targeting
 

Does anyone else target specific groups during rush? We're making a grab for the marching band (because we have a lot of brothers there already, and we have a grudge against Kappa Kappa Psi, the band fraternity), and members of the Honors College (because they're generally intelligent and involved, exactly what we want). That right there is about 800 freshmen men. We'll do all our normal rush stuff too, but we're especially targetting those groups.

We don't cater to certain majors... We look for people who want to be involved, be good brothers and have a good time.

What else could you want?

I would say that we target freshman and sophomores, mainly because they have the most time to offer the chapter. That's kind of a large target, though. We don't really target any specific group as far as a certain major or extracurricular activity goes because we want a variety of girls in our pledge classes. Variety is the spice of life! :D

Variety is good, but I find it makes for an unpredictable rush.

We're actually a great deal less serious about targetting than other houses here- there's one fraternity that only takes men from the school of agriculture, another that only takes them from the engineering college, and so on.

I think it is a good idea to look more closely into people who are involved in groups your group would like to be stronger in or more involved in. ...As long as you dont pick them for that reason alone! However, I dont feel it is good to make an entire pledge (sorry! new member class) class of that one group!

I agree with dzrose93, variety is great!!

Actually, I think I had less time as a freshman and sophmore that I will have as a Junior! My sophomore year, I learned to tone down on the activities and classes I really didn't want to be around and found my niche as far as that. I was so busy my first year of college, which is partially the reason I'm going to be rushing as a Junior!

I think what dzrose93 is getting at, is that a freshman will have 4 years to contribute as a collegiate member, and a sophomore will have 3 years, whereas a junior will only have 2 years, and if the chapter is near total they will prefer members who will be around for a longer time.

The PNM pool at my school is not very deep so we target everyone.

We target "A-list" girls, but it's not what it sounds like! Sisters from my chapter (and maybe others) will know what I mean, but the A-list is just a list of qualities that we look for in PNM's--and yes, they all start with "A"! (Attitude, achievement, and so on.) I don't remember there being a lot of emphasis placed on class standing, though...this past year we pledged a senior, but she will actually be around a couple extra years.

I would agree with what Achtung says.....we targeted girls who had a nice, well-rounded group of activities from HS, good grades, and go from there. We naturally wanted the girls who would be involved, were fun and outgoing, and were attractive and presented themselves well. Freshman status was a plus but not an absolute necessity. There were times that girls who were juniors but were just amazing made it on our bid list.

We mostly target girls who have hot older brothers.

We also try to go for very well rounded girls. As random as it may sound we always try to pledge a couple of girls who can play the piano.;)

I think ... and I don't mean this is the case 100% of the time ... that groups tend to "target" when they are having either problems with numbers or some other sort of issue.

Example 1: Mu Mu has low grades. So they place more emphasis on grades during their formal rush selection process to get good students in their house and their grades up.

Example 2: Nu Nu Fraternity has low numbers, and they didn't do that well during fall rush. So they approach the wrestling team about joining - "you can have a real influence" - and the chapter benefits by getting their numbers up with a group of active, cohesive men who will be good at Greek Week.

Targeting can also happen by accident when a group tends to be composed folks with something in common. Our campus had one fraternity that was composed of mostly the football team; another one that was full of geeks (their term). You recruit who you know, after all.

BTW, all the examples are from real life.

Before rush began, in both the spring and fall, we would sit down as a group and list things that the house was lacking or needed to improve. Grades, community leadership, people with a performing talent (singing, dancing, etc), etc. - the needs of the house. During recruitment we would look for girls would could help bring something to one or all of these qualities that we were looking for. We never targeted one specific group, aside from a group of friends (we got 2 to join, and 4 of their friends ended up joining!), we just looked for what we needed.
But by targeting only one specific group or looking for one specific thing, you're going to find that you end up lacking in other areas. Diversity of interests, talents, etc. is the most important!