Suicide?

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by BabyPiNK_FL

Well when everyone plays by the rules, suicide can be good if you'd rather have no bid if you can't be ABC. It doesn't work when there are unPanhellenic things going on!

I personally advocate suicide. Okay that sounds so wrong! I pesonally advocate SIP. Don't take up a space that someone else really may have wanted or lead another group on thinking you're jumping off stage on bid day to them when you would rather eat dirt and run crying down the street after opening the envelope!

I think that advocating SIP is not realistic. Of course with the release figures, most when are getting their first choice. Recruitment is a confusing time. If a PNM gets stuck on one group and basically ignores the attributes of another group, how would she know that she'd rather shoot herself than become a member. Giving a group the chance to convince you after your released from your favorite group is the basis of the release figures concept. Not SIPing and giving a group a chance after bid is essentially the same. You have until inititation to really decide if it is truly not for you! The majority of the time, the NM will fit in. There are very few groups out there that people would rather die than be a part of if they actually knew what that group was about. I think we do the NPC chapters and the sisters in those chapters a disservice by implying that they aren't worth peoples' time. Every NPC national organization has a rich history that would benefit anyone! Go Panhellenic!!!

[33girl]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

You have until inititation to really decide if it is truly not for you! The majority of the time, the NM will fit in. There are very few groups out there that people would rather than die than be a part of if they actually knew what that group is about.

I agree with your post if the chapters are fairly big (90 or more). There are usually enough women that you can find at least a few that you connect with. But with smaller chapters, sometimes there IS such a difference that you WOULD rather die than be a part of that group.

Also, the time till initiation is increasingly short - and as we've seen here, sometimes the amount of "real life" the NMs are exposed to is somewhat limited. Everything's great for 6 weeks and then boom - you HAVE to go to everything, you find out the chapter politics and it isn't Happy Pony Rainbow Land anymore.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I agree with your post if the chapters are fairly big (90 or more). There are usually enough women that you can find at least a few that you connect with. But with smaller chapters, sometimes there IS such a difference that you WOULD rather die than be a part of that group.

Also, the time till initiation is increasingly short - and as we've seen here, sometimes the amount of "real life" the NMs are exposed to is somewhat limited. Everything's great for 6 weeks and then boom - you HAVE to go to everything, you find out the chapter politics and it isn't Happy Pony Rainbow Land anymore.

That is definitely true...but do you think you have a better chance of figuring these things out in under a week? Giving NM orientation a chance gives you a much, much, much more realistic idea of a chapter than a few rush parties. As for the size of a group, sure large chapters should be easy for anyone to fit into, but even 30 girls can't be all exactly the same. You get that many women together, and the group will be diverse just because of the way each woman was raised. Assuming you know everything about every member of a group because you talked to three people during rush is RIDICULOUS!

[33girl]

Well, in some cases, smaller schools have deferred rush too, so (if the campus doesn't have a lot of stupid silence rules that are contrary to the whole point of deferred) she's gotten to know some of the chapter members in a non-rush setting. I know that there were some chapters at my school (total was 50) that I would have not felt comfortable being a part of and would have refused a bid from. Not to say I didn't like some of the girls, that doesn't mean I want to be their sister. I don't think I'd be out of line if I said that probably a third (if not more) of the girls at our school suicided - just because they knew the sororities and the women beforehand.

I agree that you do have till initiation and should give it a chance, I just wonder how much of a "real taste" NMs get sometimes.

[speedsters]

my campus seems similar to 33girl's.

we have a deferred rush with only 3 chapters and silence rules only during formal recruitment with each chapter having their own personality. while you can see some girls going between two chapters, you pretty much know where a girl wants to go by the time it comes to formal recruitment. who she has been hanging out with since september, and by her personality who she seems to fit in with.

so we have a lot of girls suicide, and with pledge classes of about 18, and total at 40 (which should be higher because all groups have about 50ish girls in the fall and 65ish in the spring) and most of the girls in my sorority suicided zta, including me. i went to my other preference party, just to see what it was like, even though i had no intentions of putting them on my preference card. so it depends on the campus culture and would you rather be greek or a member of one sorority.

[AOII Angel]

That is definitely different than early fall rush when freshmen come in with no concept of sorority life and no prior experience with the chapters on campus. Sounds like deferred rush can be quite different. Though, I really have to wonder if you wouldn't "discover" great reasons to stay in any particular group you might join. It's the human condition to make lemonade when life gives you lemons!

[KSUViolet06]

Since we're on the subject, I posted a recruitment thread for my friend last fall. She attended Preference at two groups, but "suicided" one of them. She got lucky and ended up getting a bid.

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=80889

In my friend's case, she knew that there were other girls who liked her #2 pref alot more than she did, and she wouldn't want to get a bid there and be upset while someone else who REALLY wanted them ended up somewhere else. She didn't think it was fair to them.

It's not the best idea, but I would never tell someone not to. My only advice is that they think really hard about how they feel about both groups. My rule of thumb is if you know that you'd rather not be Greek at all than take a bid to your second choice, then you should ISP ("suicide").

I've seen it happen on GC where girls have a full schedule of prefs, choose to suicide, don't get a bid, and then cry about how badly they want to be Greek. Sorry, but if you really wanted to be Greek you should've ranked all of your choices.

[beebadger]

I think it really depends on the individual school, the number of sororities there and what the PNM's motivation is to go through recruitment. My school allowed us to attend 3 pref parties and I liked them all enough to rank them (I think there were 9-10 sororities). My daughter just received her bid this week. There are only 6 sororities on her campus and the Greek system is very small --maybe 6% of the students. She could attend 2 pref parties and did. Even though she really liked the girls at both, she felt such a greater connection with one, that she decided to suicide. Since so few kids are Greek, she decided she'd rather not be Greek than be with her 2nd choice. This might be way different at some of the schools with really strong Greek systems. where a PNM would be happy anywhere just to be in a sorority.

[BabyPiNK_FL]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

It's not the best idea, but I would never tell someone not to. My only advice is that they think really hard about how they feel about both groups. My rule of thumb is if you know that you'd rather not be Greek at all than take a bid to your second choice, then you should ISP ("suicide").


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This is more along the lines of what I meant by advocating SIP, not so that everyone should do it. But those who can not see beyond it. When it comes to recruitment there are so many girls who have no idea what they are getting into (at least at my school) no matter how hard you try to explain mutual selection, "open mind/open heart", "sisterhood is in every chapter" it is just not going to work out if they can't see beyond that and they can end up dropping like flies during new member period from all groups costing big sisters money and wasting so much effort that could be better placed no matter how much you coddle and baby them.
If someone believes in the deepest depths of their heart that it's ABC or DEATH then they should probably go with that cos there is nothing anybody but ABC can do for you after that if that's how you are going to look at it. I personally didn't do it because I knew I could be happy anywhere, but not everyone can. I hope I didn't come off as rude or whatever, but these girls are out there and I just want to better explain my point. And that is why I feel that SIP may not always be a bad option.