craziest Dirty Rushing story?
 

I am new to GC, so please forgive me if there has been a previous thread on this. I did a search, but didn't find anything.

My question is: what is the most egregious dirty rushing example you have heard of or had happen to you??

I'm writing this because I just attended a welcome party for my alma mater, where students who had been accepted to the college could mingle with current students and alumni. I heard an XYZ sister tell an incoming freshman girl that if she wanted a bid, "I can make it happen". I was really blown away and didn't know what to say! Now, I think she was recently initiated, so probably didn't know the rules (much less that one sister cannot guarantee the whole house will agree) but I have heard crazy stories from UGA about people being taken out of the houses during rounds, etc.

What is your craziest story?

At a school near me [which only has locals], one of the chapters was suspended by the school for telling 35 girls that they had bids...and then only giving out 15 [or so]. The remaining girls complained to the administration, because they had [obviously] not pursued other options.

This same group also hazes like CRAZY. You would not even believe some of the stuff they do there. I know this because my best friend is in another sorority at that school, and her little sister is in that sorority.

KSUviolet06 - WOW! That is horrible. I'm glad in that instance that the "bad guy" didn't win. I can't believe that happened! Talk about infractions galore!

A few years before I rushed, a senior (obviously someone who should know better) locked a PNM in a bathroom at a party with some of her sisters and tried to convince her to go XYZ. Needless to say, she'd didn't pledge them.

No kidding -- that is so crazy!

That is seriously SCARY. When I was an undergraduate, there was a sister of a GLO that will remain nameless that stood outside a residence hall drunk, screaming at a PNM that "XYZ is the BEST! If you don't go XYZ, you won't have any friends." They definitely got a fine for that.

The worst cases I see are when most/all of the chapters on campus are far below Total (because Total is too high). It leads to many cases of PNMs being encouraged to drop out of formal recruitment and go through COB because they are better able to guarantee them a spot that way. It becomes quite obvious when 10 women drop out of recruitment and then all immediately go through COR with the same chapter.

Wow.. that's insane. I remember doing the whole recruitment thing on the "other side"... it was so nuts... super early start, super late finish. I didn't even want to think about anything else but finding a few precious hours to sleep... I can't imagine being drunk during recruitment week :p

I remember one of the girls in my music class (before I rushed) telling my friend during class, a few weeks before rush, that she needed to rush, because she would write her a rec, and make sure that she gets in. I didn't know any different at the time, but I was thinking about this incident the other day. Wow.

Of course, this was non-competitive recruitment, and my friend was tall and thin, with blonde hair and blue eyes, had won a few pagents, and was nice as all get out too...she probably could have had her pick of chapters, anyway.

I would venture to say that this young woman had a lot of problems--she left school the year after that, if that is any indication...

It seems like every year that I was in college, we'd have pledges from XYZ sorority tell their friends in our new member class that they really liked us but their new "sisters" told them during rush that we were getting kicked off campus. That was always fun, especially when our new members came to us all upset. :mad:

That was the case with the recruitment on my campus. Not one sorority has been able to maintain chapter total for more than a semester -- ever! However, there are only 3 sororities and the two largest do not want to lower chapter total, obviously.

Basically the dirty rushing I saw was basically gotten away with because the girls in those two largest sororities always claimed that they "didn't understand that rule" or "I thought the rule was X, not Y" and they have never had any types of sanctions for their misbehavior. In my day one sorority invited a fraternity to co-host a COB event. Another time, we were all told that we could not go to this huge fraternity party that was going on the night of preference and half of one of the sororities attended and had all sorts of "unofficial" communication with PNMs. Other times the sorority members would just make things up about the other sororities like "Don't pledge ABC chapter, they are all lesbians" (we had one lesbian member) or "Don't pledge ABC chapter, they don't let their members drink."

I just started advising my chapter as an alum, after having been out of the area for the past 5 years. I am sad to say that things have not changed and the dirty rushing seems to continue without the other sororities ever getting punished or sanctioned.

What are some ideas on how other panhellenic chapters have sanctioned for things like that?

Too many stories to count.. most of these things happened many, many times. Aside from the obvious infractions where members of other fraternities would escort their potentials into and out of our house to get their bid cards stamped, there were rumors spread about our horrific hazing practices (something about a tub full of urine).

Many years, it seemed we were the only group who really cared about the rules of recruitment.

One of my dear, older friends told me that when her brother arrived on the train to attend Ole Miss as a freshman in the 1930s, he got off the train wearing his Sigma Chi badge.

But back in the day, I don't think it was unusual for bids to be given out before school even started. (Although I know nothing about Ole Miss in particular.)

According to the book Bound by a Mighty Vow, the reason the term "rushing" was coined was because for the sorority and fraternity members rushing to the incoming to trains to pin/pledge the members they wanted.

Okay...that's wonderful. Not sure how that's a dirty rushing story.

Was it a pledge pin or the actual badge? If it was pledge pin, that wouldn't be that dirty rushing at all. Currently, the NIC and many campus IFCs allow bids to be extend and accepted over the summer. I'm fairly certain that given the date (circa 1930s), this might have been true for Ole Miss as well. Now, if it was the Badge, then again, given the times, perhaps some sort of summer initiation might have been allowed.

I think she was responding to this:

I was on Panhel exec when I heard about this one...

There was a chapter on our campus which had a reputation for taking only wealthy girls. I'll call it "XYZ". (2 members of this chapter happened to be on Panhel Exec with me, BTW.)

That year, a young woman with a very recognizable family name went through rush at my campus. I'll call her "Kelly". (Her great-grandfather founded a huge national company that you'd all recognize, and her family still owned it.) XYZ was absolutely certain beyond question that "Kelly" would pledge their house just because of her name...before rush even began they were counting on landing her. Their members would openly talk about how great/prestigious it was going to be to have "Kelly" as a pledge. When the talk started getting around amongst sorority members, a lot of people made the assumption that "Kelly" wanted XYZ as much as they obviously wanted her.

Many other chapters were so certain that "Kelly" would end up going XYZ that she got dropped from a lot of chapters...and had pretty heavy cuts between third round and preference. Which was a shame, because she was a dream PNM even without the family name. Smart, gorgeous, funny, friendly...she could have had her pick of almost any house on almost any campus. She was oblivious to how much XYZ was talking her up behind the scenes, and that it was affecting her invitations back to other chapters.

"Kelly" ended up being invited to 2 chapters for preference - XYZ and ABC. ABC was one of the smallest chapters on campus at the time, and they unfortunately often experienced a lot of negative tent talk. (Guys would tell PNMs that the chapter was full of all "fat girls," even though that wasn't true and there were plenty of attractive women there. A few heavier women too, but who cares?)

"Kelly" ended up receiving a bid from ABC.

After Bid Day, "Kelly" came to the Panhel office very confused and said that she thought she had received the wrong bid. (Our whole exec board happened to be there, because we'd just had a brief meeting to wrap up some rush stuff.) We explained briefly how bid matching works and said that she hadn't received the wrong bid...she just matched up with ABC based on where they had each other ranked on their lists.

But...there is a happy ending...

I know you're probably thinking that "Kelly" was confused/upset because she wanted the wealthy, popular XYZ chapter, and assumed that she couldn't possibly have actually matched with the less desireable ABCs.

You'd be wrong though. :) Turns out that "Kelly" was confused and came to our office because of a little run in she'd had with some XYZs. They tracked her down on campus and assured her that she wouldn't be "stuck" with a bid from ABC...there must have been some mistake because she was #1 on XYZs bid list. Surely she should have matched with them! And they assured her that they would get the problem fixed for her.

"Kelly" was concerned because she had intentionally put ABC first...she didn't want to get that bid taken away and be forced to go XYZ. (She didn't know much about bid matching, and when XYZ told her that she had been their #1 she was worried that her own personal ranking might not matter.)

Not knowing that there were 2 XYZs in the room (remember - I said 2 of them were on Panhel exec w/me ;)), she also went on to say that she didn't care much for the XYZs because they never bothered to get to know her during rush...just wanted to talk about her family and certain "status" things. She felt like the ABCs were more interested in getting to know her as an individual person, not just as someone from a prominent family. Although I really did like and get along with the 2 XYZ members on exec with me, the look on their faces was priceless when "Kelly" was telling how relieved she was that she could stay with ABC and not get "stuck" with XYZ. :p

I don't think XYZ ever had a clue that the dirty rushing was going to backfire on them in the end. Its a shame that XYZ's actions affected Kelly's chances with other groups, but as far as I know she remained a happy, involved member of ABC until she graduated. (I graduated while she was a junior, and I recall she was still a member then...whether or not she left that chapter during her senior year, I don't know.)

I don't know if this is dirty rushing, but one of the sororities on my campus was known to do a Dun & Bradstreet on the PNMs they were interested in after the first round of cuts. Two of my friends, both of whom came from respectable homes, were cut after their family incomes didn't meet their standards.

I understand financial responsibility, but a Dun & Bradstreet?!?!?!?!

Is that even allowed without specific consent?

If some GLO asked me to sign a consent to pull a D&B, I'd tell them where to put that consent.

(sigh...I just LOVE crazy recruitment stories!:D)

After a quick Google search to find out what Dun and Bradstreet is, all I can say is :eek: I'm appalled they'd even be ALLOWED to do such a thing or that anyone would even give them the time of day knowing they did that.

During our rush about two years ago i'd say now, things were really competitive (more so than normal) b/c total had been raised (we never hit total, nor do we want to, we're local so it doesn't really matter to us anyway) Anyway, all the girls went to all the parties the first day in the student union. Later that night, one of my sisters was at work at friendly's and (with no lavalier or any letters on) waited on a table FULL of ABC's and about 8 PNM's. (not to mention there is a silent period, so the fact that they were even out with them was bad enough) The ABC's were practically putting letters on these girls and guarenteeing them bids all over the place. Finally, when my sister dropped the check, she went up to the President of ABC (she knew who she was) and said, i'd be careful what you say, you never know who's listening. I'm in Nu Sig. The girl's face DROPPED and so my sister came to eboard and we reported them. The lost their entire pledge class.

When I went through rush, lawn chants were still the norm. At the end of the party, we were escorted out the door and onto the front walk, then all the sisters would come out and do various songs and chants (think hyper pep rally)

While standing in front of one of the houses, the active right in front of us dropped a piece of paper while she was jumping, clapping and chanting. afterward, she turned and walked back inside the house. One of my fellow rush group members (who had just been rushed by this girl) picked up the piece of paper and written on it was a list of names with notes, stars and other symbols next to it. It was obviously a "cheat sheet" of the rushees from the party.

After we passed the note around (it was easy to decide if we should drop the house based on our rating!) she turned it in to the PX.

The next day the rusher who dropped the paper confronted the rushee and asked why she had turned it in. Turns out, she dropped it on purpose so that the rushee would know she "had" a spot.

Oh, and we had a house get in trouble during skit rounds when another house was doing a "Pepsi" themed skit. Several of the members of ABC started yelling "Drink Coke" in the middle of XYZ's chants (the chants usually followed the theme of the skits).

I'm sure the Pepsi house was mortified, but that is freaking funny.

It would have been funny if both houses were on the same tier- unfortunately the Pepsi house was struggling for numbers and the coke house was one of the strongest houses- so what the members said held allot of weight with the rushees.

D&B's pull publicly available information I believe. But DAMN.

I'm not sure if this story qualifies...

The summer following my Junior year, we kept the house open to both members and non-members (Greek and Non-Greek). The only qualification was the tenants needed to be female. During that summer, I made a lot of great friends with girls from other houses that lived with us.

There was one Independent that lived in the room next door. She was from a well-to-do suburb nicked named "ooo-ahh". She had gone through rush her freshmen year and had preffed ABC. She claimed that she was not extended a bid because there was a cap on how many girls could come from "ooo-ahh". None of us believed her; not my own sisters or those from other houses.

During the summer, we saw a lot of why we would not want her as a sister. Not only did Miss ooo-ahh have a QR, as it was known then (questionable reputation), we caught her several time sneaking her boyfriend up the fire escape at night and doing drugs. She was constantly calling members of ABC and when she would see any one at their house, she would run to see them.

When Miss Ooo-Ahh went through rush as a Sophomore so that she could again try to pledge ABC, she was cut in Round 1 from every house that had girls living with us that summer. I don't know if she made it to Round 4 with ABC, but she never was extended an offer to pledge.

To this day, I don't know if there was a cap on how many girls could be from Ooo-Ahh in ABC. They may have told her that to keep her from bugging them.

my impression from my brief google search was that a D&B was like a credit report... I certainly wouldn't consider mine to be made up of "publicly available info."

It's a credit report for BUSINESSES...you have to pay to be a member and pull reports, but it's mostly public info.

For an individual it would be publicly available information. You need social security numbers and more information to run a credit report. Now, that's not saying that your library fines or your dad's credit woes haven't become public information.

They didn't ask - I assume that they got the information from our registration form. Now that I think about it, the registration form had practically the same information as a rec.

I was terribly glad that I didn't find this out prior to R, because it would have totally freaked me out!

thank you for the clarification!