Univesity of Texas at Arlington- Greek Life?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by macallan25

Oh sweet Jesus. Please, someone explain to me.........why in the hell it is such a big deal to 99% of the people on here to tell someone about the reputations and how well sororities/fraternities "stack up" at different schools. It's ridiculous. Guess what, every group has a reputation at every school. They aren't all "the same in their own unique little way." That's a PC load of malarkey. I would much rather someone give me a straight up answer than sugar coat one with a bunch of crap that you'll find out isn't true the minute you start rush.

Foxfire J.......I go to Texas and have some friends at UTA. I could find out pretty quickly about most of the sororities there.

I can see both sides.

If the ladies of GC want to be bound by panhellenic niceties, fine. The rest of us, however are not subject to such things, nor do we choose to be.

That said, it's impossible to know whether the OP is really someone worthy of a top-flight organization. She might be a better fit for a less prestigious chapter. In fact, I'd almost assume she is a better fit in one of those other groups since she has to ask the question in the first place assuming, of course that UTA is competitive.

It's not really unfair to prejudice anyone. When they go through rush, they'll figure out who is what. If their goal is to get into a top house, it may be important for them to get their letters of rec in order for that house. Being able to narrow the list a bit will do them a service.

And if they get cut because of their own prejudice? Fine with me. They need to learn to be realistic about their choices.

[SWTXBelle]

PLUS - an opinion as to the status of a particular sorority is just that - AN OPINION. You have no idea what the criteria of a particular person is (Most members? Most beautiful members? Sorority your girlfriend belongs to? Highest GPA? Party girls? Most panhellenic awards? On campus the longest? Biggest house?WHAT?). You ask someone who was cut by ABC, she will tell you that DEF (her sorority) is the best, and ABC is the snobby sorority. Fraternity men have their own perspective - but if you date a GHI, what are the odds you are not going to say they are great? If your sweetheart is a JKL, wouldn't you say they are in the top tier?
That's one of many reasons why truly panhellenic women won't recommend certain sororities over others. I'm sure everyone of us thinks our sorority is the very best - I would hope so - but we also know chapters differ, campus to campus, year to year. If you went to the University of Greatness 10 years ago, reputations may have totally changed.
PNM are, by definition, intelligent enough to be accepted to higher education, and if they are mature enough to pledge they should be mature enough to make their choices based on their recruitment experience. By all means - check out the national organizations, the chapter websites, talk to your friends, get to know some members if you can before recruitment - but trusting to an anonymous poster on the internet for your ranking of GLOs doesn't strike me as a good plan.
If you read recruitment threads, you see that often the preconceived notions pnms had of which were the "good" sororities are turned on their heads. I think its better to go in with as open a mind as you can.
As to recs - the advice to get as many as you can is always good.

[33girl]

You really have no idea who you're talking to on here.

You might assume "FSUZeta" is from Florida State U and has the scoop on all the sororities there. But when we assume, we make an ASS out of U and ME. Maybe she's actually from Fitchburg State U, where she transferred after being a ZTA for half a semester at another school. Do you really want to trust her opinion?

People post stuff on here, half the time, just so if you google the group that's what will come up. If you don't believe me, look at some of the stuff that gets posted on Urban Dictionary.

(my thanks to FSUZeta for goodnaturedly serving as an example for my story. she really is from Florida State, though )

[UGAalum94]

I don't think that posting rankings would do much good because you don't know who the person is who posts them and you don't know the qualifications of the person asking to know if she has a shot at the groups you think are great anyway.

You really can basically create a lot of situations where the girls feel like they have to drop out of recruitment because the "best" groups cut them even though they wouldn't have shared the standards that the person doing the rankings used.

But I do think it's funny that we pride ourselves on being Panhellenic and then let the mask slip in other ways.

And I think we kind of over assume our own importance when we act like, well our opinions are worth reading on everything else, but tiers, rankings, and reputation, well that's just not spoken about. PNM are as capable of knowing whose advice to take about rankings as they are about recommendations, clothes, etc. There's just something jerky about participating in the rankings yourself.

[SWTXBelle]

Hey, we're only human!

[banditone]

GC is a really nice and fun environment. It actually helps me get through many a boring work day. Where it is lacking "Greekness" is actual talk about real GLO's. That's all....

How about after someone says "The best on that campus are AXO and DZ", then says "in my opinion".

Is that ok?

[SWTXBelle]

Hey, no one is stopping you. I don't think we could if we tried - .
But we are entitled to our opinion about doing so. And if a pnm is foolish enough to let some unknown person on a message board unduly influence her, she deserves what she gets. I just hate the idea that she might miss out on a super opportunity because she is dead set on ABC or DEF from the get-go, and doesn't give GHI or XYZ a shot. My goal is always to give pnm every opportunity to find where they fit in, whether or not it is the top house.

Originally Posted by banditone

GC is a really nice and fun environment. It actually helps me get through many a boring work day. Where it is lacking "Greekness" is actual talk about real GLO's. That's all....

How about after someone says "The best on that campus are AXO and DZ", then says "in my opinion".

Is that ok?

No, because what's stopping the PNM from making that her opinion before going through rush?

We don't want that here.

To quote a line from the wonderful folx at AKA Ave...

WE'VE. GOT. THIS. THANKS.

[axidgl]

If we were all so "Panhellenic," then these reputations wouldn't exist at all.

Give it a rest. If they don't find it out reputations here, they'll find it somewhere else (and maybe those that tell them about the stereotypes would be a whole lot less hateful about it.).

This is greekchat, and why would you not expect them to come here and try to find out everything they possibly can about the possibilities in Greek life?

[SWTXBelle]

Again, the problem is a house's "reputation" is very subjective.
And there is plenty here to help a pnm to prepare and discuss greek life without going into some sort of ranking of specific glos at individual campuses.

As to being panhellenic - speak for yourself. I am in a part of the country where my glos has no chapters. I formed an alumnae panhellenic in order to help young women from around here pledge other glos because I am that committed to the Panhellenic Creed. I gave lectures to high school seniors for years about preparing for recruitment - and never mentioned my affiliation. I daresay I qualify as panhellenically minded.

Originally Posted by axidgl

Give it a rest. If they don't find it out reputations here, they'll find it somewhere else (and maybe those that tell them about the stereotypes would be a whole lot less hateful about it.).

Then let them go elsewhere for it.

This is greekchat, and why would you not expect them to come here and try to find out everything they possibly can about the possibilities in Greek life?

Check the archives. Threads about sorority reps are usually promptly locked...usually for the reasons already listed above. It's been that way from the beginning and I say it's worked well.

[33girl]

You know and I know that people tend to overlook those last three words - "in my opinion."

AGUGA, I don't think it's so much feeling that our opinions are valid on things like how release figures work and not valid on the "best" sorority on so and so campus, more that you can give generic answers (within reason) to the first type of question.

We used to have TONS of people who would come on and ask "what is ASA like at your campus?" for their OWN sorority. People were honest, and invariably, the OP and a bunch of other people in the sorority got upset, because invariably, someone posting was at a campus where that sorority just wasn't doing very well. So we just don't do it anymore. It doesn't accomplish anything positive.

This was the girls more than the guys. I've seen fraternity discussions where everyone seems to say what they feel and no one gets offended. But then again I think that goes back to the fact that guys seem to believe they will make the fraternity, and girls believe the sorority will make them. It's a simple difference in the sexes.

Oh, and Kevin mentioned something about if girls want to get into a "top" house they need to get rec letters. If they are in that kind of a cutthroat rush - it has NOTHING to do with them cutting the sorority, it has to do with the sorority cutting them. Point being in that kind of rush women should have recs for ALL the sororities they can get, not just the "top" ones. If someone sees that ASA is the top sorority at LSU, they knock themselves out getting ASA recs and blow off everything else, they're going to have a rude awakening when they get cut the first day because ASA at LSU had more legacies than it had room for and everyone who wasn't a legacy got released. They then have no recs to the other sororities, who may cut them as well, and they might end up only in the "bottom" house anyway.