are there advantages??

[FSUZeta]

i was reading jocelyn's thread on the negative impact live journals or gc postings CAN have on a pnm's recruitment, and i got to wondering, are there positives to having a facebook account before recruitment? do the sororities actually check out the incoming freshman?

for instance, if a girl gets a college facebook account, posts a cute photo of herself, is careful what groups she joins , what she puts in her photo albums and what she says, could it work to her advantage?

[Drolefille]

This was totally not intentional on the PNM's part but:

Last fall I was the computer nerd for recruitment and got to see every single PNM's application so, being occasionally bored while the parties were going on, I'd surf facebook. This girl, who did in fact join our chapter, had a comment on her wall from a guy friend that said he had seen a Sigma Kappa T-shirt and thought of her. From that, I got that this girl was a already in love with Sigma Kappa (her cousin is one, though that doesn't qualify as legacy status). Everyone who had met her at the party was super excited because they liked her so much!
Slightly creepy and facebook stalkerish... yes. But still a positive impression. (As a result of being the computer guru, I had practically memorized these girls on paper... sadly I didn't get to know them as well because I didn't take part in the parties.)

She also had a cute picture for what it's worth.

[PenguinTrax]

Originally posted by FSUZeta
i was reading jocelyn's thread on the negative impact live journals or gc postings CAN have on a pnm's recruitment, and i got to wondering, are there positives to having a facebook account before recruitment? do the sororities actually check out the incoming freshman?

for instance, if a girl gets a college facebook account, posts a cute photo of herself, is careful what groups she joins , what she puts in her photo albums and what she says, could it work to her advantage?

If the facebook account is positive, honest and informative it can, at least, not have a negagive impact on recruitment. Can it help? Hard to say - an online pic or a resume will only get a PNM so far. It's how she presents herself and how she relates to the chapter that matters.

If a girl presents herself with a zillion hours of community service and all sorts of activities, but her blog states she 'signed up for X event, then blew it off to party', that is one PNM that is going to be heavily scrutinized.

I'm all for personal publishing and blogs, but there comes a point when a line is crossed and unfortunately, most people don't know that point.

[AChiOhSnap]

Originally posted by FSUZeta
i was reading jocelyn's thread on the negative impact live journals or gc postings CAN have on a pnm's recruitment, and i got to wondering, are there positives to having a facebook account before recruitment? do the sororities actually check out the incoming freshman?

for instance, if a girl gets a college facebook account, posts a cute photo of herself, is careful what groups she joins , what she puts in her photo albums and what she says, could it work to her advantage?

In theory, these things can help, especially if a PNM presents herself in a classy and sophisticated manner. If she lists tons of positive activities like sports and volunteering, that can't hurt.

In practice, though, 99% of the time these facebook/live journals/myspaces end up hurting PNMs. PNMs bitch and moan about how they have to edit their photo albums and how it shouldn't matter, and how the sororities should accept them for who they are and they shouldn't have to hide the fact that they like to party. They also complain about how hypocritical it is that they're asked to take down the party pics when all the sorority girls have them up on their myspaces or facebooks.

Yes, it's hypocritical -- I mean, we all know actives who have tons of pictures of themselves drunkenly stumbling around Puerto Vallarta -- but at most schools, the ONLY impression a PNM is going to make about herself is through the recruitment parties. The actives are exempt from this because, obviously, they've already made their impressions. So that's that.

The PNM has to present herself to a sorority in a very short amount of time, so anything negative AT ALL in a Facebook or Myspace can work against her. Tough decisions have to be made when there are 50+ girls up for 30 spots. All else being equal, the girl with the picture of herself drunkenly making out with two guys is going to get cut.

My advice to PNMs is to not put up a Facebook profile until after recruitment (if a fall recruitment is held at the school) and make myspace/LJs friends only from the DAY you sign up for recruitment until after it's over. Seriously.... even stuff you have no control over (like one of your friends posting "OMG you crazy slut I love you you were so drunk last weekend, I can't believe you played stip poker with all those guys") can work against you. I say just don't go down that road and save yourself the hassle, especially at a competitive recruitment.

[KSUViolet06]

There isn't an advantage, but if a PNM doesn't overexpose herself online, then online activites (Facebook, Xanga, MySpace) have no effect on her recruitment experience. She is evaluated by chapters based on what happens in recruitment and what the chapters see of her.

[tunatartare]

I think I may have posted this story a while ago in a different thread but last year we had a pnm come through recruitment who seemed nice but was kind of shy and didn't really try to talk to us. We were going to cut her before pref but she facebooked the roommate of one of the girls in the sorority and would always send her messages like "tell KLP how much I loved them," "KLP is the best sorority," "I wanna join KLP," blah, blah, blah. We heard this and we decided to invite her back to pref because she was so enthusiastic about us. At pref she didn't really make a big effort to talk to anyone. As soon as pref was over, my sister's roommate called her to tell her that this girl had messaged her gushing about us. Yet in the long run, she ended up joining another sorority. I think she was just using facebook to get around the whole no talking to girls in sororities during recruitment thing. No clue if she did this with girls in any of the other sororities.

[Xylochick216]

Our recruitment wasn't til January, but whenever the new Freshman Facebook (an actual book with the new class's pictures, hometowns, activities, etc.) came out, we'd look it over and have fun guessing who would go where on our campus. it did make us aware of some women. I think it might be a bit stalkerish to hunt freshman down on facebook online and learn every little detail about them, but I think it would definitely give someone an advantage over someone who had a horrible facebook or myspace profile.

[AChiOhSnap]

Originally posted by Xylochick216
I think it might be a bit stalkerish to hunt freshman down on facebook online and learn every little detail about them, but I think it would definitely give someone an advantage over someone who had a horrible facebook or myspace profile.

No, I totally agree that it's stalkerish -- but a lot of times (especially at smaller schools) members will do just that. I think it's more of a situation where someone gets bored and decides to see who's going through recruitment, rather than the house huddled around a computer and picking apart the PNMs. Especially with groups like "Fall Recruitment 2005" or whatever, it becomes very easy for a sister, who was initially just casually curious, to dig up some bad dirt on a girl.

And in all honesty, I'm sure really amazing girls have been cut because one or two sisters saw something on Facebook that they didn't like. I guess I'm just really emphatic about this because I want to make sure that all the PNMs are seen for who they really are, not for their spring break pictures.

[Jestor]

Out of the schools I've been to over the years, I know of at least one sorority who specifically checks out PNMs on facebook and it also happens to be the strongest sorority on that particular campus to my knowledge.

Is it stalkerish? That's a matter of personal opinion and can be argued either way. What I think it does do, however, is add more information to consider when deciding who to offer bids to, something that I believe can be quite valuable, particularly at those campuses where Rush is for a very limited time.

[FSUZeta]

alphachiemily, at many chapters ,advisors have to be facebook police, and give the members a deadline to remove photos featuring questionable activity.

bottom line to pnms or members-if you would not want your parents, grandparents, minister/priest/rabbi or university president to see what you are doing in your photo, don't post it in a public forum.

[notyouraverage]

When I went through spring recruitment, I used facebook to search for members of the groups I was interested in joining. It helped me remember names and faces and what I talked to which sister about for the next round. Of course for fall recruitment, all NPC girls are supposed to be invisible on facebook.

[PsychTau2]

Originally posted by FSUZeta
alphachiemily, at many chapters ,advisors have to be facebook police, and give the members a deadline to remove photos featuring questionable activity.

bottom line to pnms or members-if you would not want your parents, grandparents, minister/priest/rabbi or university president to see what you are doing in your photo, don't post it in a public forum.

I tell my students to think of these things as photo albums on a table. There's the photo album that you happily place on the coffee table in the living room, open for any visitor (parents, faculty, PNMs) to look through, and then there's the photo album that you keep under your bed that only you and close friends/brothers/sisters look at. These two albums should NOT be the same.

College students drink, play jokes on each other, take risks, and act stupid sometimes....and they take pictures of themselves doing all of the above. However, Wal Mart has long lines to return items at Customer Service, and gas stations have nasty bathrooms (some of them), but their marketing firms don't show us pictures of that.

That's the two analogies I use with my students when talking about internet pictures, etc. I encourage them to password protect their online photo albums...I actually have one chapter that does that...I know they've got "incriminating" photos in there, but as long as they keep it a private album, I think that's a good solution.

PsychTau

[WVU alpha phi]

The list of names my sorority is interested in is usually kept pretty confidential. Only the President, VP Recruitment, and Director of Recruitment have access to it. However, living in the house like I did this past year, it's not hard to get a hold of the list, so pretty much all 25 of us in the house saw it after every round. My roommates and I did our fair share of facebooking the girls we kept inviting back. We didn't have a say (outside of scoring the girls) who made each list, so our facebooking was harmless. In fact, I might say it was beneficial because we got to see who we were really interested in, and then if we talked to them during recruitment, we could REALLY try hard to sell ourselves. I wouldn't rule out a PNM based on her facebook or myspace interests. Yes, it might reflect negatively if she has something like "getting wasted every night" written on there, but no one in my sorority can say they don't drink. I think it would only be a problem when people talk about it excessively, or start bragging about it.

[adpiucf]

My opinion on LJ, Facebook, MySpace, etc:

If you put it out there, then don't be surprised if people find it and judge you based on it. You have the power to come off smelling like a rose or stinking like an ashtray. It is 100% in your power and your choice.

[kddani]

There are also disadvantages of sorority members themselves having facebook/myspace/etc. Particularly where they proudly declare their group, and then have tons of pictures of themselves and members of their sorority drunk with alcohol in their hands, or when they trash their sisters on the site.

Sure, everyone has a few drunk pictures of themselves and their friends. But almost every picture posted involves alcohol? Not to mention that doing so when your letters are associated with the pictures is against nearly every single NPC group's policies (or maybe all!).

Chapters with members who do so really have to be more aware. Not only does it present a poor image of your group (i.e. all you do is party- PNM's and their families do research!), but it also opens up your chapter to risk management issues and make you in danger of losing your charter. Such as having pictures of women at your sorority formal, who are clearly underage, with alcohol in their hands.

However, if you had an account and posted about other activities than partying, you would paint a much better picture.