question
 

I've never posted before, but I have a question that hopefully won't show my ignorance about Rush! (I wasn't in a sorority, but my oldest daughter is rushing at UNC now). One of the houses she visited last night must have had a smaller number of members, because several girls from a different college (same sorority) were there helping out. My daughter had a great conversation with the girl she was paired with, but her tee-shirt was a different than a lot of the other sisters. My daughter asked why, and she said she goes to a different university. Is this often done? I understand when a sorority is just starting out at a campus they pull in members from neighboring colleges to help with Rush. But this house has evidently been at UNC for over 20 years. My daughter said she loved the girl she talked to, but she felt like she would have rather met someone that was actually a UNC student. She doesn't really know what to think about this house since she didn't really have a conversation with a member. (She talked to two girls and both were from the other college) Is this a red flag? Hopefully I haven't offended anyone!

It's not uncommon. Yes, it generally means that the chapter is smaller than many other chapters on campus and that the volume of PNMs was such that they needed reinforcements.

I would advise that your daughter should keep an open mind when listing this chapter as she will get chances to speak with more women as rush continues.

There are benefits to joining a smaller chapter so please encourage her to consider all aspects of the groups when weighing her options.

I would suggest to her to continue to give them a chance. The size of the parties will likely shrink over the next round or 2 and hopefully she will get to meet more of the chapter sisters. The upside of a chapter like this is she can be part of a phoenix-like rebirth. The downside is, I won't lie, it's a lot of work to be in the small but growing chapter. But the quality of the sisterhood is not necessarily worse (or better for that matter) based solely on the number of active members. If she has aspirations for leadership she should REALLY think about this chapter; you definitely have more opportunities for leadership in a smaller chapter.

If she goes back to this chapter and is paired with a sister from a different school again, she may want to ask to speak with a sister who is an actual active member of the chapter. I would.

And they proper way to do that would be "I've really enjoyed being here. It would be great to meet some of the members of the local chapter."

I spoke with my daughter this morning. After all of the rounds were finished last night, she had to rank all of the houses in order. She really struggled with what to do about the house in question. Your advice has been great, and I wish I could have talked to her before she made her rankings. She ranked them last because she just didn't feel like she had any other choice. All of her conversations at the other 9 houses had been GREAT, and there just wasn't another clear choice for the bottom spot. I have a feeling that they might show back up on her party schedule so hopefully she'll get a chance to go there again and speak to someone from the UNC chapter. I really feel for that chapter. It's a double edged sword - they have fewer members and need to bring in reinforcements, but that might cause doubt in a lot of girls' minds. My daughter said that the other girls in her recruitment group were talking about it as if it was a negative sign. I wonder if they could have just talked to couple of girls at a time to avoid having to pull in the girls from another chapter.

It's sometimes a no win situation. Having 2 or 3 PNMs per active causes talk too, and can leave PNMs feeling uncomfortable.

After seeing this, I mentioned it to my daughter that is also going through Recruitment at UNC. She knew exactly which house it is, and had a similar reaction to finding out that the cute girl she had hit it off with doesn't even go to Carolina. I didn't ask how she did her rankings, but I have a feeling she ranked them low. I agree...it's sad that they are struggling (I assume that's the case) especially since a new chapter of Alpha Phi is colonizing in 2015. I truly hope they have a great Recruitment so they will be able to stand strong in Recruitment next year.

We've discussed this so many times here on GC. Is it better to have women come in from other chapters to fill the room, or is it better to just not hide it and double/triple rush PNMs? The conclusion has kind of been...both are just a lousy situation.

I can see the other-school thing working well if the two chapters are from the same city and/or truly have a bond and hang out with each other a lot, but that's usually not the way it works.

I think it depends on the numbers. If doubling up will solve the problem, I'd do that, with outside sisters doing all of the back of house work. But sometimes that's just not enough.

I think there are ways to have the 2nd chapter involved to "fill the room" and not make PNMs feel weary about returning. Possible solutions:

- Bump halfway through, and make sure every PNM talks to at least one girl from the local chapter.

- Put 2 PNMs with 1 local chapter member and 1 member from the visiting chapter in a group together to talk. Things would be "even" and every PNM would get to meet with one local chapter member.

At the very least, I think it should be announced to PNMs that not all of the sisters are from the local chapter. They could do this to make it sound like a positive thing ("We have sisters all across the country, and we like to get together with other sisters from different chapters whenever possible, and we wanted to show you all the wide reach our network of sisters has, blah, blah, blah...). I think the biggest problem is that some PNMs don't know about this ahead of time and then feel "duped" or cheated out of an opportunity to get to know the people that could potentially be their chapter sisters.

It's a tough situation for a chapter to be in, but I think there are better ways to handle it.

All this.

Also, all the rotation groups need to have women from the "home school" and they need make darn sure they're rotating enough so that those women get to talk with all the PNMS.

At the very least, have the "home school" girls floating into the conversations "for a quick visit".

I'm not super familiar with the NPC process (only as much as I've learned from GC over the years) but this all sounds like an interesting situation. I'd be interested to know how it all turns out for your daughter, TarheelMom.

How is a "smaller" or "weak recruiting chapter" (loathe that term) supposed to grow?