Alabama Recruitment

[libelle]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

Obviously, an elite education in certain fields is more universally valuable than joining a top-tier GLO at Bama. But if you're going to settle down in Mobile, your general quality of life might be better as a former Phi Delta Theta or a Kappa from Bama than if you were a graduate of Princeton.

It's provincial, sure, but not everyone gives a flip about elite colleges.

If you have the family connections to be a Kappa or Phi Delt at Bama then your general quality of life in Mobile will be good even if you go to a school like Princeton.

[kk_bama]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

But this isn't the norm anywhere. It may happen, but I think it's blown out of proportion.

If you had a couple of people doing crazy stuff at your institution, you wouldn't expect the whole system to be judged by their values.

Have any of y'all read the novel Eating the Cheshire Cat by Helen Ellis? It mentioned a girl who didn't get into DDD at UA and immediately goes down to Auburn so she can get into DDD there. Of course now that couldn't happen because UA and AU Recruitment happens at the same time. lol.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

Oh, pardon me. I was confused about who the poster whose school we were referring to was. I thought LL was schooling someone from Alabama when I posted.

Yeah. Like I said, she kind of threw down the gauntlet, and it ended up being a tall order. Plus, the more selective schools (even in the South) tend to have very diverse Greek systems, which indicates to me at least that the rush isn't as cutthroat.

I am probably the only person here on GC who finds neither the "Southern" rush nor selective college admissions "freaky," and is actually quite accustomed to both.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by littleowl33

And this is how I would feel about an SEC rush! I don't find the selectivity of Ivies and similar schools freaky at all. We're just in different mindsets, which is what I was trying to convey in the first place.

I never said that southern girls don't care about academics or that southern universities aren't academically rigorous. I don't think that's the case. I don't want this thread to turn into a north vs. south or academics vs. greek life type thing because I don't think that's how things are. Unfortunately, I see things going downhill from here.

I'm not interested in a big discussion of regional differences either, but come on, if you look at the percentiles on admissions tests, the data points are way, way out there for the super competitive schools. Think about plotting the average score on a bell curve. There's no way to objectively argue that Ivy admissions are normal.

If more than 90% of the girls who don't drop out of rush get bids at Bama, it's just not comparable.

[littleowl33]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

And I'm going to make a somewhat ridiculously relativistic point.

Even if we took the statement at it's somewhat offensive level, one could still argue that what the southern girls were groomed for was as important to their long term quality of life as the girls groomed for competitive colleges, assuming they accepted the values of the culture they were raised in.

Obviously, an elite education in certain fields is more universally valuable than joining a top-tier GLO at Bama. But if you're going to settle down in Mobile, your general quality of life might be better as a former Phi Delta Theta or a Kappa from Bama than if you were a graduate of Princeton.

It's provincial, sure, but not everyone gives a flip about elite colleges.

I very much agree with this. If the GLO you joined in college is a major reflection of your status in the South, the college you attended is a major reflection of your status for me. I'm not saying one is more important than the other - I'm of the opnion that anyone can get a fantastic education anywhere, depending on your attitude and work ethic. My friends at Ivies could dick around for four years and emerge useless just as easily as someone at UA could. That's not the point here.

Hardly anyone in the area of New England I grew up in cares if you went Greek in college, or if so, what group you joined. It would never come up in conversation. They've probably never even heard of your GLO if it's not one of the super well-known ones. And honestly, it wouldn't be out of place for them to look down on you for being greek - the negative stereotypes are pretty intense. However, it is a very big deal where you went to college, especially at the grad level.

So, to mirror your closing statement, not everyone gives a flip about affiliation... and in fact, most won't (for me). My Greek friends in the Hopkins engineering school laughed when I talked about putting Kappa on my resume. For them, listing their GLO would be worthless, and at worst, hurtful to their chances of landing a job. Not judging, just repeating (verbatim) what they've told me.

[SWTXBelle]

FWIW, my husband has two degrees from the University of Texas and a Master's from Yale - he in no way thinks his education at Yale was superior to that at UT, although he will admit the Yale libraries are AWESOME. And he says that the best thing to help his quality of life wasn't getting an Ivy League degree - it was marrying a Gamma Phi .

[littleowl33]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

I'm not interested in a big discussion of regional differences either, but come on, if you look at the percentiles on admissions tests, the data points are way, way out there for the super competitive schools. Think about where the plotting the average score on bell curve. There's no way to objectively argue that Ivy Admissions are normal.

If more than 90% of the girls who don't drop out of rush get bids at Bama, it's just not comparable.

But the reason the Ivies are the Ivies is because they don't take normal students... they take the top students from all across the country. I don't find anything wrong with that - that's the way they work, and that's why they have big name recognition. A high percentage of the girls at Bama won't get into the chapters that get big name recognition, and that's why those groups DO get big name recognition and why membership becomes a status symbol. I would say that scenario is pretty comparable.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

Yeah. Like I said, she kind of threw down the gauntlet, and it ended up being a tall order. Plus, the more selective schools (even in the South) tend to have very diverse Greek systems, which indicates to me at least that the rush isn't as cutthroat.

I am probably the only person here on GC who finds neither the "Southern" rush nor selective college admissions "freaky," and is actually quite accustomed to both.

You may be.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by littleowl33

But the reason the Ivies are the Ivies is because they don't take normal students... they take the top students from all across the country. I don't find anything wrong with that - that's the way they work, and that's why they have big name recognition. A high percentage of the girls at Bama won't get into the groups that get big name recognition, and that's why those groups DO get big name recognition and why membership becomes a status symbol.

I don't find anything* wrong with Ivy-level selectivity either, and in that regard, "freak show" was poor word choice. It's hard to make the case that you didn't mean it pejoratively.

It might be worth noting that you've changed your comparison from SEC recruitment generally being "freaky" to being selected for certain elite groups.

*I have problems with a lack of objectivity to how they seem to evaluate merit in some instances. But not with extreme selectivity in itself.

[Katmandu]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

And he says that the best thing to help his quality of life wasn't getting an Ivy League degree - it was marrying a Gamma Phi .

Love this!

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by libelle

If you have the family connections to be a Kappa or Phi Delt at Bama then your general quality of life in Mobile will be good even if you go to a school like Princeton.

Good point. And I'd never say that going to Princeton was a negative, just that it could be a mistake to assume that everyone regarded it as being really, really valuable.

It's going to seem much more important to people who attended similar institutions or wanted to.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by kk_bama

Have any of y'all read the novel Eating the Cheshire Cat by Helen Ellis? It mentioned a girl who didn't get into DDD at UA and immediately goes down to Auburn so she can get into DDD there. Of course now that couldn't happen because UA and AU Recruitment happens at the same time. lol.

Well, that, and anyone knowledgeable would have rushed at Auburn first and transferred.

I'm kidding, really. It's possible someone really did think this way, but it wasn't normal.

[littleowl33]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

ETA: I think your definition of selective is probably narrower than what we were talking here. I wouldn't argue with your point at any college I'd put in the Ivy-League-or-Similar-Admissions-Freakshow range.

EATA: I don't mean that students at those institutions are freaks. I mean that the admissions criteria and degree of selectivity are freaky.

Originally Posted by littleowl33

And this is how I would feel about an SEC rush! I don't find the selectivity of Ivies and similar schools freaky at all. We're just in different mindsets, which is what I was trying to convey in the first place.

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

It might be worth noting that you've changed your comparison from SEC recruitment generally being "freaky" to being selected for certain elite groups.

That wasn't my intent... I didn't mean to include the whole college admissions/rush process, just the bit about getting into the "top tier" college/group. I though that's what we were talking about all along. Sorry if I was unclear.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by littleowl33

That wasn't my intent... I didn't mean to include the whole college admissions/rush process, just the bit about getting into the "top tier" college/group. I though that's what we were talking about all along. Sorry if I was unclear.

No big thing. I just probably would have nodded along had the comparison clearly been between the 7% of girls who get bids to the "top" group at Bama, whatever it might be, and admission at the Ivies.

But merely getting a bid in the SEC, while weird and difficult emotionally, is no admission to Harvard equivalent in the realm Greek Life.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by littleowl33

I very much agree with this. If the GLO you joined in college is a major reflection of your status in the South, the college you attended is a major reflection of your status for me. I'm not saying one is more important than the other - I'm of the opnion that anyone can get a fantastic education anywhere, depending on your attitude and work ethic. My friends at Ivies could dick around for four years and emerge useless just as easily as someone at UA could. That's not the point here.

Hardly anyone in the area of New England I grew up in cares if you went Greek in college, or if so, what group you joined. It would never come up in conversation. They've probably never even heard of your GLO if it's not one of the super well-known ones. And honestly, it wouldn't be out of place for them to look down on you for being greek - the negative stereotypes are pretty intense. However, it is a very big deal where you went to college, especially at the grad level.

So, to mirror your closing statement, not everyone gives a flip about affiliation... and in fact, most won't (for me). My Greek friends in the Hopkins engineering school laughed when I talked about putting Kappa on my resume. For them, listing their GLO would be worthless, and at worst, hurtful to their chances of landing a job. Not judging, just repeating (verbatim) what they've told me.

I missed this post earlier.

Please let me be clear: if we are talking about certain really exclusive chapters, it might be the case that your particular GLO really does matter for the rest of your life.

But as libelle noted, to get into those chapters, you probably already have the social standing that they are associated with. Getting a bid isn't transformational.
You were groomed for it; you got it.


But for most of us in the south, it's great to be Greek, but it's not life defining.

Similarly, you associate with people from less selective colleges. Their lives have not been crippled because they went to state schools.