Is this legal? Deactivated one NPC, now part of a new NPC.

[gphiangel624]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

Would you be permitted to answer a question like "was so and so ever a member of an NPC group?" Simply a yes or no, not even which one?

Can students sign a waiver for certain items? (I believe this must happen at some colleges because they generate GPAs and comparative lists for NPC groups which are availabe on the Greek Life page.)

We went around and around with this issue a long time ago. Our recruitment registration forms have a statement, evaluated by our campus Registrar (who is also our FERPA Compliance officer), that basically states the PNM verifies the information is true and correct, and that she authorizes release of the information included on her registration form to the Student Life office, Panhellenic, and the chapters that belong to it. My office (Student Life) then reviews GPAs, past pledging/initiation data we have on file, and verifies if it's true or not. The PNMs are made aware of this entire process from the start, so we rarely get misinformation from them.

Regarding puddintane's concern about the grade report, I'm willing to share how we work our grade report process if you want to PM me. Again, it's approved by our campus Registrar and FERPA compliance officer as well.

[jwsteele]

I'm not in a sorority so if what I'm about to say makes no sense or is irrelevant please correct me. Fraternity rush is quite different obviously. But to me, as an outsider, it seems like:

a) This isn't really a widespread problem, I can't imagine a chapter would make several members check up on all the random transfer PNMs (particularly at a large school) when there is so much else to do at rush for the almost non-existant chance that somebody is trying to pull this off.

b) I would think that the girls currently rushing would be able to catch it...I know that at my campus, which is a competitive campus not in the South, girls pretty much stalk the PNMs going through rush as soon as they get their applications doing everything from reading their Facebook walls and profiles to see if there are "problems" (ie slutty comments or drug references) and doing "pre-rankings" based on academics, involvement, talents, etc. If a girl is transfering they try to find out how she carried herself at that former school. (They shouldn't have really told me all that to be sure but it gets out). I would think that if a girl was initiated before at another school a simple Facebook search or word-of-mouth would reveal it, but then again maybe I'm wrong.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by jwsteele

I'm not in a sorority so if what I'm about to say makes no sense or is irrelevant please correct me. Fraternity rush is quite different obviously. But to me, as an outsider, it seems like:

a) This isn't really a widespread problem, I can't imagine a chapter would make several members check up on all the random transfer PNMs (particularly at a large school) when there is so much else to do at rush for the almost non-existant chance that somebody is trying to pull this off.

b) I would think that the girls currently rushing would be able to catch it...I know that at my campus, which is a competitive campus not in the South, girls pretty much stalk the PNMs going through rush as soon as they get their applications doing everything from reading their Facebook walls and profiles to see if there are "problems" (ie slutty comments or drug references) and doing "pre-rankings" based on academics, involvement, talents, etc. If a girl is transfering they try to find out how she carried herself at that former school. (They shouldn't have really told me all that to be sure but it gets out). I would think that if a girl was initiated before at another school a simple Facebook search or word-of-mouth would reveal it, but then again maybe I'm wrong.

Well, if they already do the stuff listed in part B, they already do check out the transfer students, so it might not be that much more time consuming to do it formally.

Just out of curiosity, if a girl were shut down her profile completely, would all her previous tags, comments, and wall posts also disappear immediately or would she have to go through one by one?

(The amount of background screening that groups try to do at some of the really big rushes is really pretty amazing to me. Especially with their network of alums, for some groups, I think, in the south especially, there are rarely any unknowns on the final bid list. )

[jwsteele]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

Just out of curiosity, if a girl were shut down her profile completely, would all her previous tags, comments, and wall posts also disappear immediately or would she have to go through one by one?

(The amount of background screening that groups try to do at some of the really big rushes is really pretty amazing to me. Especially with their network of alums, for some groups, I think, in the south especially, there are rarely any unknowns on the final bid list. )

If a girl shut down her profile you couldn't search for her tagged pictures, comments and wall posts, but if you looked at, let's say, her friend's profile you could see pictures that her friend tagged of her, comments she made on her friend's wall, etc. (and trust me, I know girls that will go to that extreme to find the dirt on PNMs). It's also as easy as calling up a girl you may know from that girl's hometown/high school and being like, "Did she volunteer in high school? Is she well-liked? Sleep-around? Good grades? etc."

I am also amazed by the "pre-recruiting" these girls do...it really amazes me. My friend was telling me last night (admittedly in breach of membership selection secrecy, but that's a whole other story) that the recruitment team will go over EVERY single PNM's application and school history (and there are usually like 800 of them) and then flag those with recommendations, legacies, connections (if they already know girls) and those with stellar academics, involvement, talents, volunteerism, leadership, etc. and then focus on those rushees during formal rush.

In my fraternity, we admittedly do a lot of "pre-recruiting" as well (ie, looking up guys from our hometowns, having alumni compile lists of stellar rushees from their hometowns, etc) but the amount of work we do is nothing compared to the sororities. Sorority rush just fascinates me (at least at the really competitive schools).

[carnation]

Last year the Phi Mus at a large school called one of my AOII daughters, who's at another school, to find out the background on a PNM. She knew one of the Phi Mus, a girl who had gone to a different high school, and was really surprised that members of a different sorority would call her. They wanted to know if it was true that this girl had done some really wild stuff. I have also gotten calls from numerous other sororities about PNMs, although mostly to find out about the girls in general. One sorority at a nearby school called my oldest daughter and me to ask if one of their legacies whom we'd worked with was the wack case they'd heard. (Yep, she slapped one boss and scored another one with her fingernail. )

There's a lot of intersorority help going on around the South, even though gossip would have you think that each group is out to annihilate the others. Most sororities will warn the others if they know about a PNM who's got serious problems.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by gphiangel624

We went around and around with this issue a long time ago. Our recruitment registration forms have a statement, evaluated by our campus Registrar (who is also our FERPA Compliance officer), that basically states the PNM verifies the information is true and correct, and that she authorizes release of the information included on her registration form to the Student Life office, Panhellenic, and the chapters that belong to it. My office (Student Life) then reviews GPAs, past pledging/initiation data we have on file, and verifies if it's true or not. The PNMs are made aware of this entire process from the start, so we rarely get misinformation from them.

Regarding puddintane's concern about the grade report, I'm willing to share how we work our grade report process if you want to PM me. Again, it's approved by our campus Registrar and FERPA compliance officer as well.

So in your case, if the campus Panhellenic wanted too, you might be able to add to the recruitment release a release for transfer students and information about membership as well?

It's interesting how much it varies from campus to campus. At the school that won't release any information from the student file, I guess the only way a future employer can verify information about an applicant is by getting a transcript sent. (I doubt many employers verify extracurriculars anyway, but I never really thought about how people could completely make up everything on the first resume other than the GPA, but I guess at that campus, they could. )