Auburn University Rush--Fall 2007

[AuburnMom]

First and foremost, Elaine, I am sorry that your sister was cut from your legacy sorority (that has got to be tough); hopefully, with her attending 5 parties today, one of the those sororities will work out for her.

I talked to Kate tonight. She is fine and still having a good time (I feel guilty even telling you all this as I feel so bad for Elaine's sister and Momto2Gals daughter).

Tonight after they finished their skit parties, they ranked the sororities that they attended in order of their preference for pref day. Tomorrow they meet right before the first pref parties to get their list. They will attend up to 3 pref parties tomorrow.

Kate has a definite favorite at this time and we're both hoping that she is invited back to that one tomorrow! Other then her definite favorite, she liked 5 out of the 6 sororities she attended today and said she could see herself fitting into any of them.

Even though Kate's rush is going well, I continue to stress about it and I think Carnation's comments about how a mother feels about her daughter's rush is so accurate.

I should know by noon tomorrow, I'll update then.....

[Momto2gals]

She said of the two parties she went to today she is very thrilled with one of the sororities and is really hoping on a pref invite and and a bid from them. The other one is "OK" with her she said she would probobly be happy there too. She isn't as upset as she was first of the week when some of the favorites cut her. Also she said that a LOT of girls are being cut from sororities that they really wanted and a lot have dropped out of rush because of this (like 200 I think she said) but she said if she gets a knock on her door tomorrow morning she will be in tears because that will mean that she didn't get any invites to any pref parties. I just think the whole system is messed up and I don't understand why you HAVE to have a 4.0 or be a "pageant winner" to be considered by sororities. That is not exactly what it is supposed to be about, is it? I am starting to wonder if maybe she has gone to the wrong school. But if she gets an invite from that one sorority and a bid from them it will all work out I think.

[doubleblue&gold]

It only takes one. One group that you like, one party you go to and one bid to accept. Don't worry about numbers and who's doing what. Just be happy with ONE.

[UGAalum94]

But the girls going through at Auburn aren't a representative sample of young women, or even young women at Auburn. They're a group of people who self-selected to be part of this system. For the most part they have 3.5+ GPA coming out of high school and a lot of activities. Because they've heard how competitive recruitment is, they will be presenting themselves physically as well as they can with great clothes, hair, etc.

Sure on bid day, some girls with bids won't be any "better" than some girls who got cut or dropped out. But the girls who got bids may have known young women in the groups before recruitment even started, have more influential home town connections, better recs, whatever. They may have been picked up and shown around by members who were better at drawing them out and held more positive influence in the group. Who knows?

Don't drive yourself crazy with the junk you can't control.

It's an SEC recruitment. It is what it is.

[AGDee]

Also, you have to keep in mind that during round 1, they have 25 minutes to make an impression. During that time, they meet a limited number of members. If they meet 5 women in 25 minutes, they still only met 3% of a chapter of 150 members. As I said earlier, with groups the size of the groups at Auburn, it's likely that any young woman would find a niche within any of the groups, it's also likely that those aren't the members that they end up meeting in those 25 minutes. The most intelligent, personable, and beautiful woman isn't going to "click" with each of the 150-200 members of a chapter. In a way, it's luck of the draw on who they meet and converse with for those first couple parties. Also, these sorority women are meeting so many PNMs in a short period of time with little time to get to know them, so even the most ideal PNM could get lost in the shuffle. There can be name mix ups, rushers who forget who was who, who were so nervous themselves that they got confused, etc. It's total chaos for them too. It's also nerve wracking for them.

When you add in release figures, cuts will be heavy earlier in the process than in the past. However, there are fewer disappointments during that last round and on bid day, because the chapters kept inviting the women that they really really wanted. If you have to cut 50-60% of the women who attended your parties, that can be a whole lot of women. In the end, if there are 16 chapters, each chapter can only take 6% of the PNMs. So, 94% essentially end up cut from (or PNMs have chosen to cut) each chapter by the time all is said and done on bid day. I can see how women can end up disappointed that way.