Prohibiting 1st Semester Freshmen From Pledging

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by icicle22

Recruitment should be year round, because that would give anyone the chance to go through rush if they so desire.

My alma mater does recruitment twice a year, which is both good and bad. We have formal in the spring and informal in the fall. A PNM must have 12 credits to join, but those 12 can be AP credits, so some first semester freshmen have the opportunity to join. It's good in that it gives a PNM 3-4 solid good chances to join, plus MAYBE first semester junior year. Students transfer, an emergency can happen during FR that would cause you to drop out (sickness, death in family), or God forbid, a PNM is simply not interested in Greek Life until they meet our brothers and sisters!

The downside is that there are a lot of PNMs who suicide during FR, resulting in a lower quota, which is the reason every chapter does informal in the fall. The PNMs know that every chapter will be participating in the fall, so there is no incentive to rank all 3 chapters if they only want one. If they rank all three and get matched to #2 or #3, they're stuck for a year. If they suicide and don't match, they only wait a semester. It's a chicken-egg scenario.

It would be nice to not have to have to spend the money (another argument for no-frills) recruiting new members when the money could be spent enjoying the new members, like with a sisterhood retreat.

Also, with every chapter recruiting during informal, it can hurt the smaller chapters. At most schools, only the chapters under total recruit during informal, allowing the smaller chapters a chance to "catch up" without having to compete with the most popular chapters. To add insult to injury, PNMs only go to the chapters they wish to visit, so if a PNM only visits the three most popular chapters (because she has her heart set on them), the smaller chapters do not get a chance to recruit her. However, an upside is that all chapters participating in informal removes the stigma of smaller chapters "having" to recruit during informal.

Despite the disadvantages, it works out because most chapters are at or pretty darn close to total after informal, and 11 of 14 chapters made quota last year (the three that missed it were within 5 and some CRed). We get the numbers that our Campus Panhellenic sets for us, yet we just do it in two halves.