Closing the door after the horses bolted

[SWTXBelle]

I am sorry your daughter couldn't see herself in the chapter which so obviously wanted her - if she was invited to pref, they wanted her. Perhaps she can find a home through informal recruitment.

I do think it bears mentioning that while we hear a great deal from moms of pnms who don't get bids, the vast majority of pnms FIND A HOME. Recruitment may not have worked out for your daughter (although if she had at least 2 pref chapters, I would argue that it worked pretty well up to that point) but especially with the new rfm programs we are seeing MORE women finding homes in MORE chapters. Overall, it works. It works better NOW than it did back-in-the-day. Record-breaking numbers of women are becoming sorority members. Campuses are expanding. Numbers don't lie, and the numbers say the system works, probably as well as it can. Deferred recruitment has its own problems, and those campuses are not the ones we see succeeding in the ways conventional campuses are.Having recruitment during classes is a major head-ache, and distracts from what should be a freshman's main focus - getting off to a good start academically. Chapters are always going to be more likely to pledge women they know (hometown or schools) or who have recs from trusted actives and alumnae. But even SEC chapters pledged large numbers of out of state girls. My Texas girls (drawl-free) did well at SEC schools- 100 % of my recs who went to Alabama (one of the, if not THE, toughest recruitments) received bids. BUT - they were all encouraged to have open minds. From your description, your daughter decided from the get-go that she would not consider one of the chapters. That, in this day and age, is a recipe for disaster. If she truly could not imagine being in that chapter than of course she made the right choice. But it is ludicrous to try and blame the entire system, which works so well for so many, for her negative result.