Quote:
Originally posted by carnation
It's generalizing to say that all big Southern rushes are shallow. That's not why they're competitive. Alums and actives spend months behind the scenes looking up grades, activities, talking to people who have written recs. The sororities want people who'll represent them well in all aspects, not just in *pageants*. This is why a PNM should have a good resume of worthwhile activities--because sororities want workers, not ghost members or letter pimps.
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Carnation, I'm going to run with this for a minute....
It's true that in a lot of the larger recruitments (also the larger national sororities at smaller schools), the PNMs backgrounds are checked out as much as possible before recruitment. However, do we actually let them KNOW this? Probably not...it is probably done behind the scenes, on the down low, etc. And most PNMs who aren't recruitment savvy (or who don't have connected Greek family members) will not have this info. Therefore, they aren't as prepared for recruitment as others, and once they see how it all works, can very well perceive it as shallow (based on the fact that all the "research" appears to be a behind the back, "gossip about my reputation" kind of thing, especially if they feel they didn't get into a top house by their definition). You get several PNMs who were heavily cut or go bidless, and that increase the chatter out there that recruitment is shallow. So in a sense we've created our own problem.
I wonder what would happen if we made the process more public (not the voting part...everyone knows that there's some sort of voting/ranking process going on that's unique to each org.)? What if we talked about the fact that if you give us a reference we're going to call them and ask some questions about how well you'd live up to our values...how well you'd contribute to the org...what makes you stand out? What if we asked them to answer the questions: "What do you want to get out of sorority life at this school? What do you plan to contribute to sorority life at this school? What do you plan to contribute after you graduate? What previous (HS or otherwise) activity was your favorite one to participate in, and why?" on their recruitment application? Aren't those the types of questions that we try to get the answer to through rush conversations anyway? Ask 'em up front!! That approach would be no different than a job interview.
I don't think there's a way to take the "shallowness" completely out of recruitment. After all, appearance and first impressions do factor in to a majority of decisions on different levels. However, I think that it would be great if we were more up front about how the process works.
PsychTau