Choose Your Own Recruitment
 

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I would do sort of a structured COR style. There would be maybe 2 days of open house events. Girls would HAVE to go to EVERY sororities' open house, just so they checked out every chapter.

After that, girls would pick up invites to see who wants them back for invite only events. They could accept/decline to return as they wished.

Each sorority would then hold at least a weeks' worth of invite only events (like 7). They would be like basketball games, movie nights, campus clean ups, etc. There are still PX's and no contact rules outside of events. There is one PX for every 5 girls. There is a 2 hour time limit for all invite only events and they must follow a budget as well as NPC rules reguarding men, alcohol,etc.

Invite only week would go from Sunday to Saturday. There would be midweek cuts on Wednesday. If any group wished to cut someone, that is the only time they may do so before the weekend. Sororities must cut for grades at this time. Also, if a girl no longer wanted to go back to a group, she could decline their invite on that night as well.

As the week progressed, events would go from casual to more intimate and formal. The week might start off with a football game, watching The OC, and ice cream social. The rest of the week would be spaghetti dinner, What XYZ means to me, and preference.

Ok, so it's Friday and the week is over. The girls must sign a form listing the sororities they visited after midweek cuts, stating that they would accept a bid from at least one of those. They may decline to accept from any, but they must understand that for every group they decline, that decreases the # of bids they can get.

The sororities may also make a last minute cut on this day. These are girls they invited back after midweek, but have for whatever reason, decided that they wouldn't want to extend them a bid.

Saturday, the girl goes to the Greek Life office and sees who all has extended her a bid. In this process, girls are extended more than one bid-no bid matching.

She then has until Sunday night to accept one of those bids. During that 24 hours, there is to be no contact between her and ANY sorority woman on campus. Sororities may not bribe a woman into accepting their bid.

Sunday night, girls head off to Bid Day. They line up backstage in the Student Center ballroom, and one by one, tell the PX's who they've chosen. They are are announced on stage one by one, and run to their group and get their bid day goodies, etc.

I like this system a bit better, although it's one I kind of made up. More relaxed events, more time to get to know PNM's, girls can select from multiple bids.

On the negative side, there's more room for hurt feelings I suppose. The sororities are allowed to cut the day before bids go out, so you (for example) could have been really clicking with KKG after midweek, but they could not be one of your bids on Sautrday, and you'll never know why.

But overall, I like this hybrid. :)

Ooh! I want that system here. That's kind of like a combination of formal recruitment and the PS IFC recruitment we have here (2 days of open houses, invite only events, choose from bids)

I do like our formal structure, even with all of its problems. Our success rate is much higher than our "failure" (for lack of a better word) rate. On the other hand, FR really does get people where they belong most of the time.

My very best friend in the world went through loving two groups, put the "prettier" girls first on her bid card, then did not get a bid from them. Just a few days later she realized that she was in the right place, and now she cannot even imagine being a member of that other sorority. If we hadn't had bid matching, she would have probably gone to the first group, and who knows what would have happened then?

We are going through COB/COR right now in my chapter and there are both good points and bad points. I like getting to know the girls better, but we get a LOT fewer girls (1 to 4 as opposed to 15 to 25). So I would not choose that as our only recruitment style unless some changes were made.

I would do a structured informal rush -- essentially, one round of open houses required for all rushees, and the rest of the rounds invite-only with rushees picking which houses they want to go back to. For pref round, girls could go back to a max of three houses and quota would be determined as usual.

This is essentially how my school ran spring recruitment (except that girls could go to as many pref parties as they wanted -- although few went to more than two -- and could receive multiple bids), and I liked it a lot. I found it combined the strengths of COB with the strengths of formal rush. I might be biased since it was the type of recruitment that my chapter always excelled at, too. ;)

One of the big pluses to NPC formal recruitment, I feel, is that every PNM has to meet every chapter and vice versa. If a PNM doesn't have to visit every chapter, she may make premature decisions based on rumors, "tent talk" and the like. She may spend all her time at ABC only to find at the end of recruitment they're not going to extend her a bid, while she never steps foot at XYZ, which might have been a perfect fit.

One of the minuses is that PNMs are usually required to accept all the invitations they get, up to the maximum, at each step. So a PNM may know she likes DEF but doesn't like GHI, but GHI keeps inviting her back, so she has to go to GHI's parties just so she can keep going back to DEF. Next thing she knows, she's preffing GHI even though she doesn't really like them and would turn down a bid from them. It wastes the PNM's time and energy as well as GHI's.

I would do something similar to what JocelynC suggested. Every PNM visits every sorority to start with, then the sororities make their first round of cuts. Each PNM receives a list of the sororities that have invited her back and a schedule of their events over a period of a week or so. She can attend any events she chooses for any of the sororities that have invited her (and if she's not interested in a particular sorority, she doesn't have to attend any of their events). After these events, sororities issue their pref invites, and each PNM may choose up to 2 or 3 sororities to pref. From there, each PNM fills out a pref card and bid matching takes place.

I don't know how this would work for fraternities, though. Men and women are different. I'd like to see a system where every PNM visits every fraternity once, just to see for himself what each fraternity is like without relying on rumors. After that, maybe it's best to open it up and let the PNMs go where they will.

I agree with what a lot of you ladies have said. I think it's great that a girl has to go to every house. I don't necessarily like that she has to go back to every house that invites her.

That said, I'd do the first day (and maybe second day too) of open houses where the girl has to visit every group, and then an invite-only event or 2 (and the girls can choose where they want to go without repercussions), and then Pref is also invite only.

As for setting quota and all that stuff, I really don't know how I feel about that. In an environment like the one I just described, it's advantages might no longer apply.

I like Jocelyn's system too, but I think I would do bid day differently. In my system, the PNM would receive her bids (up to 3, which is the number of GLOs the PNM can visit for pref) on Saturday and then have until Sunday morning to decide. On Sunday, the PNM calls/emails/instant messages her recruitment counsellor to tell her what GLO she has chosen, and she must do that before say, noon, so the recruitment counsellors can get back to the GLOs with numbers. At 6 pm, PNMs will officially meet their sisters.

I think this saves a bit of disappointment, and also the GLOs would be prepared with the right amount of goodies. You don't want to be expecting 15 girls, and only have 7 announce that they've chosen your GLO.

I had this in mind when I thought about it. And basically if you made it past midweek cuts (and didn't do something totally out of line or outlandish to make a group cut you right before bids), you're basically guaranteed at least one. I like the Bid Day suggestions also.:)

I have to say that, personally, I disagree with a PNM choosing between bids, and I think that's just a result of my Greek system.

Mizzou is a huge school and over 1000 girls go though formal each fall. Recruitment counselors tell PNMs over and over again that you should be making the decision of what house to join completely on your own. But, the truth is, the PNMs talk... be it with their friends, their parents, boyfriends... whatever.

Giving a PNM time to choose between bids is beneficial in the sense that they have more time to consider where they want to be, but negative because they also have more time to be influenced. I know we'd all like to think that PNMs can't be easily influenced by friends or other women going through recruitment, but it happens.

Bid matching just works for us. Plus, the whole idea of "you'll end up where you were meant to be" isn't just you're RC or PX feeding you lines... I think it's true!!

I LOVE the Bid Day idea though... how much would we all love to be the center of attention?! "Suzy New-member has chosen.... XYZ!!!!" :D Haha... I just wish it was possible with the size of our recruitment!!

This is actually how Bid Day works at my school (with traditional formal rush of course). After prefs and bid matching have taken place, the girls go to our Student Center and line up outside of the Campus Life Office. They go in one by one and get their envelopes with bids in them. They either acceptt/decline. Those who've accepted their bid go line up in alphabetical order backstage in the Student Center ballroom. They come out one by one, and are announced by PX's (i.e. "Suzy Q is now a new member of..........XYZ!") The girl runs down to her group and is greeted (well, more like tackled nowadays) with hugs and cheers and is given her bid day goodies. It's suspenseful for us because we have turned in our lists but we don't know who matched with us, so it's always a suprise. It works well for us because we only have 6 sororities and a quota of 20-ish. With the number of girls @ Mizzou, you'd probably be there for awhile.:)

That's how my old uni. used to do it (at least that is how they did it my last year there.) The fraternities and sororities had their bid day on the same day, and since recruitment wasn't huge it worked out really well and was fun for both sides (pnms and GLOs)

I don't know if that's how they do it now though... PoohsHoneyBee would know... maybe she will chime in!

We do this at the house. After all of the girls have received their bids, they meet with selected members to be escorted back to the house. Usually it is Phi (new member) Director, President, Rush Director and a couple of others. They then walk to the houses and line the girls up and each girl is let in one by one and is celebrated by the entire chapter. Confetti is thrown, Jerseys are put on and a welcome song is sung. Party Pics catches it all. It is so fun! Usually a very much desired rushee is kept until last to keep the chapter in suspense. Also Gamma Chis (recruitment counselors) are thrown in once in a while to change it up.

I LOVE FORMAL RECRUITMENT. (the way my school did it)

However, I don't understand the "give the pnms 3 choices" thing I mean, isn't that what they do when they write down what sororities they want and in what order.

I am against "suicide" listing, but if a girl thinks she would only take a bid from one sorority and writes down 4, and she gets her 3rd choice, then she DID choose who she would take a bid from and obviously 1 and 2 did not have her on their top bid list. They are welcome to decline the bid but . . .

To put the sororities through a torture session of giving the pnm a bid and the pnm declining the bid for another sorority that cut them is not right for the sorority. Also I think that would cause more sororities to get 10 when other sororities get 40 or some crazy disorder like that.

If I have misunderstood what anyone has written the please forgive me I am just in the mood to put my two cents in everywhere tonight.