Alabama Recruitment Prediction (Fall 2008)

[bamagirl09]

In my opinion, the fraternity and sorority systems are very different. The fraternities have an informal recruitment process in the fall, but it is not well advertised, attended or enjoyed. They just recruit guys that they know from high school and family friends. And well, there has been enough talk about the sororities so you know how that works. There are WAY more IFC (mid-20s) fraternities than NPC sororities (now 16) and they tend to be 1/2 to 2/3 the size of the sororities. The fraternities are also much more expensive than the sororities. Your larger, more established fraternities (by this I mean the one's with corp. board houses instead of university owned housing) are anywhere from 2500-5000 a semester. The sororities hover in the 2000 range. Keep in mind that these houses have meal plans that bump up cost. The fraternities have been working really hard to build up numbers to accommodate the increase in enrollment and the growing sorority population. A few years ago, the largest fraternity probably wasn't even half the size of the average sorority. So, they are working on evening things out. It just takes time.

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by bamagirl09

The fraternities are also much more expensive than the sororities. Your larger, more established fraternities (by this I mean the one's with corp. board houses instead of university owned housing) are anywhere from 2500-5000 a semester. The sororities hover in the 2000 range. Keep in mind that these houses have meal plans that bump up cost.

Just wondering, do those figures represent dues only, room and board only, or dues + room + board?

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by violetpretty

Just wondering, do those figures represent dues only, room and board only, or dues + room + board?

Dues only, for Arkansas.

[irishpipes]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

Dues only, for Arkansas.

Annual chapter dues for active AOII members are $1,200 at Arkansas. That's in the ballpark of most other campus chapters.

Room and board figures are all over the place at Arkansas though. The more established chapters have much lower prices because their houses are paid off (for the most part). New construction in Fayetteville is very pricey, and the AOIIs with the new house are looking at roughly $9,000 per year for a double.

[bamagirl09]

Originally Posted by violetpretty

Just wondering, do those figures represent dues only, room and board only, or dues + room + board?

It is dues and board (food). Living in the fraternities is a huge range. Some of the newer houses are equal to the cost of living in a dorm - several hundred a month. However, some of the older houses are REALLY CHEAP. I know of one house that charges $50 a semester to live there...I don't think the conditions could be very good...

[magnoliacurious]

Originally Posted by bamagirl09

In my opinion, the fraternity and sorority systems are very different. The fraternities have an informal recruitment process in the fall, but it is not well advertised, attended or enjoyed. They just recruit guys that they know from high school and family friends. And well, there has been enough talk about the sororities so you know how that works. There are WAY more IFC (mid-20s) fraternities than NPC sororities (now 16) and they tend to be 1/2 to 2/3 the size of the sororities. The fraternities are also much more expensive than the sororities. Your larger, more established fraternities (by this I mean the one's with corp. board houses instead of university owned housing) are anywhere from 2500-5000 a semester. The sororities hover in the 2000 range. Keep in mind that these houses have meal plans that bump up cost. The fraternities have been working really hard to build up numbers to accommodate the increase in enrollment and the growing sorority population. A few years ago, the largest fraternity probably wasn't even half the size of the average sorority. So, they are working on evening things out. It just takes time.

Yeah, that's about what I thought. I asked about this last year during recruitment. I remember during my college days in the late 1980's, the percentage of undergrad females in a sorority at the Capstone was 33, 34, and 33% for three straight years, percentages comparable to my alma mater, Ole Miss (which of course, has a super strong social greek system, I believe the highest percentage of undergrads socially greek of any public university in America most every year). Yet the Bama' fraternity percentage those years was 19 or 20% compared to the 30ish range at Ole Miss. I wondered why the big difference. I didn't think that many more girls than guys just happened to be interested in greek life at Alabama. You explained the Capstone fraternity situation well, and at Ole Miss, as I pointed out last year, fraternities have one of the most formalized recruitment structures anywhere, a three-round process held at the same time as sorority recruitment; and perhaps most importantly, (as I'd known before but didn't realize the significance of until later) have a formal recruitment feature where if you get invited back to any final round party at any fraternity, you automatically have a bid to that fraternity if you want it. Well, as you can imagine, particularly with popular fraternities, a lot of guys WILL take an automatic bid if they get the chance. It seems pretty clear to me that these two things help ensure that Ole Miss fraternity numbers are among the highest in the nation and not much lower than the sorority numbers.

I wonder how much higher Alabama fraternity numbers would be if they did most all their recruiting formally and especially if they had the automatic bid feature I just described?

[bamagirl09]

Originally Posted by magnoliacurious

I wonder how much higher Alabama fraternity numbers would be if they did most all their recruiting formally and especially if they had the automatic bid feature I just described?

It would never happen. You might could do a more formalized recruitment but an automatic bid system would not fly. The fraternity men and alumni would flip out (and they donate way too much money to the university and the chapters to make them mad).

[magnoliacurious]

Originally Posted by bamagirl09

It would never happen. You might could do a more formalized recruitment but an automatic bid system would not fly. The fraternity men and alumni would flip out (and they donate way too much money to the university and the chapters to make them mad).

Oh, I'm certain you're right there, (that makes it very interesting to me that that feature exists at "middle name greek" Ole Miss, just has always been that way I guess!) just wondering what the numbers would be at Bama' if it were so!?