Too fat to recruit: or, DePauw, the Sequel

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

Let's drop the debate about whether rushees care about fat girls and whether you want superficial rushees in your chapter, and work from the following premise:

Hiding the fat girls in back will ensure more rushees pledge your chapter.

If you know that to be true, is it worth it to hurt a sister's feelings? My answer is yes. The only way for a small chapter to recover at a big school is to increase numbers.

I know I will get a lot of responses about quality over quantity, but you simply can not be a strong chapter if you are much smaller than the others. You don't have the money, you don't have the number of women volunteering their time as officers, and you don't have the presence on campus.

It's unfortunate, but it has to be done.

I'm not sure that the premise can actually be accepted period.* I'm willing to go along with the idea that it's in the interest of the chapter to manipulate the superficial aspects of recruitment to some degree, but the ill-will within the chapter such a move will create with the member and her authentic friends will counteract any "appearance" based benefits.

I agree that chapters are better taking full new member classes with some girls who weren't rush crushes rather than taking only a few new members who they worshiped and not making quota. When you don't make quota, no one thinks "well they only took the top girls they wanted": people think, "they couldn't find enough girls who liked them."

But being mean to current members about appearance won't necessarily get you more PNMs in the real world.

*I draw the line of what's unacceptable long before we're trying to hide fat people, but even if I didn't: it just wouldn't work from a pragmatic point of view. Your chapter has a reputation that exists before recruitment. If you have a number of overweight members, these members are seen in letters all the time on campus. If your group is small and has several overweight members, members having to double rush because you're hiding other people will cause more problems and make you seem even smaller.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by kathykd2005

I've already stated numerous other ways to deal with this situation in my various posts, but I will humor you...

They could, instead of telling her not to attend:

-Train her one on one about what to talk about with PNMs, if she has bad social skills.
-Talk to her about what she feels she can best contribute to recruitment.
-Be supportive of the fact that she is their sister, and ENCOURAGE her to be with them throughout recruitment, not make her feel like she has to be "in the background."

Your first point has nothing to do with the situation as given. I am assuming here that the problem is appearance and nothing else.

To your second point, I agree that it should be handled delicately, and you should ask her to be in the kitchen or something instead of telling her not to show up. There is no reason to be totally mean about it, but girls aren't stupid, and if you hide them, they know why.

And your third point is not specific enough for me to understand what you mean. You are saying they should go ahead and let her rush?

Originally Posted by AlphaGamUGAAlum

I'm not sure that the premise can actually be accepted period.* I'm willing to go along with the idea that it's in the interest of the chapter to manipulate the superficial aspects of recruitment to some degree, but the ill-will within the chapter such a move will create with the member and her authentic friends will counteract any "appearance" based benefits.

I agree that chapters are better taking full new member classes with some girls who weren't rush crushes rather than taking only a few new members who they worshiped and not making quota. When you don't make quota, no one thinks "well they only took the top girls they wanted": people think, "they couldn't find enough girls who liked them."

But being mean to current members about appearance won't necessarily get you more PNMs in the real world.

*I draw the line of what's unacceptable long before we're trying to hide fat people, but even if I didn't: it just wouldn't work from a pragmatic point of view. Your chapter has a reputation that exists before recruitment. If you have a number of overweight members, these members are seen in letters all the time on campus. If your group is small and has several overweight members, members having to double rush because you're hiding other people will cause more problems and make you seem even smaller.

Let's say that hiding the bigger girls doesn't change the number of rushers, because they are doing jobs that need to be done. It can be pragmatic in that case.

And that's just it: you will draw the line at a different place than I, because you had a different undergraduate experience, and we both differ from the OP, etc. There are schools where the chapters must compete for PNM's, and in order to survive, they must do the things that appeal to PNM's.