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Also keep in mind that at places like Auburn where we have huge chapters, we can ususally find someone who has at least heard of most PNM's before. I'm from west Alabama, and I get asked constantly if I know Susie Q. from XTown or Susie P from ZTown. Sometimes I do, and when I don't know her, I usually know someone who does. Every sister from the Atlanta area knows or knows someone that knows Atlanta-area PNM's. Same way for sisters from Birmingham, Montgomery, and other places--and it's like that for every chapter on campus. Believe me, there's a lot of behind-the-scenes "research" on girls that goes on before the actual week of recruitment. Girls are "known" before they actually come through.
Every organization has chapters that really are shallow and will ask you blatantly how much your parents make and/or judge you on how many designers you have in your closet. There are certainly a couple here; I'd be lying if I said there weren't. There are also plenty of chapters that look at Jane in a Lily Pulitzer dress and just think "Hey, that dress happens to look really cute on her--she really put herself together well," and don't take into account the designer. Like CarolinaCutie said, plenty of "hot" girls with nothing else to back them up (mediocre grades, not many outside activities, very little community service) get cut all the time.
Other factors aside, looks are about the only way you can remember a girl when you're meeting 1000+ of them. Even though sister Katie may only meet 85-100 PNM's during ice water teas, that's still a lot of girls.
I don't think this is inherent only to Southern chapters, but rather to all campuses with a huge Greek Life interest. It just happens that most campuses with that huge of an interest seem to be down here, so we kind of get stuck with that "shallow" label. It would be fabulous if we could really get to know every girl during recruitment, but can you just imagine how long that would take? Personally, I don't like the idea of 8 rounds of IWT so that each girl goes to 2 parties a day and gets to know the chapter better than in 25 minutes. If less girls were going through recruitment, then it wouldn't be so big a deal.
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