formal rush
 

For the past three years, formal (sorority) rush has been in the first month of the fall semester. After this year's rush though (which had a disappointing turnout among rushees) panhel is taking steps to promote the greek life image. One thing they are considering is moving formal rush back to the beginning of fall semester.
Since I have no way to compare the advantages and disadvantages, I was wondering what opinions some of you may have about where you think formal rush works best.

Sarah

At my school, rush is the very first thing new freshmen do. They get to campus about 2 weeks before classes start, and the first of those two weeks is rush.

I didn't like it. For a lot of people, including myself, it was our first time away from home for any length of time, and I really felt like I was thrown in the deep end. I would have liked to have had some time to settle into college life before rushing. It also meant I didn't have a chance to observe my sorority options before rush (i.e. how much do they party, do I see them in the library a lot studying, etc). I would love it if my school held rush between the fall and spring semesters.

OTOH, once classes start up and freshmen start getting involved in activities on campus, they may realize/decide they don't have the time to commit to a sorority, and may therefore decide not to rush.

I agree w/ aephi alum 100%!! I think deferring rush till between the semesters is the way to go. That way everyone is informed about it, and the people who have decided they hate the school/are homesick/flunk out are out of the way and you don't have to worry about pledging someone only to have her leave a few months later.

Yes the weather might suck but if everyone is dressed for sucky weather it won't matter. I think the only reason pre-fall rush works down south and at other big schools is because there are a lot more women w/ Greek relatives who know what it's all about. You would probably attract a lot more rushees if they had time to gain some knowledge about Greek life from seeing it on campus.

I do sort of agree that formal rush would be better in the spring. I went through formal rush in the fall, and it was really hard since I didn't really know the personalities of the sororites (although I LOVE where I'm at). But, I'll give a statistic: only approximately 19% of women here are greek. That's a lot of girls who are unaffiliated! One fear I have is that by pushing formal rush back, that PNMs will decide not to be greek.
OTOH, perhaps informal rush will increase in momentum and that will help us. The only disadvantage of that is that we're at cap and are limited in how many bids we can give out during informal rush.

I want to correct that, it's 24% of women.
sorry

I went through rush before the fall semester began and I really liked it that way. Homecoming is very big on my campus and it is mainly greek promoted. Freshman participation would be greatly reduced if rush was in the spring or between semesters. Also, I would not have gotten to know the seniors very well as I would only have had a semester to get to know them. Another reason I am a proponent of fall rush is house total: with quota averaging 50-60, the house would be much smaller in the fall than in the spring. When I went through I did not know which houses were "prestige" and which ones were not. I think that this benefitted me because I judged the houses more fairly If I had been there a semester I would definitely have had more preconceived ideas.

However, I also feel deferred rush has its points. I agree that it would eliminate some of the girls who end up flaking out anyway.

Just my opinion.

fall rush is biggest for NPC greeks...
 

....and my GLO as well (at the University of Oklahoma).

lyrelyre, which house? And who's gonna win over Thanksgiving, us or you? :) ;)

Deferred recruitment is bad in my opinion...we have it at Bethany College. Even though we have a high Greek population, more and more women are choosing not to go Greek in recent years. They realize that they can still do most everything that Greeks do without the financial burden. (Our administration is promoting a lot of activites that resemble Greek Week, Greek Sing, formals, etc... that were not here before. )

Plus, deferred recruitment is a breeding ground for rush infractions. Every house is always looking for the other one to violate visitation, etc...

Maybe this is a KD thing...or maybe just my chapter, but we have elections in the fall (November-ish). When your rush is at the end of the 1st week of spring semester, that does not give the chapter a lot of time to get used to their positions. Trust me, as VP-M, this is awful!!!! Can we say......Stress??!!!

National KD sent a letter in one of our mailings that gave their position on deferred recruitment. They are against it. Has any other National organization taken a stand like this?

Deferred Rush
 

My college has deferred formal recruitment, so freshmen don't rush until the first week back after Christmas Break. I think this is beneficial for the rushees and for the sororities. The freshmen get a chance to "figure out" what each of the houses are like, and the older girls have a whole semester to decide which freshmen they want for their pledge class. We have open contact during the fall, which means we can take freshmen out to dinner (they pay for their own food), invite them over to watch tv, and do normal things like that (but they can't party at our houses, and we can't give them alcohol). I think putting rush off until January lets the sororities base their decisions on more than just a girl's looks, since it allows time for us to really get to know the freshmen before we have to choose who we want. Rush is less superficial on the sororities' part and on the rushees'part, since both have had time to observe and know each other on a deeper level than just one week of formal rush parties would allow. By the time formal rush week comes around in January, we know who will be on our bid list, and a lot of the rushees have a good idea where they want to be.

My alma mater holds Formal Fall Rush a few days before classes start. I really like the way they do it, because many freshmen don't know anyone when they first go away to college. Rush is a great way to jump in feet-first and meet many women in the same boat -- who don't know people and are a little anxious about starting school. It's amazing how quickly you can bond with someone in your Rush group after spending just a few hours with them.

Also, by holding Rush before classes begin, there a much smaller opportunity for Rush infractions such as 'dirty rushing' to occur.

Re: fall rush is biggest for NPC greeks...
 

lyrelyre, which house? And who's gonna win over Thanksgiving, us or you? :) ;)

Alpha Chi Omega, we won this years homecoming competition. If you've never been you should come on up.

Not to sound like I have no school spirit: you are probably going to win.

I do not like the idea of a late Rush, or even during school.

ECU has it before and after. Wen have been doing both for
some time. This year was before.

In do not feel that numbers are affected that much. If your system is strong and you have a good image than PR shouldn't be an issue and PNMs will be intrested no matter the time.

In think before school is so much easier on both the groups and the PNMs that it shouldn't be tossed aside.

For those of you who have (successful) formal recruitment in the beginning of the spring semester, is greek life successful in general at your school?

For example, do you have a lot of chapters, or really large chapters? or is there a high turnout of PNMs for formal recruitment? I'm thinking that maybe spring recruitment would be better for those schools where most everyone wants to be greek as compared to those schools where girls are more likely to find niches outside of the greek community.

We have deferred recruitment at my school. Greek Life is only about 12% of campus, but that's not because of deferred recruitment. I think that deferred recruitment is a good thing only because it allows new freshmen to get a chance to see campus and make some friends. Yeah, they hear about other sororities, but they also have a chance to get acclimated to college life.

The reason our campus greek life is so small is because greeks aren't portrayed in a favorable manner by campus.

NPC is against deferred recruitment, so I believe all member groups conform to this.