Sorority Rush as a Two-Sided Matching Mechanism
 

Anyone ever seen this article? It's from 1991 but should still be interesting.


http://www.economics.harvard.edu/~aroth/sorority.html


This paper concerns the formal process by which women at American universities join the social organizations called sororities. The history of this process, of the problems it has encountered, and how it has evolved to meet them, have striking similarities to (as well as important differences from) the history and organization of the American labor market for medical interns (see Roth, 1984a), and of the several similar entry-level labor markets for physicians in the United Kingdom (see Roth, 1990). So by studying this process we can also hope to learn more about other matching processes, and to assess the generality of various hypotheses we might form about them.

OMG, I am applying to Med School, and I have always though of Residency process just like rush.... Who ever though this was academic?!?!
Maybe it will help me get a job later.
-M

I'm picturing medical students going around to hospitals where they want to work and the doctors come running out singing...

With a G - E - N and a E- R- A- L!
H - O - S and a P- I - T- A - L!
Go General
Go General
Go General Hospital!!

or

Boom Boom Boom Boom I wanna work at General!
Boom Boom It is the very best hospital!

:p

UGAGal,
FASCINATING article! Thank you so much for posting the link.
I've actually never heard of it nor have I have seen or heard any NPC women reference the material.
thanks again for posting,
violets

Thanks for posting the paper, it's very interesting so far, especially since my sister plans to go into medicine, and I plan to rush in spring...

~Sarah~

Bump
 

Interesting article.

This is interesting. My PR internship is going to be like that too. I'll have interviews with three companies and I'm almost positive I get to rank them in order of preference. I'm then offered a placement in one of the three places. It's possible that I'll be unmatched, but I'm then put in whatever company has spots available.


Coming soon in the Careers & Employment board .....Taualumna's Internship "rush" :)

Here's Matt Karo's take on it, from his "Ruminations" column on collegehumor.com:

-I’m just fascinated by med students. For instance, next Thursday is residency program “Match Day,” which is when all fourth-year med students find out where in the country they will be spending the next five years of their lives. (Sounds a little like sorority rush but with neurosurgeons, doesn’t it?) After finding out if and where they matched, our nation’s soon-to-be-doctors proceed to go out and get rip-roaring shit-blasted. But here’s the twist. This year, Match Day falls on the first day of the NCAA Tournament…and St. Patrick’s Day. In other words, it’s an alcoholic perfect storm.

LOVE Matt Karo. Ruminations brightens my day when I get them.

Does anyone have an updated link to the article from the OP? The link's not working for me, and I'm too tired to google it...

I am pretty sure his name is Aaron Karo.

The link in the original post is broken. If you want to google the article, the authors are Susan Mongell and Alvin Roth.

http://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/...i3p441-64.html

It is, was tired when posted and therefore stupid. :)

I just finished reading this article and when I Googled it to look for more information I found that a thread had been started on it in Greekchat (albeit more than a decade ago).

I have a question for the ladies who have participated in bid matching. This statement is from the article; is it accurate?

"The most striking feature of the data is the high percentage of rushees who chose to list only one sorority on their preference card. This is particularly striking in view of the fact that this practice is explicitly discouraged. Of the twenty one rushes observed on four campuses, there were only three in which the number of rushees suiciding was less than 50% of those who submitted bid cards. Even on campuses C and D, which each have a dozen or more sororiities active in formal rush, relatively few rushees list more than two sororities on their preference cards."

I had always thought that suiciding happened rather rarely.

I suspect they are looking at the wrong statistic. They should be reporting how many women listed only one sorority on their preference card GIVEN THAT they were invited to more than one preference party.