Blondie- I agree with you. Deferred recruitment worked for my school, but I also think that it limited the involvement of freshmen because they found other things to do. We were also a 99% residential campus (all but married or if you had a kid), which is why I think the deferred piece hurt our recruitment numbers- the dorms and other aspects of residential life on campus provided you with a lot of opportunities to get involved, and the school kind of ignored the Greek system. But that's another topic
I would love to see my school try fall recruitment for a couple of years.
I can see deferred being problematic for large schools as you mentioned with dirty rushing. Makes me think of Honey's recruitment story from Pitt that involved all sorts of extra activities that would be considered dirty rushing now! Fall recruitment also helps prevent a lot of the extra reputation gossip and hearing where you
should go instead of thinking for yourself. But it also probably makes it a bit harder to get past the issues AOII Angel presents.