trying something new at my school- need advice!
 

Hey everyone

I am the new president of Inter-Sorority Council (like NPC but just for local sororities) at my school. This fall we want to try something new, but I need some advice.

Typically our formal rush goes something like this
Week 1- Rush Sign Ups
Week 2-
-Rush Kickoff (Round Robin: rushees meet a few girls from each sorority in classrooms on campus to learn about the organization- we used to do an open house, but due to the widespread locations of the houses, it would take about 6 hours and was expensive for the organizations to supply food)
-Informal Rush (sororities can host up to 3 events during the week)
-First Preference/Silent Day (rushees pick top 3 sororities they want to receive a formal invite from)
Week 3-
-Formals: Each sorority is assigned their own formal night/time. No other sororities may have an event during this time. Formals are by invitation only
-Final/Dirty Rush: Most, if not all sororities have an event on the last before final preference in order to get a feeling for who might preference their organization
-Final Preference/Silent Day: Rushees pick one sorority they want to receive a bid from, sororities have blackball to discuss who will/will not receive a bid
-Bid Distribution/Acceptance/Final Bids (self explanatory)

What we were thinking of doing was to get rid of all set days besides Kickoff/Round Robin, First Preference and Final Preference. The sororities would be allowed to have whatever events they wanted with the exception of these days. In addition, a bid can be extended at any point during the rush period (so long as the rushee is pre-approved to pledge, ie: their gpa is high enough 2.0+) Rushees accepting early bids would turn in their acceptance to the Greek Affairs office by certain times each day, with the final day being the morning of final bids. We are working towards eventually implementing Continuous Open Bidding to its fullest extent.

Some concerns this raised with the sororities at my school:
1) It might create a bit of an awkward situation with rushes that don't
receive a bid right away, make them feel discouraged that they received
one of the last bids.

2) It would throw off pledging because it might be thought that the girls
that received their bids the earliest are more valued by the sorority when
actually it just means that the sorority got to know them better earlier
on.

3) It would be kind of a hassle because the sorority would have to meet
multiple times to discuss who of the approved should get a bid and who
shouldn't (blackball). Might cause too much pressure and the sororities
would give early bids just to compete with each other, without coming to a
full conclusion that the rushee is a good/not good match for the sorority.

Any ideas on how to address this? What has worked at your school? Any other tips or ideas for me?

I think all the concerns raised are 100% valid. Quite frankly, I wouldn't change a thing from your current setup. If you have a lot of people rushing who haven't been around Greeks from birth (like in the large Southern schools) it's confusing anyway, and the last thing you need is to make it more of a free-for-all.

If you do this, be prepared for backstabbing, shit talking and bad behavior to the fullest extent. Also sororities will probably schedule their events so that they overlap on purpose and rushees have to choose which one to attend. Either the rushees will get frustrated and quit rush completely, or they'll put all their eggs in one sorority basket and if they don't get a bid to that sorority, become the loudest, most anti-Greek people you have ever encountered.

I know the sort of system you outlined works for men, but we aren't men. It just plain doesn't work well for us. Stick with what you have.

Yeah, I agree with all of this. I think you can loosen or tighten up the structure that you have or rearrange it, but you don't want to get rid of it so completely.

I'm kind of surprised your rushees only choose one sorority? Does this work well for your campus?

Yeah that makes sense, it's already a mix of NPC recruitment with a touch of the men's rush in there. I'm curious how many the three is a part of, but I don't want the OP to give away more than she wants.

Hopefully someone from a school with more locals than mine had (0) can be more helpful ;)