Alabama Recruitment

[Loyally Kappa]

You go, girl. Don't expect to make us stop being ourselves ... we let you be you!

[QUOTE=33girl;1837016]A lot of it IMO is just a misguided attempt by national Panhel to "de-frill" these very frilly, very traditional recruitments. All I can say is GIVE IT UP!! Nathan Lane will be banging Pamela Anderson in a dive bar in Omaha before that happens.

[littleowl33]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

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.

Makes sense.

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

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

Of course I do, and of course they weren't "crippled"! But I can tell you that in some very hoity toity circles (not mine, certainly), if your child went to state school, ANY state school, it would be looked at as an embarrassment and would not be mentioned. If it's not a big name, it's no good. I don't agree with that at all, but that's the way it is for some people. And if the GC stories are to be believed, there are Southern Greek parents who feel the same way about their children pledging certain "undesirable" chapters. I'm sure we can both agree that this kind of snobbery is certainly the minority for both demographics, and it's unfair to use it as a generalization.

[BlueCarnation]

I'm so intrigued by this "rec stuff," so I just checked on our recs for recruitment, which starts in two weeks. We have under 10, and 5 are for legacies. One gal is a legacy at 4 different chapters on campus! Interestingly, all the recs we received are from women who are initiates from Southern schools. Most of them live in the midwest now, but to a person, they are alumnae of Southern chapters.

[Loyally Kappa]

And although I was from UF and my grandmother was from Ohio Wesleyan, I cannot begin to tell you how delighted I was once I moved to Alabama that we were both Kappas. Being multi-generation, even though from out of state, still spoke volumes.

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

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.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by littleowl33

Makes sense.



Of course I do, and of course they weren't "crippled"! But I can tell you that in some very hoity toity circles (not mine, certainly), if your child went to state school, ANY state school, it would be looked at as an embarrassment and would not be mentioned. If it's not a big name, it's no good. I don't agree with that at all, but that's the way it is for some people. And if the GC stories are to be believed, there are Southern Greek parents who feel the same way about their children pledging certain "undesirable" chapters. I'm sure we can both agree that this kind of snobbery is certainly the minority for both demographics, and it's unfair to use it as a generalization.

I wasn't picking on you with the "crippled" comment.

I think that the number of people who actually live their lives making any important judgments about people based on either kind of elitism are probably pretty small in number.

Weirdly, I'd put parents not wanting kids to join "undesirable" chapters in kind of a different category. It's the socially insecure, rather than the elite, who are going to worry about that, assuming that the kid really wants to join the chapter. Some normal parents might just be bummed because their kid is disappointed with her results. But someone who isn't interested in actively social climbing isn't going to care if her daughter wants to join the "fat chapter."

[BlueCarnation]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

I wasn't picking on you with the "crippled" comment.

I think that the number of people who actually live their lives making any important judgments about people based on either kind of elitism are probably pretty small in number.

Weirdly, I'd put parents not wanting kids to join "undesirable" chapters in kind of a different category. It's the socially insecure, rather than the elite, who are going to worry about that, assuming that the kid really wants to join the chapter. Some normal parents might just be bummed because their kid is disappointed with her results. But someone who isn't interested in actively social climbing isn't going to care if her daughter wants to join the "fat chapter."

Is there even such a thing as the "fat chapter" down South? Every girl I've seen in all these pictures is just darling!

I think this is all just another cultural difference between the different areas of the country. When I tell people where I went to school, few ask what sorority I was in, unless they were Greek themselves--we have a large Greek system, but we're known more for other things (I went to one of the big, "higher rated" publics that have been mentioned above). We have a lot of kids that come from all over the country to our school, and interestingly the Greek system is seen, not necessarily correctly, as a haven for students from certain areas, and exclusive of in state students. So again, I think it all just depends. One of my best friends from college lives in Florida now and her neighbors can't believe that she was not in a sorority and never considered it. But to her, growing up in a blue collar town in the midwest, it was never even something she considered. Again, not good or bad, just different.

[Txborn]

Originally Posted by 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 .

I love that - here is a man who has his head on straight - he loves his wife and his Longhorns!!!!

[MerryGPhiB]

Originally Posted by Txborn

I love that - here is a man who has his head on straight - he loves his wife and his Longhorns!!!!

Smart man!!! ;-)

[BadCat25]

This whole conversation is so weird. I don't want to knock Bama but lets not pretend it is an elite university, even in the South. The elite southern colleges are Duke, Vandy, Emory, Rice, Davidson and one or two others. The Southern kids with the smarts and the $ went to these schools or went North for their education. Princeton always had a substantial group of Southerners. Even John C Calhoun, who was as Southern as you can get went to Yale.

[HuskyAlum]

Originally Posted by BadCat25

This whole conversation is so weird. I don't want to knock Bama but lets not pretend it is an elite university, even in the South. The elite southern colleges are Duke, Vandy, Emory, Rice, Davidson and one or two others. The Southern kids with the smarts and the $ went to these schools or went North for their education. Princeton always had a substantial group of Southerners. Even John C Calhoun, who was as Southern as you can get went to Yale.

Thank you... agreed!

[homeward*bound]

Originally Posted by 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 .

Proof that your husband is a very wise man indeed --- no matter where he went to school!

[Low C Sharp]

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.

If you could quantify admissions selectivity and add it to rush cutthroatedness, my guess is that Duke would have the highest sum. It's a long way from Bama in terms of rush stakes, though.
________
Laguna Heights Condominium Wong Amat

[UHDEEGEE]

The Southern kids with the smarts and the $ went to these schools or went North for their education.

I wouldn't make this assumption at all. My son has the smarts and the $ and is being heavily recruited already for Fall of 2010 by Columbia, Emory and Rice to name a few, yet he has narrowed his top two choices to 2 state SEC schools.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by UHDEEGEE

I wouldn't make this assumption at all. My son has the smarts and the $ and is being heavily recruited already for Fall of 2010 by Columbia, Emory and Rice to name a few, yet he has narrowed his top two choices to 2 state SEC schools.

I would agree, although it's a fairly recent phenomenon. My Southern HS regularly sends kids to the Ivies/Stanford/MIT, but a good number of the kids who are accepted to an Ivy and a Florida school will often pick the Florida school because of Bright Futures. Also, family tradition and the fact that most of one's friends are headed to Tuscaloosa or Gainesville often sways the kids.

If the statistics still bear out from the 1998-1999 school year, the majority of students at Duke, Vandy, Rice, and Emory are from the Northeast.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by BadCat25

The elite southern colleges are Duke, Vandy, Emory, Rice, Davidson and one or two others. The Southern kids with the smarts and the $ went to these schools or went North for their education.

Really? They still let Southern kids into Duke? (I kid. Sort of.)

I'm going to have to call bull, or at least partial bull, on this. This gets into that "the South is not a monolith" discussion we've had on GC from time to time. What's true in some parts of the South may not be true elsewhere in the South.

Without cutting any of the schools you mentioned (well, except for the cuts I already took at Duke), I've known very few people with smarts & money who chose to go to Vandy, Emory or Rice. Those schools really aren't on the radar screen of most people in NC -- the people I have known who went to those schools were typically from Tennessee, Georgia or Texas respectively (or their families were). Likewise, relatvely few people go north to school unless they get scholarships. And don't try arguing that NC isn't really the South -- you've already identified Davidson as an elite Southern college, so that dog won't hunt.

Around here, if you have the smarts and the money and you're looking for one of the "right" places to go, you go to UNC (not that the money is as big an issue there), Duke, Wake Forest, Davidson, UVa, Hampden-Sydney, or maybe William and Mary. (In other words, you go to school in North Carolina or Virginia.)