Quota Additions at Super Competitive Schools

[carnation]

Any new insights on this thread? I sure learned a lot from it!

[clemsongirl]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

On the PNM side, I had no idea what was actually a liability, too. For example, we've talked here about pledging a 16-year-old, which I thought made me stand out in a good way, and was probably just the opposite.

I think there are a lot of things that fall into this category, like "oh, I'm in band; that shows I'm involved and have school spirit" translates to "oh, she's in marching band, that means she'll always have conflicts with recruitment" or "my brother is an XYZ, that shows my family supports Greek life" translates to "her brother is an XYZ, that means she probably has her heart set on ABC".

Maybe I was just the most clueless rushee on earth, but I think that, if this is the stuff you are supposed to tell your rec-writers, it's normal to think these are all positives.

^^^This times one million. Every single conversation I had during the first round of recruitment went something like this:

Rusher: Where are you from?
Me: Rhode Island!
Rusher: Wow, that's so far away! What made you want to come down to Clemson?
Me: Well, I've always loved the warm weather, and I'd always wanted to try marching band because it's something we don't have much of back home BUT I'M NOT IN THE BAND NOW BECAUSE IT WAS A HUGE TIME COMMITMENT AND I WANTED TO BRANCH OUT.

I had to emphasize that I wasn't doing marching band so that the girls didn't hear "band" and immediately assume that I was going to be too busy with band to show up to anything in the fall semester, including recruitment. A girl went through recruitment last year which falls smack in the middle of nightly band practice leading up to the huge season-opening performance and I will never forget her running across the field during the middle of practice in a nice dress with beautiful blonde curls in her hair to then put her clarinet together and march with the rest of us. Clemson's feature twirler is one of my favorite pledge sisters and a girl that by all appearances every chapter should have been fighting over, but she said she could only pref two chapters because of her busy band schedule (as someone who only preffed two chapters simply because she was cut by the other ten for whatever reason, I didn't feel quite so bad). Campus involvement like that can be awesome, but if a chapter feels that it needs more chapter-focused sisters or is already involved enough on campus any PNM with a conflict like that probably isn't going to be kept around.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Someone was asking about this on the IU thread, but the thing is, as much as I'm a numbers person, I think the bottom line is not to hang on to a chapter you don't like as much to improve your chances, I think it's to be really honest about which chapters might be the best fits for you. I'd be willing to bet that virtually everyone who goes through a large rush will have good experiences with at least one of the WRC's, and if you are happy there, put them on the top of your list.

[carnation]

Like.

[sherrybaby]

Originally Posted by Jen

I just wish PNMs would get better explanations of ranking chapters. They don't seem to be told that ranking chapters does NOT necessarily mean you are cutting chapters. So many PNMs think they're cutting when they aren't - I think explaining that the "cuts" they do only apply if they get invited to more parties than they can attend might clarify a lot of the confusion when the chapter they "cut" keeps inviting them back and they have to go.

I think this is exactly the problem on my campus. Misinformation in general has resulted in a lot of issues. When ranking the bottom two, one Rho Chi explained that ranking a chapter second to last meant we wouldn't mind seeing them again, but ranking them last meant we didn't want to see them again, with an implication that we wouldn't have to. I feel like the surprise of seeing a chapter they thought they dropped in place of a chapter they wanted made girls grumble a lot more in line at some parties - which made girls who actually liked that chapter feel nervous that this was a "bad" chapter and not want to rank it highly.

This happens with the whole suiciding/not suiciding/girls not showing up to bid day at small chapters issue, too. One of our Rho Chis was told by Panhel that they couldn't allow girls to suicide no matter what. So they were telling us the typical story that ranking a small chapter instead of leaving it off would result in someone having a better chance at super chapter, or "the computer will count you twice so you have twice the chances at the chapter you like" or something similar. When a girl is disappointed but prepared for the reality, she might go to bid day to give a chapter a chance. When she is shocked and dismayed, she is more likely to flee in tears and not show up - she hasn't had time to think through what she would do in the situation because she didn't expect it.

I know that having everyone not suicide results in more girls with bids and more chapters seeming to get total, so panhel can pat itself on the back, so I get why panhel does this - I just think it results in a lot of unnecessary resentment by girls who end up in chapters that they won't even show up to on Bid Day.