Whirlwind, I could totally relate to your bewilderment!
My first university was =extremely= small, and had an even smaller greek population that included only local sororities. From what I had seen their rush process was extremely informal, and even my experience with Delta Sigma Pi (professional business co-ed) didn't have a rush anything like NPC does.
When I first joined Greekchat and started reading all the rush stories (I joined very near to the beginning of most schools formal recruitment) I was extremely bewildered!
I had also just moved to a new school that was much bigger than my first and had 6 awesome NPC chapters. It happened that I moved in during mid-rush week, and was amazed that it seemed so much went into it. There were hundreds and hundreds of girls all dressed neatly looking eager to go into the next chapter room, and the parking lots were dotted with cars that had huge sorority-colored greek letters. I was amazed!
I joined my house this past spring, and now that I'm an ADPi, I've now seen how much work actually goes into recruitment and how excited the sisters are to have fall rush around the corner, and I'm pretty sure the other chapters on campus feel the same and put in the same effort to make the rushees feel welcome! I also know more about how the whole process works and why it's different than other forms of rush (My boyfriend who is in a NIC fraternity is still bewildered as to why recruitment is such a big deal!)
I think BrownEyedGirl & KappaKittyCat explained it beautifully! In pools of hundreds or even thousands of other pnm's it's nice to make yourself stand out!
