[cinder1965]

Originally Posted by AXOrushadvisor

I have been reading this thread and have not commented. I am a recruitment adviser and have been for many years. My daughter just navigated a competitive PAC 12 recruitment with a happy ending. Her experience was not happy all the way through the process and she had peaks and valleys loosing some of her favorites along the way. I think my daughter is street smart more so then the average girl. Looking back her opinions on the Chapters going through recruitment were almost spot on. I think that if some of these girls are not feeling a connection that's ok.

Housing. If you want the sorority experience to include housing and the majority of Chapters have housing that might be a deal breaker for some if not most of the PNM's. For my daughter and for me it would also be a deal breaker. I lived in a sorority house for 2 years. I was the BEST experience ever and I would recommend it to any one. I advise at a non housed chapter that does live in University dorms. It is a completely different experience. There are no meals, no cook and no traditions that go along with those meals including grace. Meetings are held in a classroom and not the Chapter House. You loose a lot by not having that communal shared living experience and being in a dorm or apt. is really not a replacement in my opinion

Bills. There are bills to pay with an unhoused Chapter. The budget is HUGE! What I can tell you is that unhoused and housed Chapters do the exact same thing. In fact, my Chapter does more events then my daughters Chapter and her dues are more then my girls.

Mutual Selection. It is mutual selection. With not getting into membership selection a lot of going through recruitment is who you know. Also, please consider that the Chapters have to release a certain amount of women but get 3/4 through the release list and all the women appear to be equal. At that point you have to figure out a way to weed through that next 1/4 you will release. It might be that the Chapter has predetermined what they are looking for and do it that way. They want to raise their grades and they take that 1/4 from girls who have the lowest GPA. Your girl could have missed it by .10 of a point and been the one left off the list. It is a numbers game at ANY university. We do our best but the reality is we can not take every one. Do we make mistakes? You bet, but hindsight is 20/20. Here is a really good example: 2 years ago we released a friend of a member. At the time we didn't know she was a friend because she didn't tell us! We loved this member and respected her and felt bad about it. She went through the entire process preffed 2 houses and still did not feel a connection. She dropped out of recruitment. This was the year 5 Chapters at our University didn't make quota including us and we Snap Bid her. 2 years later she is the Chapter President! Recruitment is not a science. It is a lot about the way people connect with each other much like dating is. Sometimes one feels the connection but not the other and it goes both ways. A lot of recruitment, whether we want to admit it or not, is how you look and dress and the conversations and connection.

Vent. This site is not good on letting people vent. These Moms are hurting and if you don't have a child that has gone through the process I don't think you can comment or judge what these women are feeling. It is crushing when your daughter calls you in tears. A Mom wants to fix things. It is hard to advise your kid when you are hurting because they are hurting. I do this and get it and it was the most difficult process I have ever gone through including my own recruitment experience. These women are hurting we need to let them hurt. Don't get offended when they tell us what their daughters felt about certain chapters. They don't know you and are just writing it down to work through the grieving process. I personally have not once read elitist or entitled into one of their post. I have read that a Mom is hurting and is trying to make sense of the process. We need to cut them some slack.

Indiana. This was a school my daughter had on her radar very early on. I said absolutely not. There are to many fabulous Universities that have thriving Greek systems that I can give my money to. I will protest with my money. I will tell you I have a rec girl going through the process and she has had a perfect recruitment so far. We will see after bid day. She is involved in a group that has a ton of sorority women in it. I think that has helped her along with the fact that she is the perfect package. Again, Indiana might be a place where who you know matters more then recs and how you look on paper. When someone asks me about the Greek system at Indiana I'm honest and tell them it has the most horrible process in the country and recommend if they want to go Greek to do it at another University. I also direct them to the Pan website and have them read those comments. Not many choose to go there after being educated.

100% agree.