Keep these things in mind

[kddani]

Okay, some of y'all may flame for this, but it's driving a lot of us nuts. And being that it's high rush time, I thought it would be important to bring some points up to ask all GCers to think about:

A lot of this is a compliation of things that a few GCers have discussed. Some is straight up direct quotes from conversations that i've had with people. I just didn't want to include names w/o their permission so i'm just posting in generally.

* Don't blow sunshine up a PNMs butt when you shouldn't. I.e. telling someone not to worry about having low grades when they're going through rush at one of the most competitive systems in the country. Or telling a senior that she has a great chance of getting at a house as UF, for example. It's okay to be encouraging, but BE REALISTIC. Don't build a PNMs hopes up unrealistically. If you don't know about the system, then don't comment on it. You may be from a chapter that could take a junior or senior with a 1.96 GPA, but at a lot of schools this won't fly. It's not fair to PNMs if you tell them they'll be okay, they're great people, a house would be stupid not to take them.

* This is why Panhellenic tells sorority members not to talk to PNM's....they don't want us to build up a PNM and then she doesn't get a bid. It creates tons of problems. Should we maybe have the same discretion although we're not at the PNM's school? In a sense, we're doing exactly what Panhellenic at their schools tells the sorority sisters not to do.

* That's why folks you see lots of women in NPHC groups make no such statements (in fact, they have HUGE notices not to ask questions about intake b/c they're not gonna answer) about any aspirant: we don't know the woman. She might be a great asset to some group, or a group's worst nightmare. That's for the particular chapter to decide.

* Everytime we say "I'm sure you'll get a bid somewhere", "I'm sure you'll make XYZ a wonderful sister" or even worse, after the PNM is cut or drops out of recruitment "I can't believe that AB didn't see what a great person you were. Those girls must be horrible rushers". Sometimes that may be true, but as a sorority member, I have to give the benefit of the doubt to the actual sorority members/chapters that met with the girl and didn't think she fit their group at that time. I can provide encouragement to try again, or sympathize with her, but I'm not going to imply that the chapter members/sororities somehow made a "bad decision."


The basic point is: don't build false hopes and don't say something that's not true just to try to be encouraging. You can be encouraging without building false hopes.