GreekChat.com Forums - What to tell overconfident PNMs

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Quote:

Originally Posted by carnation (Post 2319077)

Agree, and I also think that many schools do a bad job of explaining "mutual selection". I wish I could inscribe across the front of recruitment booklets of competitive schools: "Mutual selection means that you get very little say in this--the sororities do almost all of the choosing. Good luck!"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jen (Post 2319080)

I think they've gone so overboard PC in trying to make it look like everyone gets a trophy that they set up totally unrealistic expectations for the PNMs. I still think we should go back to calling it rush, to saying "the sororities are choosing you" and being honest about how it all works.

Bingo. Perhaps if they didn't call it "mutual selection", that would clear up some of the confusion.

To the top! Such good points made in this one.

The use of mutual with the word selection is such total garbage it makes me want to yak.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaryPoppins (Post 2321893)

The use of mutual with the word selection is such total garbage it makes me want to yak.

I posted about this before! It really needs to be called something else!

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...d.php?t=127132

Bumping this one! :)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhh with the BUMPS.

This year, I know of 5 PNMs who claim that they won't be getting recs for SEC rush, something along the lines of "if they don't like me for who I am, I don't want to belong". Um, we're talking about 2 different things here. Move along.

Trophy culture and recruitment

I have also been thinking a lot about this topic this past weekend after seeing an HBO special about trophies and youth sports. I used to think the "everybody gets a trophy" thing was hyperbole, but apparently it is common. I'm in my mid-30's, and it wasn't the case when I was a kid. I now have kids of my own, but they aren't at the age where they are playing organized sports.

I have encountered a few PNMs who are over-confident, and plenty who are grounded in reality. I recently met a young woman who had done pageants all through high school, but had never won a pageant. When I talked with her about bracing for disappointments (she is attending a large SEC school), she said that she had no illusions about the fact that she WILL (not might) be cut and she had learned how to handle disappointment because of her pageant experience. She stated that she thinks recruitment will be a lot like pageants -- lots of attractive, well qualified, involved and well spoken girls, but only one gets first.

I've never been a huge fan of pageants, but the way she talked, it made me think of it in a whole different light. This was a young woman who knows she is talented, but has the self-awareness to know she isn't the best -- a stark contrast to some girls I'd met. Then, this last weekend I saw this Real Sports talking about our "trophy nation" and how giving kids continual medals for being last is actually harmful to their brains and neurological reward system.

It made me realize that recruitment for some young women might be the first time in their life they experience real disappointment -- and the coddling and praise some girls and teens get from parents and teachers make them very ill prepared for the realities of recruitment. People are often quick to judge the recruitment system and process, but it just made me wonder, what kind of message does it send if we give this illusion that it is truly mutual selection? Perhaps it should be rephrased at "Primary/Secondary" selection -- meaning sororites get to make the primary selection, and a PNM makes the secondary selection, IF she has multiple selections.

http://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/races-sports/how-participation-trophies-are-making-our-kids-soft-20150725

I think that the phrase mutual selection is correct at some recruitments, and those recruitments are often the ones where the pool of rushees is made up mostly of what are called maybe joiners. In that case I think it's a good thing to say, and alleviates rushees' fears that they might end up somewhere or in something they don't want.

There have always been girls who were "miss everything" at their hs and got to rush and didn't get what they wanted.

What slays me the most about this generation is how the kids are perfectly OK with their parents calling and complaining about them not getting into this or that Group, bad grades, etc. I was very sheltered and closer to my parents than most kids of my generation, but if my mother would have said anything to anyone asking why I didn't get in to a certain sorority's pref party, I would have been MORTIFIED and wanted to quit school.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 33girl (Post 2323242)

Agreed.... I feel second-hand embarrassment for both parents and kids when I see parents going where they have no business going. Some of the outspokenness I've seen from alums about their disappointments about their legacy being cut ON NATIONAL FB pages is sooooooo cringe-worthy to me. If my mom had ever done that I'd throw her phone and computer in a lake.

Quote:

Originally Posted by violetsnlions (Post 2323237)

I have also been thinking a lot about this topic this past weekend after seeing an HBO special about trophies and youth sports. I used to think the "everybody gets a trophy" thing was hyperbole, but apparently it is common. I'm in my mid-30's, and it wasn't the case when I was a kid. I now have kids of my own, but they aren't at the age where they are playing organized sports.

I have encountered a few PNMs who are over-confident, and plenty who are grounded in reality. I recently met a young woman who had done pageants all through high school, but had never won a pageant. When I talked with her about bracing for disappointments (she is attending a large SEC school), she said that she had no illusions about the fact that she WILL (not might) be cut and she had learned how to handle disappointment because of her pageant experience. She stated that she thinks recruitment will be a lot like pageants -- lots of attractive, well qualified, involved and well spoken girls, but only one gets first.

I've never been a huge fan of pageants, but the way she talked, it made me think of it in a whole different light. This was a young woman who knows she is talented, but has the self-awareness to know she isn't the best -- a stark contrast to some girls I'd met. Then, this last weekend I saw this Real Sports talking about our "trophy nation" and how giving kids continual medals for being last is actually harmful to their brains and neurological reward system.

It made me realize that recruitment for some young women might be the first time in their life they experience real disappointment -- and the coddling and praise some girls and teens get from parents and teachers make them very ill prepared for the realities of recruitment. People are often quick to judge the recruitment system and process, but it just made me wonder, what kind of message does it send if we give this illusion that it is truly mutual selection? Perhaps it should be rephrased at "Primary/Secondary" selection -- meaning sororites get to make the primary selection, and a PNM makes the secondary selection, IF she has multiple selections.

http://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/races-sports/how-participation-trophies-are-making-our-kids-soft-20150725

So many good points here.

I do kind of like the primary/secondary selection thing, but it's just not as catchy a phrase. I wonder if part of the solution to the mutual selection messaging is to emphasize the competition among PNMs. During orientation, point out that each sorority will only get to take a quota's worth of girls, and then make that really clear to the girls.

To use Alabama 2014 as an example: of the 2,276 women registered, quota is expected to be about 120. That means that YOUR favorite chapter can only bid about 5% of the PNMs. Same with your second favorite, and your third favorite. With those numbers, keep in mind that it can be much easier for YOU to decide the order that you prefer the 17 chapters, but it is extremely difficult for the chapters to decide which women they will invite back each day.

Just like college admissions, this is a numbers game: keep an open mind for all of the chapters, and you will find a home. If you have your sights set only on Harvard, Stanford and Yale, then you have to accept the risk that you may not get into any college at all.