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All of these recruitment threads...
To all the ladies writing recruitment stories:
We understand your desire to stay anonymous throughout your recruitment experience. Many of you work very hard at keeping your school, organizations and your personal identity under wraps, which we've been happy to respect (well, most of us respect that). All that said, I would appreciate it if you all could at least put your school in the thread title. There are so many recruitment threads at any given time, and frankly, many of you are blending together for me. I'm having a hard time keeping track, and I doubt I'm the only one. As long as you don't have a screenname that gives away your personal identity, you should be fine in identifying just the school...other girls used to do it, and anyway, most of us can easily figure out the school anyway based on the number of chapters, the region of the country (if you specify it), and the recruitment schedule. Thanks for considering this humble request from a recruitment thread reader :) |
Most girls don't disclose their school (and haven't done so in awhile), but normally they'd at least put their USERENAME in the title. A million threads titled "My spring rush thread" is confusing.
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Yeah, I would be hesitant to put my school name in the title. I realize my recruitment experience is very different from most other GCers, but I can see how that could be problematic. Their username in the title is a good idea.
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Admittedly, I like to read threads that take place at a school I'm familiar with or where my organization has a chapter. Many of these threads haven't interested me because I just can't get into them...I don't know if the person writing even has a possibility of becoming my sister, and for all I know they may be attending a school in the south I've never even heard of. I'm not trying to be rude, just being honest, and I suspect many women here probably feel the same way, whether they admit it or not.
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Since I'm rushing this semester, I didn't choose to put my schools name ANYWHERE in my thread--and one person has already figured it out, though i only said I was on the EAST COAST! I'm at a school with a LARGE greek system and I know for a fact there are many alum of this school on GC, and though i haven't said bad things necessarily, it still wouldn't benefit me, because everyone would figure out the code names in literally a second. So while I understand what you're saying, it just doesn't look good on a PNMs part if a chapter is reading what you're saying about them, especially if theres only two or three chapters participating in rush.
I do agree that it is VERY easy to get rush stories mixed up, though. |
So why don't you all just write your stories after recruitment is over if you're that worried? You all know that the only women you would even need to be concerned with ALL figure out your school immediately anyway, so what's the point in coding it?
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Yeah, I have to say for the PNMs sake, this would be a bad idea. The super sleuthy types don't seem to have much trouble figuring out the schools eventually anyway, but the PNMs can still have some level of complete anonymity with people like me that don't know how many chapters are on which campus and are too lazy to try to find out. Volunteering the school makes it too easy for everyone to be right in on their business.
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Well, since everyone's so worried about the PNMs, why don't you all just tell them not to write their threads during recruitment? That's really in the best interest of the rushees.
ETA: prior to this spring recruitment, and maybe fall '07, many PNMs put the school name in their thread. I can think of some from Indiana, Georgia and Alabama. If it's a tiny school, I guess I can understand the paranoia. But if there are hundreds of girls rushing, and you don't do things like describe your clothes for each day, I don't know how you think girls would figure out who you are. ETA again: OK, if you go back one page in this forum, you will see recruitment threads with the following schools in the titles: UF, Miami, Delaware, Auburn, UT and UW. So the vagueness seems to be a very recent trend. |
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What happened was that there were several situations in which things PNMs said in their rush threads actually affected their recruitment negatively in real life. Then there were sometimes threats from GC actives in PNMs threads if something they said about their particular sorority offended them or was rude. So, long story short-- not very many PNMs name their schools or the sororities til after recruitment. Honestly I think it's for the best that they don't/ |
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That must have turned into trainwreck after trainwreck after trainwreck... |
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I'm not saying women should toss all discretion out the window. I was merely suggesting they tell us the school they're at, not describe their appearance/clothing/organizations by name. For those of you very familiar with chapters at PNMs schools, I suspect either you already know the impressions of each organization anyway, or you might appreciate hearing some honest feedback. Anyway, it was just a suggestion in order to make the recruitment stories more readable and entertaining. |
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A particular incident I recall was a girl who had made some comments about a sorority early on in recruitment, but ended up preffing and then pledging them. During her NM period, one of her sisters found the thread and wasn't very happy about it. From what I hear she told everyone about it and this girl's NM period wasn't a fun one. |
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I've always been a strong advocate for PNMs posting their experiences AFTER they're done with recruitment. I'll even admit that I cringe when I see a live rush thread going on. Sure, it's their time in the spotlight, but you really never know who's reading. And even if you try to be discreet as possible, there might be someone who'll figure out what school you're at and who you are. You won't be able to please everybody. Rush threads are great, but it's certainly not worth risking your chances for a successful rush. |
This is why it's a bad idea:
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Besides, the point of these threads isn't (or at least wasn't) to entertain us. The original intent was to help PNMs going through the Recruitment process. Finding it entertaining was just a bonus. |
While I agree that PMNs must use discretion, Peppy does have a point that the titles of recruitment threads have gotten very confusing of late... and it is not just the live ones. Very recently we had three retro threads going at the same time with almost identical titles.
Perhaps instead of using the actual school name, there could be a vague name given to that as well, which may or may not be factual: "Blondies Live Recruitment at Midwest U," "Blondies Live Recruitment at East Coast College." I think NutBrnHair even called her school "U Topia." In other words, there can be a unique identifier without giving away too much. However, while many on GC may not be able to figure out a school on a live thread, I assure you that in many, if not all, cases those directly involved with the recruitment can. When you have already given out the number of chapters, as well as the party/round schedules, things narrow down quite quickly. On the recent thread where a PMN was outed, it was crystal clear which school she was referring to based on those two factors alone.... and I am only in the same state, not even directly participating in that recruitment. This along with the *personal* identification that she gave, it would have been easy for those on her campus to know who she was. Moral of story: discretion continues to be key, especially with your personal (hair color, major, hometown, classification) identifiers, but please at least put your user name in the title. Consider a school name as well, though it can be a vague description or even a clever pseudonym. This makes it easy to follow while it is live, but also makes searching for it later on much easier. Some threads are so good that they are worth bumping each recruitment season for the new PMNs (and their worried mamas!). |
Hmm. Looks like there are pros and cons for putting the school name or not. My personal opinion is that as long as the PNM doesn't give away clues to her identity (listing outfits, resumes, triple-legacy to this, etc.), how could it hurt her? Even if we stalk her and find out her campus, how would we know which one she is if she doesn't give identifying clues? I'm not making a suggestion that PNMs do this - only stating an opinion.
And while we are on the subject of stating opinions, I'll take a moment to say that while I can understand why a PNM won't want to give her campus away during recruitment, I don't know what the big deal is about keeping it a secret after she has joined a chapter. That and refusing to give the code away. If the PNM uses discretion and doesn't trash a chapter, she shouldn't be worried (like the NM who was treated badly per KSUViolet and OTW's example). So what is more important - honest, no-holds-barred observations or a reveal of the code? Personally I've quit following them because I can't stand reading the "I'm rooting for purple!" posts. I just don't get that. I'll click on a recently updated thread looking for a report or even a question and great answer only to find out what GCUser's favorite ice cream flavor is. Blah. |
There's been such a humungous # of rush threads recently, I honestly wonder if some of them are even real.
That being said...please put your user name in the title...ex: NancySpungeon's Recruitment Thread Frappaccinoaddict's Rush Story so we can tell which one is which. As far as posting or not posting your school/locale, or revealing the code at ALL, that's the poster's prerogative. There are longtime GCers who don't put their affiliation out on the table for everyone, why should we pressure the newest members of GC/the Greek system to do it? |
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PNMs will tell us the number of chapters, occasionally, which chapters are on their campus, and the start date/schedule, which is almost always enough to figure out for a school with spring formal recruitment since the pool is already narrowed.
This might be unavoidable for many PNMs since they don't know anything else, but campus-specific language can also give them away. For example, Northwestern is the only place I've seen that calls their rounds "Set 1", "Set 2", and "Informals" (with preference a widely used term for the fourth and final round). Along with campus-specific language, it depends what your campus calls the women who temporarily disaffiliate to help PNMs with recruitment, Rho Chis, Rho Gammas, Gamma Chis, Pi Chis, Sigma Rho Chis, Greek Life Guides, etc. In summary, PNMs: 1. Please include your username in your title at the very least. 2. If you don't want to say which region of the country your school is in, pick a pseudonym for your school to include in the title based on your code names (i.e. someone with Disney princess code names could name her school Magical Kingdom U). 3. Don't identify yourself. Don't put any identifying information on your profile, don't put your first name in your username, links to your screenname, etc. Don't describe your outfits, any activities you are involved in, etc. So maybe we've figured out you go to Maryland, but that still makes you one person in 500 unless you've identified yourself more specifically. 4. If you want to be honest without jeopardizing your chances, wait until after bid day to write a recruitment thread. You can still feel like you're giving a live update if you write stuff down in a word document each night. That way, if you have a change of heart about a chapter that you trashed in earlier rounds, you can edit your word document. 5. If you have questions during recruitment, your Rho Gamma (or whatever your campus calls them) is your best source of information. She will be able to give you answers specific to your campus and will keep your conversations confidential. If she isn't knowledgeable or strikes you as untrustworthy, you can ask another Rho Gamma, someone on Panhellenic recruitment team, someone on Panhellenic exec, or the Panhellenic advisor. Sure, you an ask questions on Greek Chat, but often times, the question will be something that we'd need to know the campus culture (size, region) to be able to speculate what kind of answer to give you. And when you give those things out publicly, it can out your school. PMing a GCer that you trust works without giving away your info publicly. |
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I agree with those of you that said to use usernames. While putting the school's name in the title can risk exposing the PNM it also can be confusing I know at least once this semester of two girls going through recruitment at the same school so then you would have two of the same titles that might end up being confusing. Just a thought
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recruitment thread
Well I didn't mention which school I was at yet because I wanted to be secretive until rush was over. But I did put my name in the thread title, so hopefully I distinguished myself from other threads. |
I wish all recruitment threads used pictures like Leslie Anne's retro thread - it was so easy keeping up with the story and remembering which house was which because the pictures were so distinctive.:)
But, you're right that all the threads are hard to keep up with. I spend alot of time rereading to refresh my memory (all time that I should be committing to my job;)) |
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