sororities can use rushee pictures in a "sinister" way, or not. each house uses them differently. my chapter gets a picture of each freshman rushee out of the "freshman facebook"... so it doesn't really matter if the girls give us pictures with their rush apps and recs or not. the rushees are supposed to provide one headshot for each sorority when they register with panhel before rush begins. we use these pictures to make posters of girls with recs... of legacies... etc. we do use slides sometimes so everyone will know who we're talking about... but there are absolutely no comments made about a girl's looks in my house. with us, the whole purpose of rushee pictures is to help us get as familiar as possible with girls maybe some of us know but not everyone has met yet. we rush in january, so all throughout the fall we use the pictures so every sister can vicariously get to know girls that not everyone has gotten to meet.
for instance, we will flash a rushee's picture on the screen, and someone who knows her will stand up and say, "so-and-so is so sweet, i play volleyball with her and she blah blah blah..." or "she's in my english class, she always sounds really smart..." we talk about her personality, intelligence, reputation, etc. no one in my house will stand up and say, "she's too fat." that would be considered incredibly tacky even if everyone thought it were true.
and it's not even the case that the "good" or "attractive" houses all pick girls' pictures and appearances to shreds. as a group making membership decisions, we simply do not talk about a girl's looks, even though we are probably considered one of the better houses at our school. i know of houses not normally considered as "good" (shallow as that sounds) that in fact DO talk openly about fatness etc. as a group... saying that so-and-so is chubby and they don't need that in the house, things like that.
i don't know, these are just things i've noticed at my own school...
and anyhow, since freshmen here don't rush until after christmas break, our decisions on who gets in are based on more than just initial impressions and appearances. the girls who get in usually already know a lot of us and have been casually getting to know sisters throughout the fall before rush. so if a girl is beautiful, but she's a complete snob (or whatever)... she won't get in.
[This message has been edited by twinstars (edited July 05, 2001).]
|