Very sweet short recruitment story
 

I wish there were a Penn State story this year (anyone looking for 22 code names would be a tip off) but instead, here's a sweet little University of Colorado story to keep you recruitment addicts going:

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6873979

Totally cool! I love the way it was written!

I'd love to see a PSU thread, too - although we did have one last year. Now, to get a Pitt thread!!

LT - where are you getting 22? Are there some non NPCs that do Panhel rush?

Great story

33girl -

Sorry, it's actually 23 - 20 National sororities + 3 "Associate Chapters", whatever they are.

From the Penn State Panhel website: "Below is a list of Panhellenic Members. There are currently 23 chapters at Penn State."

AChiO
ADPi
AOPi
Alpha Phi
ASA
AZD
ChiO
TriDelt
DG
DZ
GPhiB
Theta
KD
KKG
PhiMu
PiPhi
SDT
SK
TriSig
Zeta
---

"Associate Chapters"

Omega Phi Alpha
Phi Sigma Rho
Sigma Alpha

Recruitment started yesterday, and it's not a pretty time, either for the sororities or the PNMs. No recs, no pics, no resumes. 23 places to visit. Ugh.

I looked in the rush guide - they're (the 3 associates) not included in recruitment rounds. I don't understand why they're in Panhel at all.

Some groups need to belong to a governing body and just have no where else to go. At my school we have cultural orgs on the council and just now are they trying to get a multi-cultural council going, but that won't happen until they get approval.

Resume's and Pictures and Recommendations
 

Many chapters at Penn State do welcome and LOVE to have pictures and resumes on the PNM's. Recruitment Teams and volunteer Recruitment Advisors at many NPC chapters on the PSU campus really look forward to receiving them ---as few as they might be---not in the hundreds---like some other campuses. Many chapters have been receiving them for years!

From the recruitment handbook for PSU:
Recommendation: A written letter sent by an alumna recommending a woman
for membership in a sorority. This is not a requirement for Penn State
Formal Recruitment, but recommendations are always welcomed!

Well, we didn't see a single one when I was rush chairman for ASA. I'm not saying no picture or resume ever shows up in a sorority's mailbox - I'm sure some do - but no one I knew had them, and my friends got bids from good national sororities without them.

Penn State runs rush LARGELY without reccs and I say "thank God" It's so great that girls like me who weren't raised with the idea of joining a sorority have an equal chance at recruitment, and aren't penalized just because Mom didn't join a sorority - or even attend college -- and doesn't know the ropes or have influential friends to write letters for her daughter.

PSU & UofI are two schools which really should utilize recs!! There is just no possible way to make the proper impression to over 15 sororities in one week!

I would argue that most recs are probably full of sweet nothings anyway that don't really help you "know" a woman any more than what you find out from actually meeting her. Recs seem especially pointless to me when EVERY woman on a campus is told to get 1 or 2 to a chapter, as if she was checking off a list. What is the point of recs if they're a requirement and everyone has one? Recs are supposed to be for young women that are standouts, women that alumnae want to get special attention. Well, not every woman in recruitment can be given special attention...there's just no time for it. Not saying that recs are bad, just that once every woman has them anyway, they become insignificant.

On a large campus, the value of the photo is really high. You don't have a huge chance of meeting more than a couple sisters, so having a photo to put that name to is wonderful.

My campus doesn't allow photos to be taken during Recruitment any longer, but when I was there, there were a few sisters whose sole job was to get a photo of every PNM, so that we could put a name to a face. Now that you can't do it, having the photo with the rec is the next best thing.

After graduation I was a member of a group that had a selection process, and we used photos and applications, and I agree that big schools like Penn State actually might benefit from the use of photos, since I know great girls were accidentally passed over because people couldn't remember them, or couldn't tell two girls with similar names apart. We took Poraroids of 2-3 people at a time - we weren't looking for professional headshots - just something we could pass to a current member and say "you DO remember her - I saw you talking to her at the beginning of the party."

I also have no problem with the concept of alums sending letters to their own sororities about their nieces or next door neighbors, saying "don't miss Marlee - she's a real star".

But the idea of requiring reccs or professional photos just infuriates me because it essentially ensures that the only girls who will be successful at recruitment will be those who arrive at college as freshman knowing all about recruitment because they're from "good" families who have a history of college graduates and are part of a strong social network of college graduates. It eliminates the chance of someone arriving at school, finding out about Greek life, and thinking "maybe I'll give this a shot".

No school requires recs. Some chapter do, but a girl can just as easily get a "no rec." as a good rec. If an alumni sends you a rec about a girl you don't know and it is a "no rec" then that is a good tip off that the girl will not fit in your chapter. It's not about all the girls having glowing recs. It is about finding the one's with not so glowing recs.

When I went through Formal Recruitment, the Rho Chi's would take a group photo of their group, and those photos in turn would be made into overhead projector pics and given out to each sorority to use during MS. Very helpful, though sometimes it was hard to pic out certain girls if the groups were too big (heads were too small!) I'm not sure if they still do this or not, but it seemed like a good idea at the time and no PNM was really sure why their pic was being taken other than maybe for the Greek Life website :p