Georgia Recruitment

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by carnation

And yes, I know that the important thing is the daughter's education but let's suppose she's going to be an education major, which most universities seem to offer. If it's so important that the girl be an ABC, what's the difference between her going to Huge U with 30,000 students and Smaller U with 15000?

I see what you're saying here. I think alot of the issue with moms "ignoring the warnings" is that some moms don't just want their little girl to be an ABC, they want her to be an ABC at THEIR school. It is more important for her to be a Big Southern State U ABC than it is for her to be an ABC at all. They want their daughter to have the same experiences as they had as a member of that chapter.

For example, my friend is a Chi Omega legacy. She could've gone to school here in OH and pledged Chi O at any one of them. But her mom is an SEC school Chi O alumna and insisted that her daughter go to THAT school and be a Chi Omega.

[hollywin]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

I see what you're saying here. I think alot of moms ignoring the warnings is that some moms don't just want their little girl to be an ABC, they want her to be an ABC at THEIR school. It is more important for her to be a Big Southern State U ABC than it is for her to be an ABC at all.

Some moms maybe yes. Others no. In my case my daughter chose her school from 4 she was accepted to. I was not devastated that she was cut by my sorority, my comment was that I felt bad actually that her strong legacy hurt her chances with the other 16 sororities.

My daughter approached rush with a very open mind. She new going in that being from out of state she would not know anyone in the sororities.
She knew it would be tough. While my sorority experience was wonderful it has been a very long time since college. Things change. All this mom wanted was for her daughter to be happy !! Rush was hard. Getting cut from all but 1 after the second round does hurt your self esteem . As a parent, many of you will find, seeing your child hurt is the most difficult thing you can go through.
Like I said my daughter has joined many wonderful organizations and is loving UGA. She did hope that she could enhance her experience by being in a sorority. If this is what she wants I will support her in every way. We come from a large family of greeks and she has many legacies not just mine.

My daughter chose Ga. first and foremost for the education that she knew she would receive and she grew up knowing UGA as a school not defined by the sorority her mom was in, but for the great school it is. I think from what I see Ga. has 17 wonderful sororities. If she wants to go through again I hope it will work out for her. That's all this mom wants for her child.

[carnation]

Oh, I wasn't talking about you! I was thinking of many, many cases I've seen in the last 9-10 years here in town. Some of these moms even bought ABC paraphernalia ahead of time because they were so confident their daughters would soon be their sisters.

Even if my older daughters had gone to school with Pi Phi chapters, I wouldn't have dared been so overconfident as to buy Pi Phi para ahead of time.

Hollywin, I'm impressed by what you say about your daughter! I wish the best for her!

[shadden]

I was very fortunate to have my daughter pledge the same chapter I was in at UGA, but I must say that I did not realize until recently how competetive rush is there. A good friend was in another chapter at UGA, and when her daughter went through recruitment two years ago she was cut by the house where she was a legacy after round 1. After round 3 the house called the mother to get a rec on another girl from the same hometown. The mom was understandably furious that the chapter had been so insensitive to her feelings. When they realized what they had done they were apologetic, but hurt feelings are hard to undo. I think the system has simply grown so big that it is hard to manage all the information and even be aware of legacies and recommendations. My chapter released a girl I wrote a rec on after round 1, and that would never have happened when the system was smaller.

[carnation]

So much of the difficulty in getting a bid at UGa lies with, originally, the HOPE Grant. You guys of a certain age or older will remember that back in the day before it, anybody and his parakeet could get into Georgia. Now because of it, students with 1200 SATs often don't get in. You end up with hundreds of incredible women rushing, women with grades and test scores and activities that would get them into almost any sorority in a smaller system. Because Georgia is so selective in admissions and Auburn, Bama, and Ole Miss aren't quite as hard to get into, I'd rate Georgia as harder to get a bid at; the competition is staggering.

Also--back in the day, quota was often set early in recruitment, even as early as after the second parties. I've even heard of schools that set quota based on how many women signed up. This led to huge pledge classes for the "more selective" sororities and much smaller ones for the rest. When you couple that with the new release figures that most big schools use, you can see how rough UGa rush is and how different it is nowadays.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by carnation

So much of the difficulty in getting a bid at UGa lies with, originally, the HOPE Grant. You guys of a certain age or older will remember that back in the day before it, anybody and his parakeet could get into Georgia. Now because of it, students with 1200 SATs often don't get in. You end up with hundreds of incredible women rushing, women with grades and test scores and activities that would get them into almost any sorority in a smaller system. Because Georgia is so selective in admissions and Auburn, Bama, and Ole Miss aren't quite as hard to get into, I'd rate Georgia as harder to get a bid at; the competition is staggering.

Also--back in the day, quota was often set early in recruitment, even as early as after the second parties. I've even heard of schools that set quota based on how many women signed up. This led to huge pledge classes for the "more selective" sororities and much smaller ones for the rest. When you couple that with the new release figures that most big schools use, you can see how rough UGa rush is and how different it is nowadays.

It's interesting that you say this, and I hadn't really thought about it this way. It may be harder than it used to be to actually get any bid at all.

I think recruitment at UGA may be "easier" these days in one way: the old south elite groups are more open, I think.

Pre-HOPE grant, I think UGA rush was a very smaller-city, hometown based event. A good girl from Albany or Savannah or Macon, especially if she was from a private school, could expect to be heavily recruited by almost all chapters, but she would really expect to end up in one of maybe five or six GLOs because those were the groups with the girls from her hometown.

Now, with HOPE, a higher percentage of the kids at Georgia are from the Atlanta metro area and went to schools like Parkview, Walton, etc. I think the public school, suburban kids have started to play a much bigger role in the Greek system than they used to, and they're more open to relatively unknown girls from other suburbs, rather than sticking to the little sisters of girls they knew at Deerfield-Windsor or Savannah Country Day.

I'm not sure if it's a good or bad trend, but I think it's a bit of a different ball game.

[carnation]

I think it's definitely harder for the average girl or a legacy to get into the "more competitive" groups. Remember, there used to be a lot of girls cut for grades right off and that took out a lot of competition. Also--with release figures, so many girls get cut by tons of groups by second or third parties. This results in a lot of dropouts but there's still keen competition for certain sororities.

The release figures are working in some ways but if you have your heart set on certain groups, it's a good idea to think twice and maximize your options.

[IHeartUGA]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

It's interesting that you say this, and I hadn't really thought about it this way. It may be harder than it used to be to actually get any bid at all.

I think recruitment at UGA may be "easier" these days in one way: the old south elite groups are more open, I think.

Pre-HOPE grant, I think UGA rush was a very smaller-city, hometown based event. A good girl from Albany or Savannah or Macon, especially if she was from a private school, could expect to be heavily recruited by almost all chapters, but she would really expect to end up in one of maybe five or six GLOs because those were the groups with the girls from her hometown.

Now, with HOPE, a higher percentage of the kids at Georgia are from the Atlanta metro area and went to schools like Parkview, Walton, etc. I think the public school, suburban kids have started to play a much bigger role in the Greek system than they used to, and they're more open to relatively unknown girls from other suburbs, rather than sticking to the little sisters of girls they knew at Deerfield-Windsor or Savannah Country Day.

I'm not sure if it's a good or bad trend, but I think it's a bit of a different ball game.

Are you from Savannah?