Alabama Recruitment

[Nhfulmer]

Originally Posted by F50437

bamamom90:
My heart bleeds for you, which is why I’m risking responding. I post very rarely. I know a young woman (not from Alabama but from “up north”) who started UA in the fall of 2007. She decided to go through rush at the last minute without recs, etc. She received an invitation to one pref party and dropped out (I think before the party). She had a successful rush the next year and is now a proud sorority sister of a sorority which originally cut her as a freshman. I don’t think that grades are her strong point. I will get tripe for this but here goes…I was in a very small city in Alabama having lunch in March of 2009. One member of the group asked about the family of the Alabama resident in the group. He said that his daughter was having the time of her life. She was attending teas at UA and was going to live in Tutwiler (just like her mother did) even though she was eligible for the honors dorm. This happened before she even graduated from high school. I really do think that rush is especially hard for a freshman from out of state at UA. I think that many in state girls have someone pulling for them on the inside way before rush starts. Check out the post by a father of a U GA girl from out of state on another recruitment thread. However, because there is a separate quota (which to my uneducated eye seems pretty high) for upper classmen, it might be easier at UA for a sophomore at UA than at some other schools. In fact I wonder if the upper classman quota at UA is purposefully in place in order to pick up more out of state students. If your daughter likes and knows about football, have her check out the “A Team.” It is a group which escorts potential football recruits during games. She will have to sit with them and their families. But she will be on the field when the games start.

If you check the list of 1200 young women who accepted bids yesterday, many of them are from out of state. I didn't count but the number I've heard is that about half of last year's pledges were from out of state. Someone is getting the message and taking care of business. My girls from Charlotte were all covered and it looks as though about 15 of them are proud new sorority members. I know it looks like it would discriminate against out of state students but it really doesn't if they will take care of business - the problem is in getting them to believe that it is necessary.

Someone posted about a Louisiana Panhellenic not writing out of state recs. That is just plain ridiculous. I'm on the Executive Board of our local APH and we help any girl - regardless of where she is going.

In response to another post, as an advisor I have met and talked with a rushee and then signed a rec; however, this was at a school on the opposite end of the spectrum. At that school, we often didn't even know who was signed up for rush until the first day of parties and none of the five sororities on campus gave a second thought to recs. It just depends on where you are and at Bama, it's required.