opportunity to find where they fit in, whether or not it is the top house.

No, because what's stopping the PNM from making that her opinion before going through rush?

We don't want that here.

To quote a line from the wonderful folx at AKA Ave...

WE'VE. GOT. THIS. THANKS.

If we were all so "Panhellenic," then these reputations wouldn't exist at all.

Give it a rest. If they don't find it out reputations here, they'll find it somewhere else (and maybe those that tell them about the stereotypes would be a whole lot less hateful about it.).

This is greekchat, and why would you not expect them to come here and try to find out everything they possibly can about the possibilities in Greek life?

Again, the problem is a house's "reputation" is very subjective.
And there is plenty here to help a pnm to prepare and discuss greek life without going into some sort of ranking of specific glos at individual campuses.

As to being panhellenic - speak for yourself. I am in a part of the country where my glos has no chapters. I formed an alumnae panhellenic in order to help young women from around here pledge other glos because I am that committed to the Panhellenic Creed. I gave lectures to high school seniors for years about preparing for recruitment - and never mentioned my affiliation. I daresay I qualify as panhellenically minded.

You know and I know that people tend to overlook those last three words - "in my opinion."

AGUGA, I don't think it's so much feeling that our opinions are valid on things like how release figures work and not valid on the "best" sorority on so and so campus, more that you can give generic answers (within reason) to the first type of question.

We used to have TONS of people who would come on and ask "what is ASA like at your campus?" for their OWN sorority. People were honest, and invariably, the OP and a bunch of other people in the sorority got upset, because invariably, someone posting was at a campus where that sorority just wasn't doing very well. So we just don't do it anymore. It doesn't accomplish anything positive.

This was the girls more than the guys. I've seen fraternity discussions where everyone seems to say what they feel and no one gets offended. But then again I think that goes back to the fact that guys seem to believe they will make the fraternity, and girls believe the sorority will make them. It's a simple difference in the sexes.

Oh, and Kevin mentioned something about if girls want to get into a "top" house they need to get rec letters. If they are in that kind of a cutthroat rush - it has NOTHING to do with them cutting the sorority, it has to do with the sorority cutting them. Point being in that kind of rush women should have recs for ALL the sororities they can get, not just the "top" ones. If someone sees that ASA is the top sorority at LSU, they knock themselves out getting ASA recs and blow off everything else, they're going to have a rude awakening when they get cut the first day because ASA at LSU had more legacies than it had room for and everyone who wasn't a legacy got released. They then have no recs to the other sororities, who may cut them as well, and they might end up only in the "bottom" house anyway.

Then let them go elsewhere for it.

Check the archives. Threads about sorority reps are usually promptly locked...usually for the reasons already listed above. It's been that way from the beginning and I say it's worked well.

glad to help out 33!;)

It's not that I want to see a bunch of reputation threads. There are other places to go for that I think and it's a part of recruitment which rolls around soon enough.

I just don't think it's worth getting bent out of shape about one way or another.

I agree. It always starts off with the OP asking about reps. Then a GC regular explains why rep threads aren't allowed. And then someone else bitches about how they should be allowed. And the debate goes on...and on. It's a never-ending cycle.

I'm surprised that the mods don't lock these threads sooner.

You know, I understand perfectly all of y'alls reasoning behind not posting about reputations and not posting "opinions" about chapters.........but I am still kind of left shaking my head and laughing.

Some of you may think that a rundown of a sorority is a subjective opinion.............have you not considered that the rundown may be nothing but a spot on, very correct discription? I'm not going to name names, but at Texas there are sororities that are just plain bad, simple as that. It isn't an opinion. It's a very real truth. They have terrible numbers, don't participate in anything, and generally don't even have a shot at getting girls that were cut by the strong houses. I'm not being mean, or cruel, or biased. I'm being honest. There are chapters like these everywhere. I see nothing wrong with telling potential rushees about them either.

So the PNMs should PM Mac if they want the honest truth about any tiers in TX, SEC or any other Southern university or LAC?:)

If they're really THAT different from the other sororities on campus, won't the rushees be able to tell right away, though? I mean, the OP is going to a campus with only FOUR NPC orgs (am I right?). Won't she be able to tell right away if a group falls into this "just plain bad" group? Why should we make it our job to tell her? Why not just say, "Hey, there are only 4 groups at UTA, and you'll probably be able to tell how they 'stack up' during rush."

Honestly, it's what I do. I know he can give me a very specific take from a particular point of view.

I disagree with him though about there being truly bad groups even as he defined it at UGA. Even groups that have struggled with numbers at one point or another have always been involved and successful with extracurriculars and campus leadership and participate fully in campus life, except probably for having socials with the groups that Macallen would say were the best.

You can be a smart ass all day long....I'm simply being honest.

..........yeah though, I would be more than happy to give an honest rundown of schools that I am very familiar with.

As I said before, I know next to nothing about anything at UTA. Yeah she may be able to tell right off the bat. I still find nothing wrong with telling her beforehand.

Actually I was being serious. As one who has been accused of being preoccupied with rankings many times on GC, I find your tier posts quite refreshing (and accurate).

If that's the case then I apologize. I just read it that way. Definitely sorry.

Well even if you did think some were bad, I think you'd be clear about the standard that you were using. There may be groups you would think were truly terrible, but it wouldn't be because they didn't participate in anything. Participate in the stuff you considered worthwhile, maybe, who knows?

But as I said before, unless you know what a girl's options were, it doesn't really help her or the groups that much to give her the breakdown. If someone needed a car, you could tell her how great certain kinds are, but if she can only afford something at the Honda level, does it make any sense to sell her on Mercedes?

ETA: I apologize for that lame attempt at analogy.

Haha, no I understand. I see your point.

.....it's a good one.

Why is it the men on here feel the need to comment on sorority or women's fraternity affairs? As some have said, many of us would like to keep things Panhellenic. Anyone who wants to could easily PM the OP with that info if need be, even the men on here. I agree with OTW. "Stay in your lane."

I understand what you are saying, but guys' opinions about reputation matter a lot to PNMs, probably too much. The same way that fraternities will give rush shirts to pretty girls on some campuses, what guys say about the "good" groups matters a lot. We can pretend otherwise on GreekChat and just wait for them to get to campus. That's fine by me.

Is this a reason to go back to fall recruitment? Perhaps instead of following their instincts, the impressionable female freshmen listen to men saying ABC are wonderful,party-hardy girls while GHI are all sticks-in-the-mud and QQQ is composed of the overly-friendly girls.

Overly friendly girls: whatever do you mean?;)

I'm accustomed to fall recruitment, so I can't really say.

I'm kind of a Greek life fatalist about some things. There's not a lot of tinkering that schools or Panhellenics can do to change the desires and behaviors of 18 years about social groups.

When I stop and think about it, I'm actually pretty impressed at what the NPC is able to do in terms of recruitment and ensuring the success of as many groups as possible, but there's probably a limit.

Considering why most of us were founded, I'd say guys' opinions definitely matter too much. But the times change and campuses vary...ah well.
OP: Good luck with recruitment, I hope you find the info you are looking for.

The difference is though, you seem to be preoccupied with national rankings, not campus ones. I've never seen macallan say "DG is the #1 national sorority and they're the best everywhere" or anything of the like.

Oh, and as far as listening to what guys say about the sororities...there are as many opinions as there are guys. If you talk to Joe who's in the best fraternity on campus, who just got screwed over by Jenny who's in the best sorority on campus, he's not going to have ANYTHING good to say for Jenny or her sisters...even if 2 weeks ago he would have praised them to the heavens...and if he's talking to another girl, he sure as hell isn't going to tell her that's the reason why.

At least with Spring Rush, they will have heard the stories, but if they're truely interested, they have time to check the groups out themselves, outside of formal rush, and form their own opinion.