2015 Indiana Recruitment

[DubaiSis]

As an outsider to the process, having your daughter go through rush at IU is kind of like graduating high school and going straight to PhD work, with no understanding of the course work.

There are about 1600 girls going through rush this year. For each chapter there are probably not 100 girls who don't meet their objective criteria. After that they have to go from 1500 to about 55 in 4 rounds of parties and about an hour and a half of total talk time. Objectively you can't take this process seriously, but in real life it feels an awful like being judged and found unworthy.

Let me see if I can explain the process a bit. The girls they want to cut are easy - the ones who were rude, the ones who are seriously weird, the no shows - so that eliminates 100 girls. (Making up numbers here since each house will be different AND I'm not privy to this information) The chapter hasto cut to 700 girls. So let's go back and cut the girls who someone had heard something bad about, had a rude post on Facebook, seemed like she might be too quiet for us. Ok, that's another 100 girls. They're now at 1400, every girl left is worthy of an invitation. But they are still required to cut to 700. They have to invite back all of their legacies (many sororities have this rule for after round 1) and there are 200 legacies going through, so that uses up nearly 1/3 of their spots. So they start cutting based on goals they have for the chapter. Need to work on our chapter GPA? Cut anyone below a 2.9. Whatever. Then they finally get to the 700 plus whatever number gets to be on their "flex list," let's say another 100 girls. They have their 700 plus 100 girls who will be added in if anyone of the top 700 don't accept their invitation. Your daughter is number 710. She made it past 590 girls! And really, when you factor out the legacies, she made it past 790 girls! And the flex list made it to 709 before the list was full. That is going to feel like they hated her but it simply isn't the case. And that could happen for every single chapter. It's not likely to; the vast majority of girls find a sorority home but there are perfectly nice perfectly qualified girls every year who just simply had bad luck.

Does that help or make it worse?

[TriDeltaSallie]

That's a good explanation.

I'm not an IU expert, but in all sorority recruitments there is always the element of having friends on the inside pulling for you as well. That's not going to show up in a quantifiable way, but it's a factor.

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

As an outsider to the process, having your daughter go through rush at IU is kind of like graduating high school and going straight to PhD work, with no understanding of the course work.

There are about 1600 girls going through rush this year. For each chapter there are probably not 100 girls who don't meet their objective criteria. After that they have to go from 1500 to about 55 in 4 rounds of parties and about an hour and a half of total talk time. Objectively you can't take this process seriously, but in real life it feels an awful like being judged and found unworthy.

Let me see if I can explain the process a bit. The girls they want to cut are easy - the ones who were rude, the ones who are seriously weird, the no shows - so that eliminates 100 girls. (Making up numbers here since each house will be different AND I'm not privy to this information) The chapter hasto cut to 700 girls. So let's go back and cut the girls who someone had heard something bad about, had a rude post on Facebook, seemed like she might be too quiet for us. Ok, that's another 100 girls. They're now at 1400, every girl left is worthy of an invitation. But they are still required to cut to 700. They have to invite back all of their legacies (many sororities have this rule for after round 1) and there are 200 legacies going through, so that uses up nearly 1/3 of their spots. So they start cutting based on goals they have for the chapter. Need to work on our chapter GPA? Cut anyone below a 2.9. Whatever. Then they finally get to the 700 plus whatever number gets to be on their "flex list," let's say another 100 girls. They have their 700 plus 100 girls who will be added in if anyone of the top 700 don't accept their invitation. Your daughter is number 710. She made it past 590 girls! And really, when you factor out the legacies, she made it past 790 girls! And the flex list made it to 709 before the list was full. That is going to feel like they hated her but it simply isn't the case. And that could happen for every single chapter. It's not likely to; the vast majority of girls find a sorority home but there are perfectly nice perfectly qualified girls every year who just simply had bad luck.

Does that help or make it worse?

[ItsGreekTooMe]

Let me try and see if I can get it right this time.


First, I sincerely apologize for the post that gave offense. To repeat, my issue was with the rush process, not any individual. FWIW, yesterday I felt physically lousy as well as stressed by several difficult situations in my life. I'm sure all of that contributed to my poor choice of words. I hope you will forgive that lapse.

Second, I freely admit to ignorance about everything connected with sorority life. I thank those who explained the "criteria" issue; I'm now better informed.

Third, I of course recognize that the numbers at IU are overwhelming. Similar to college admissions, many wonderful candidates must be eliminated, and they won't know why they didn't make the cut.

Finally, my daughter (whose general m.o. is to keep a positive attitude) is handling the process extremely well. After feeling tense the first day, she decided to "chill" and enjoy the experience. She was fortunate to receive a large number of second round invitations and is in no way dwelling on "favorites" that weren't on the list. I've encouraged her to keep an open mind about all of the houses, and I have complete faith in her ability to intuit the best places for her – recognizing the decision is ultimately out of her hands.

[33girl]

Also, as far as the grade issue, please be aware that the minimum GPA required to go through formal rush is often if not usually lower than that of individual chapters.