Okay, Okay, carnation's retro rush thread (ie, how not to do recruitment)
 

All right, enough with the pms! This thread is about how you shouldn't do recruitment. Keep this in mind, PNMs. Also remember that recruitment counseling was in its infancy and all they were really good for was herding rushees to their first parties.

This recruitmen begins at the University of Arkansas, where women couldn't rush until their sophomore year. Also, UA had "bed rush", where the new pledges moved immediately into their new house so each house could only pledge as many women as they had beds for. This meant that hundreds of women rushed and only a fraction got bids.:eek:

When I rushed, Arkansas had 9 sororities and 3 of those are no longer there; 2 others have come onto campus and another opened but folded. I really wanted to be Greek but I was also a cheerleader and it took up tons of time. It also had some bad effects on our grades because we would often have to leave for the games with the team on Wednesday or Thursday night. Yes, the sororities had study halls for pledges but they also had lots of required pledge duties. Another cheerleader was rushing with me but she felt that she could handle it all.

So...the first day we visited all 9 groups. Impressions that I can recall:

UNO-this was a smaller house. There were 2 older cheerleaders in it and they were nice but I wondered what it was like to feel like you always had to be rushing.

DOS-a slightly larger house. However, they actually offered the rushees cigarettes on a tray and smoking was considered rather trashy back then. I figured they wouldn't have good returns by the looks of the rushees' faces.

TRES-my guide was a national officer. She was sweet and the house was intriguing!

CUATRO-I can only remember a cute skit and that an older cheerleader was in this house. I still have her old uniform, lol.

CINCO-an older house to which we had some connections. Also a very interesting building! My roommate was a legacy and would like to be a Cinco.

SEIS-gorgeous house and members. The other cheerleader, "Debbie", was very interested in them.

SIETE-this was reputed to be a great house but it was not only literally freezing cold but many rushees talked about how they seemed to have their pledge class preselected and to heck with everybody else. My roommate's best friend was a Siete and she was also interested in Siete.

OCHO-a small house and unfortunately, not many rushees were interested.

NUEVE-the women were very enthusiastic; I can still see them dancing and singing in front of the house before we entered. Debbie liked them too.

The sororities at Arkansas back in the day were:

AXO
ADPi
XO
DDD
DG
KAT
KKG
Pi Phi
ZTA

We were told we would get our invitations back the next day at noon. One girl in our group asked the rush counselor what to do if she didn't get any invitations back. The counselor looked stunned and unprepared and said, "Uh, that would never happen."

YAY!!! I'm so glad you are doing a thread!

Carnation? What year was this??

:::::ducking:::::

Sometimes I fear that this is the type of Rho Chi I was-

that being said I did report some rush infractions against a chapter who were making phone calls to PNM's. :eek:

go TRES!!!

hooray...i am "hog" wild for this tale!

I wonder where she'll end up...

...so I go to cheer practice the next morning. When we show up at noon to get invitations, they tell us that the computer broke down and we won't get them until late that night. Parties are postponed. Whereupon our captain calls afternoon stunt practice and I, being the littlest, get thrown around the most and am hurting by the time dinner rolls around. Let me just creep into my bed and die.....

Ah ha! So they had computers back then!!! ;)

BUT - how big were the computers? And did they use punch-cards???:p

I seriously was going to ask that, but I've already done enough elderfying today.;)

They were the kind you see on the Flintstones, where you slide stone cards through a slot and little dinosaurs bite the holes into them. And they broke down that year and the next and were still breaking down 5 years later at Mississippi State.

Oh OH ... I worked on those ... when I went thru rush in 1970 I worked in the computer center and got to help run the invitation acceptances thru the sorter.

But man it was nasty cleaning up after those little dinos :D