SPRING RECRUITMENT AT UGA

[ngg]

My understanding of things is as follows - UGA has been experiencing a significant dropoff in enrollment during Spring semester, due to students graduating after 4 1/2 years, dropping out, etc. Last Spring the University offered a group of high school seniors admssion for January 2009 in an effort to "up" their second semester numbers. A friend of mine's daughter, who was wait listed at the time, received this offer and happily accepted. Of course, these girls were unable to participate in Fall recruitment and my friend says UGA is addressing the issue by instating a Spring recruitment. Hope others will be able to add to this information. I would love to know how many students were admitted for second semester and if the sororities intend to increase total to accomodate them.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by ngg

My understanding of things is as follows - UGA has been experiencing a significant dropoff in enrollment during Spring semester, due to students graduating after 4 1/2 years, dropping out, etc. Last Spring the University offered a group of high school seniors admssion for January 2009 in an effort to "up" their second semester numbers. A friend of mine's daughter, who was wait listed at the time, received this offer and happily accepted. Of course, these girls were unable to participate in Fall recruitment and my friend says UGA is addressing the issue by instating a Spring recruitment. Hope others will be able to add to this information. I would love to know how many students were admitted for second semester and if the sororities intend to increase total to accomodate them.

That makes sense - and how considerate of UGA to accomodate these girls! Hope it all goes well.

[Tippiechick]

Wow, Blueangel. You are even on at the same usual time that you usually posted. And, you said Sheila's name just to show who you are. Just another priceless example of how strange you are.

[hollywin]

Thanks for this information. Good luck to all going through.

[icelandelf]

Originally Posted by hollywin

Thanks for this information. Good luck to all going through.

Wow you're back too. Impressive kind of a Monday!

[OleMissGlitter]

Originally Posted by ngg

My understanding of things is as follows - UGA has been experiencing a significant dropoff in enrollment during Spring semester, due to students graduating after 4 1/2 years, dropping out, etc. Last Spring the University offered a group of high school seniors admssion for January 2009 in an effort to "up" their second semester numbers. A friend of mine's daughter, who was wait listed at the time, received this offer and happily accepted. Of course, these girls were unable to participate in Fall recruitment and my friend says UGA is addressing the issue by instating a Spring recruitment. Hope others will be able to add to this information. I would love to know how many students were admitted for second semester and if the sororities intend to increase total to accomodate them.

That is what I heard as well....however I was under the impression that not ALL sororities would be participating...

Originally Posted by OleMissGlitter

That is what I heard as well....however I was under the impression that not ALL sororities would be participating...

http://www.uga.edu/panhellenic/recruit/index.html

UGA's Panhellenic website says that all 17 chapters are participating.

[carnation]

I'm thrilled that UGa is doing this; how wonderful it is that so many women will get a chance to join sororities! My daughter took part in an architectural project to refurbish one of the houses and she says that excitement is running high for both members and PNMs!

[OleMissGlitter]

Originally Posted by OTW

http://www.uga.edu/panhellenic/recruit/index.html

UGA's Panhellenic website says that all 17 chapters are participating.

Thanks. The last I was told about this (about 3 weeks ago) I guess Panhellenic was still working out the kinks.

Does anyone know if there will be a quota?

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by OTW

http://www.uga.edu/panhellenic/recruit/index.html

UGA's Panhellenic website says that all 17 chapters are participating.

Is it weird to question whether all 17 chapters doing open houses necessarily equals all 17 giving bids?

What does "participating"really mean, unless this recruitment is a second formal with even groups above total getting to give more bids?

That could work out really well if the spring quota is pretty small AND groups below total get to give additional bids up to total plus whatever number quota is.

I think this is probably a really good thing although I doubt the January admits are really the driving force behind it. Has anyone seen a newspaper article about that trend or program? UGA is generally considered over-enrolled in the fall, I think, and while I'm sure the university would be eager to balance numbers between the two big semesters, I think it's really unlikely that they would address the issue by admitting enough new freshmen to have it work out. To me, it would make a lot more sense to offer more upper level classes needed for graduation only in the spring. However, I can totally see the pressure being on UGA to admit more qualified kids who want to go there and so they offer more admissions in January when they seem to have more space.

For whatever my random opinion is worth, I think the spring recruitment thing is much more about the groups and how to get more people to participate in spring recruitment than it is about responsiveness to parental concerns about when the January admits rush. (If it's a big enough number of kids to influence recruitment policy at UGA at the Greek Life level, it's a big enough group of kids for the GLOs to figure out how to handle on their own.)

[carnation]

Well, it was certainly a shock to hear that UGa was doing a formal spring recruitment and the rumors are flying as to why. A lot of people feel like maybe some really prominent alums want their kids to get a "fair" shot at recruitment. I wonder if the PNMs will mostly be ones who dropped in the fall, new transfers, or women who have never rushed.

My only concern would be that if there are 2 formal recruitments every year, fall PNMs who don't like their returns will simply drop out and wait for spring, which could affect quota and such.

[honeychile]

FWIW, and I don't pretend to have any inside information at UGA, we used to have a "formal" spring recruitment. It was formal in that every group presented, and held a first round. From there, any of the GLOs who had already made quota/total dropped out, and the others kept going recruiting. We considered quota/total a reward for getting it down the first time, and not having to repeat recruitment!

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by carnation

Well, it was certainly a shock to hear that UGa was doing a formal spring recruitment and the rumors are flying as to why. A lot of people feel like maybe some really prominent alums want their kids to get a "fair" shot at recruitment. I wonder if the PNMs will mostly be ones who dropped in the fall, new transfers, or women who have never rushed.

My only concern would be that if there are 2 formal recruitments every year, fall PNMs who don't like their returns will simply drop out and wait for spring, which could affect quota and such.

Yep, but it seems that there'd be ways to keep it from getting out of control. If the spring quota is always relatively small, and I'm guessing it would be, PNMs will probably realize the best time to pledge is in the fall.

This might sound kind of nutty, but I don't think the groups themselves want to get too much bigger than they are. I would think that most of them would want to perpetuate a system that got about 50 PNMs in the fall and allowed them to pick up 5-10 in the spring to compensate for anyone who didn't come back, etc.

I can't imagine what interest XYZ with close to 100% return rates in recruitment really has in being a chapter of 250 or 300 even if they could be.

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by carnation

My only concern would be that if there are 2 formal recruitments every year, fall PNMs who don't like their returns will simply drop out and wait for spring, which could affect quota and such.

Ding ding ding ding ding! Welcome to Maryland. We don't have 2 formal recruitments per se, but I think because everyone participates (and PNMs know it) and each chapter has anywhere from 4-25+ spots to fill in the fall (most around 10 give or take), most PNMs who don't like their options come pref (spring FMR) would rather drop out than be bound to a chapter for a year and therefore ineligible for fall informal.

Quota has been slowly but steadily increasing, which means that fall pledge classes are shrinking. I believe all chapters participated still this fall, but I think across the board everyone took fewer. Hopefully this trend will continue.

ETA: I can't imagine why UGA thinks it's a good idea to have two quota based recruitments (assuming they are planning to use quota this spring instead of everyone bid what they need to reach total). There needs to be balance, because if every chapter is allowed to take whatever quota is every semester, the small chapters will get smaller. A Campus Panhellenic needs a semester to give the smaller chapters a chance to "catch up".

[Smile_Awhile]

Originally Posted by violetpretty

ETA: I can't imagine why UGA thinks it's a good idea to have two quota based recruitments (assuming they are planning to use quota this spring instead of everyone bid what they need to reach total). There needs to be balance, because if every chapter is allowed to take whatever quota is every semester, the small chapters will get smaller. A Campus Panhellenic needs a semester to give the smaller chapters a chance to "catch up".

I think, if it's due to extenuating circumstances, then it's probably okay if it's only for one semester. But if this happens in the next few years- well, there'll be trouble.