[texas*princess]

Originally posted by slickwilly95991
I'm not sure this reasoning justifies the use of the sorority's rush program (I use rush because it's not recruitment, it's rush). Now if the girl who just wants to join ABC goes through a traditional fraternity recruitment and has her eyes only for ABC but doesn't mesh with ABC or its values then members of ABC can sit her aside and say, "We think you're nice, but don't think you are a fit for our organization." The whole process is a little more personal and protects both interests. Having a girl go through a whole rush process and in the end get snubbed is not protecting her.

Using my example from before, sometimes if ABC thinks SuzyQ is not a good match for the chapter, she will be cut, and if SuzyQ doesn't want any other sorority on campus, she will most likely drop out of rush, so it's not like she went thru the entire process to get "snubbed" at the end. The NPC process is used to protect the chapters as well as the pnms. The chapters want to meet people they feel are a great fit with the chapter, and most of the pnms want to do the same. Sometimes women do fall thru the cracks, but there is always other opportunities for her to join NPC sororities thru COR/COB or to rush again, or to start an interest group to form another sorority.

And this I guess is a side track to the whole discussion, but doesn't sorority rush process seem a little un-personal. I know for fraternity recruitment I'm sitting down with members and having discussions about what I get by joining and I present what I can give and there is real personal feelings going into it. In sorority rush, it seems like potential rushees are just herded around and nothing is personal.

Unless you've actually sat through an entire NPC rush process, you won't really know what we talk about @ the recruitment events There are many personal feelings going on during the process, and the reason pnms are "herded" around is usually because the Panhellenic wants to give all the pnms the chance to meet all the houses... additionally they want all the houses a chance to meet all the pnms. At some of the larger schools there are THOUSANDS of women interested in becoming greek, and it would be hard to schedule a laid back event for one sorority to house that many women all at one time. While I rushed (I went thru COR) I talked a lot to the sisters about why I wanted to join a sorority... and they talked to me a lot about the positive aspects of going greek and joining ADPi. And (*gasp*) surprisingly it was the same way when I did formal recruitment the following semester on the "sister side".

It also seems monopolistic. Why not let other organizations on campus and have competition to get the best members. I'm sure numbers would go up for everyone because the members would have to work for what they get not assume a quota.

You're using the word "seems" a lot.... because while it may "seem" that way, it is not entirely that way. Sororities participating in *ANY* form of recruitment - whether it be formal, informal, whatever, DO work hard to recruit the best women they can find to become members in their organization. I only wish I could go into full detail on number of things we do to prepare for recruitment and for our upcoming new member classes. I would be here all day.

Unfortunately you say you're so "sure" that numbers would go up for everyone, but that is not always the case. On any given campus there are only so many women even remotely interested in greek life to go around. If schools could just keep adding and adding sororities (or even fraternities) the number of potential members to go around (i.e. school enrollment or people interested in greek life) remain relatively the same unless enrollment numbers drop. So on a campus with 7000 students and all 26 NPC sororities, well, each sorority will only have a handful of members.

A prime example of this would be the school I used to go to. It was a relatively small school with around 7000 students. At one time our campus had SEVERAL chapters of different sororities and fraternities. After awhile, enrollment dropped enough to drastically affect numbers in all the chapters. Of all those GLOs, only 2 IFC fraternities remain. All the NPCs died out or closed, and their greek system just started rebuilding about 2 years ago.

It is basically a principle of supply & demand. If the sororities already existing get too full (this happens on a lot of campuses, especially larger ones with chapters that have over 200 members each) the campus panhellenic will usually decide to expand because there is obvious a big demand for room in greek life. If there is too much supply and no demand, the chapters will probably end up dying out.