[33girl]

The above post completely sums it up. Too many members/advisors/volunteers (and when it's the last two, they are usually from campi where 99.9% of their members were acquired through formal rush) look at the "five steps to recruitment" and think it should take five minutes, or five days. No. It can take a year, or two...because that's how long making friends with someone can take. It's not a Bagel Bite.

As I've said many times, you want someone to become your friend to the point where they will feel comfortable enough to ask you about pledging and when they can do it. If you have to beg them to go to open rush events, or just hang out with your sisters, you either aren't there yet, or else you've blundered and made them think that you are only befriending them because they're a warm body and your sorority needs numbers.

Unless the previous formal rush (as in the total number of girls rushing) was very small for some reason or another - weather issues on campus, change from fall to spring, a publicized scandal of some sort in the Greek community that scared women away - completely open COB events are usually a waste of money, a waste of time, a blow to chapter self-esteem, and a recipe for disaster when the biggest freakazoids on campus show up knowing that you're in need of members.