No frills recruitment ... what does that mean?

[NYCMS]

Having rushed during the days of frills, I can see how non-frills recruitment focuses on meaningful conversation in a way that frills might not have although I felt I really got to know the girls in each chapter, especially by the time I reached Pref - had a real sense of personality and when I pledged, I knew I had found my home even though I really liked girls in the other house I went to for preference. Girls likely were influenced by the skits, decor, food, etc. And the frills varied, from what I saw, from school to school.

I went to Arizona and our frills paled in comparison to those at Ole Miss where my cousins went - I remember seeing pictures where they had elaborate homemade name tags (like something from Martha Stewart), matching dresses, etc. We had Panhellenic issued plain white name tags (where you wrote your name and hometown). We wore our own clothes for first and second rounds; for skits we wore black tee-shirt type tops that had Gamma Phi Beta in script on them with white shorts. Our skits were cute, but nothing elaborate (no fancy decor; we had snacks in our dining room and bowls of M&M's in rooms as we toured the rushees through the house including bedrooms - do chapters do that now?). I'll admit our pref party food was Martha Stewart-like - small flower pots lined and filled with ice cream with oreo cookie crumbs on top and a pink carnation in a tiny plastic vile inserted in it along with frosted cookies in our Greek letters and a small piece of cake with our names in script on top - that was as fancy as we got and yes, I think that was pretty frills-like. On Bid Day we got a pink carnation (our flower), a simple tee-shirt, pledge ribbons and a cook-out at the house. Our first Pledge Mom (called big sister at other schools) gave us a welcoming note-card. Nothing that broke the bank like I see at many schools.

Since there were no philanthropies there was nothing to focus on that emphasized public service. I do think the non-frills style puts all chapters on equal footing although it's also clear from posts on here how the fixation on tiers still exists so I wonder how much no-frills truly impacts rush although it certainly saves money and time!