Okay, Okay, carnation's retro rush thread (ie, how not to do recruitment)

[carnation]

The next day I had to go over to Housing to arrange for a dorm; you see, you didn't register for housing if you were rushing because you hoped you'd be moving into a sorority house that week. As you can imagine, there were many women in line. The girl who asked if people were ever cut by everybody the first day and was told no was indeed cut by everybody. I got to know her at Student Senate during the year and never could figure out why that happened because she was attractive, certainly no skank, and had good grades.

Many people had only gotten invited to Uno or Ocho and refused to take those options. The thing was, since over 500 people were rushing and there were less than half of those spaces open for pledges, the sororities could be very choosy so many fabulous women were lost to the Greek system forever.

Debbie (the other cheerleader) and Cathy (my roommate) went to their favorite 4 for Skits and their favorite 2 for Prefs. It looked like Cathy, a legacy, would be getting a bid for sure.

[CZAXOTerp]

Originally Posted by carnation

The next day I had to go over to Housing to arrange for a dorm; you see, you didn't register for housing if you were rushing because you hoped you'd be moving into a sorority house that week. As you can imagine, there were many women in line. The girl who asked if people were ever cut by everybody the first day and was told no was indeed cut by everybody.

I don't really follow this?

a lot of ppl dropped out because they were cut by everyone or they weren't happy w/ where they got invited back to right???

[Ocalagirl]

Wow so I am still waiting to see what happened. This is getting interesting!!

[Faith4Keep]

Originally Posted by CZAXOTerp

I don't really follow this?

The girl was told by a rho chi "no, you can't be cut by every chapter" and indeed she was call from all the chapters.

[gogreekmom]

I love this thread!!

[carnation]

Originally Posted by CZAXOTerp

I don't really follow this?

a lot of ppl dropped out because they were cut by everyone or they weren't happy w/ where they got invited back to right???

A few were cut by everybody but it seemed that most who were in line at Housing had dropped out of rush because they were unhappy with their invitations. I thought it was ironic that the girl asked if anyone was ever cut by everyone the first day did have that happen to her. Well, tough for the sororities--she ended up being a great campus leader!

KSUViolet, I don't know why they offered cigarettes. It would have been really low class to smoke them during rush! I've heard of a few houses offering them at various schools, though.

[violetpretty]

I don't really understand the point of a "bed rush". It doesn't make sense financially, and a Greek community doesn't allow itself to grow. If you could fill your house AND have members out of house paying parlor fees, that is more money for the physical house, right? Plus, more members equals a bigger budget for more fun stuff. Plus, not everyone would want to live in a chapter house, so it could further draw people into the community. Does anyone know the rationale behind a bed rush? It seems very silly to me, unless you want your community to remain stagnant and exclusive.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by JessSigKap

I don't really understand the point of a "bed rush". It doesn't make sense financially, and a Greek community doesn't allow itself to grow. If you could fill your house AND have members out of house paying parlor fees, that is more money for the physical house, right? Plus, more members equals a bigger budget for more fun stuff. Plus, not everyone would want to live in a chapter house, so it could further draw people into the community. Does anyone know the rationale behind a bed rush? It seems very silly to me, unless you want your community to remain stagnant and exclusive.

Different time and era....

[carnation]

Arkansas continued bed rush for awhile. I have an annual from 6 years after I went through recruitment and it says that 624 girls rushed but only 264 received bids. A couple of years after I rushed, they changed sophomore rush to second-semester freshman but cheating was still rampant and they went to first-semester freshman rush, which they still have.

I knew by midterm that I would be transferring to Auburn. I had no idea what their Greek system was like but I worked hard on my grades (any PNMs reading this, especially if you're rushing a second time--do this! This is the one thing I did right!) and added some more leadership activities to my resume.

So fall came and my father flew me to Alabama. Auburn had 14 sororities at the time: AXO, ADPi, AGD, AOII, Chi O, DDD, DG, DZ, Gamma Phi, Theta, KD, KKG,Phi Mu, and Pi Phi.

[SECMom]

Hmmmm.....I went through rush at Auburn in 1975.....wonder if we were there at the same time????

[xo_kathy]

Originally Posted by carnation

certainly no skank,

Am I the only one who thinks this is a hilarious quote coming from carnation?!

[AUDeltaGam]

WAR EAGLE

[carnation]

War Eagle!

xokathy, we didn't say skank then, we just came out and said, well, whore. But after teaching so many years plus having such a huge family, I tend to use my kids' and students' words!

Panhellenic divided us alphabetically into 14 groups since there were 14 sororities. We went to half the chapter rooms on each of 2 days. I felt sorry for the freshmen, especially those who knew nothing of Greek life before, because there was so little time with each group and how could they remember which was which? It was obvious, though, that many of the gorgeous and polished rushees knew exactly which sororities they would accept from the first day, they'd probably known for years. (This would be about 3/4 of the rushees.) Last year's Auburn PNMs we knew said that this has not changed and their Greek moms, who stayed near campus during recruitment, were stunned by the beauty and poise of all these girls.

Many of the chapters we visited made a huge deal over one of our group members, who was going to be the Orange Bowl Queen that year. Most of our group thought she looked about 30 with heavy, harsh makeup. Anyway, several group members were being ignored by their rushers, who just had to meet and talk with her.

I lived in an upperclass dorm and there were about 10 other upperclassmen from the dorm who were rushing. I felt much more at home with them than I did with the mostly freshman rush group I had. None of us knew that sophomores and juniors were cut heavily at AU but we were about to find out.

[Emory Kappa]

OOohhh! A cliffhanger!

Tell us more!

[InseparableDI]

yes please!