Is there really such a thing as "competitive" and "non-competitive" recruitment?

[33girl]

Re smaller schools and the one or two more popular chapters- this is why I had a herd of cows when my alma mater had the VERY dumb idea of allowing first semester freshmen to participate in informal (or I guess what is called now “minimally structured”) rush. The only exposure they got to each sorority was 5 minutes at a table in a gym - other than that they weren’t compelled to go to any events and there was no coordinated schedule. The outcome was exactly what you’d expect - the one or two most popular groups had the most people attending events and since there of course was no quota, they only bid up to total (which they were already closest to to begin with).

Naturally a lot of girls who wanted these most popular sororities were disappointed, and most of them didn’t look at other groups or try again - they said “XYZ didn’t bid me so Greek life is full of stuck up jerks.”

Now my school has a very small Greek system population wise, but obviously this was not “more mutually selective.”

But to the subject of the thread - I think the “competitive” aspect of SEC etc rush is just getting in the door in the first place. A high GPA and recs are practically mandatory to get past the first round.

Also, the number crunching needs to include how many women accept bids on bid day vs how many women actually initiate. When you hear 1000 women received bids but only see 900 women getting initiated, it’s usually because they went to bid day at Icky Iota and Bad Fit Beta, tried it for a week, and then quit. That sort of thing seems more likely to happen at the schools deemed competitive.