SPRING RECRUITMENT AT UGA

[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.

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by Smile_Awhile

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.

But the thing is, if UGA keeps admitting more students in the spring due to winter graduations, they'll be in the same boat next year.

[UGAalum94]

Sorry for the double post, especially when the last one was so long, but. . .

I think I mentioned this before someplace but it might play in here: some of the groups that are smaller today in relative size, but still above total, at UGA are groups that are regarded as being pretty desirable in terms of traditionally being popular in formal recruitment. (At least I think: I'm not privy to actual return rates, of course, but in terms of PNM/rushee hype from current students that I know telling me about how recruitment went, these aren't "struggling" chapters.)

So, if they are raising total or allowing groups to give bids above total, but in some method that looked at chapter size rather than just a straight quota, rather than a "bait and switch" the PNMS might be pleasantly surprised at where some of the openings turn out to be.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

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.

Like I said above, it honestly sounds like it is a second formal rush with quota just like it would be in the fall.

Groups below total can give bids up to total any old time. They don't need all the groups (or any groups) rushing to do that. If a group was 40 below total after fall rush and 20 women came up to them in October and wanted to pledge, they could take a second class if they wanted.

Oh, and I think it would create quite the PR disaster if PNMs (especially legacies) were told that all groups were participating, signed up w/ that in mind, and at the first event for Big Popular House were basically told "we did this because we had to, but we don't have any open spots so we're dropping out now. Sorry. Go look at the other groups."

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Like I said above, it honestly sounds like it is a second formal rush with quota just like it would be in the fall.

Groups below total can give bids up to total any old time. They don't need all the groups (or any groups) rushing to do that. If a group was 40 below total after fall rush and 20 women came up to them in October and wanted to pledge, they could take a second class if they wanted.

Oh, and I think it would create quite the PR disaster if PNMs (especially legacies) were told that all groups were participating, signed up w/ that in mind, and at the first event for Big Popular House were basically told "we did this because we had to, but we don't have any open spots so we're dropping out now. Sorry. Go look at the other groups."

I understand what you are saying, but even if these big groups do have openings, they are likely to be so many fewer than other groups that for most participants, it's probably going to be a pretty similar message.

The "participation" of these groups will get the total number of PNMs up even if it's just because these group encourage girls to come out to meet them before formal in the fall. And a lot of the PNMs will probably find groups they like enough to pledge in the spring because, as I mentioned earlier, the total number vs. general reputation for popularity isn't running that tight throughout the whole 17 IMO.

I wish we knew how they planned to do it with a quota or whatever. I wonder if they are waiting to really see groups second semester numbers before they make a call.

Oh, I found this http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/...81200167.shtml

Late in the article, we come to this paragraph:

"About 200 more students are expected to enroll for spring semester beginning in January. Most of those names will be drawn from a waiting list of students not admitted for the fall semester, McDuff said."

Unless as Carnation mentioned that among these 200 are parents so influential that they can restructure the system for their kids, I'm guessing spring recruitment 2009 is just a good thing they are finally trying to make work.

[carnation]

LOL! And we know they exist! I was thinking that the kids with the influential parents might come more from the group of PNMs who rushed unsuccessfully in the fall. We know of several families who don't contribute to their alma maters anymore because their children were zapped in fraternity or sorority recruitment. These were good kids too, not wild ones whose parents thought they were angels.