Quote:
Originally Posted by Titchou
I have tried to formulate a response to this question many times over the years. It's tough to define - sort of, when you see it you know it kind of thing.
But taking a stab at it, I would say that a competitive campus is one where you have to have recs, it's on the PNM to get them, you definitely won't last if you don't have them - and maybe extra ones or letters of support also, and where you would drop out if you only had the lowest of the lowest left on your list unless you were realistic enough going in to know that would be all that's available to you because you had failed to get recs or because you don't meet the critera for most chapters (grades, activities, etc).
And this is still probably not clear enough - but I do know it when I see it!
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If you had to pick a single, objective criteria of "competitive", I think recs would be it. If you need to get recs on your own, it's an indicator that you need to be preparing for recruitment well in advance. That, in turn, indicates that most of the women rushing come from communities where they would know about rush before they got to campus, i.e. there is a strong Greek presence, and being an XYZ vs. an ABC "means something".
Contrast that with a no-rec school: you can probably sign up when you get to campus, borrow clothing from someone on your floor, and if you go home on break and say you pledged XYZ, your high school friends only care inasmuch as it's cool if someone else pledged the same group at a different school.