University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign Recruitment - Page 4

DG Illinois · #1 09-10-2011, 11:53 AM

It seems to me that Illinois wants to be like Michigan or UVA when it comes to admissions rather than a state university. My mom said she would of never gotten in now and I would of been one of the very last to make it through the door and I thought I was smart back then. The numbers these kids are getting back on their ACT's and SAT's are insane and with all the AP classes kids are applying with GPA's above their 4 or 5 point. While I'm proud to say I went there I do miss Illinois being more realistic to get into. I like that the state universities etc offer an education for our kids who do very well but aren't always the top 5% of their class. Some of my very best friends ended up at Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana and loved it and I loved it when I visited them. I would of been happy at any Big 10 school or probably anywhere as I was amazed by the college experience and felt very fortunate my parents were so generous paying for it and I didn't have to take out a student loan.
I need to figure out the quote message in reply because even with my stellar education I'm not smart enough to figure that out

!

scrapcat · #2 09-10-2011, 12:25 PM

My daughter looked at both Illinois and Iowa. She wanted the Big 10 experience. Of course in-state would've been great, but she just loved the feel of Iowa. Illinois (forgive me UofI grads) is getting to be almost Ivy League in their admissions. Really, really good students are not able to get into Illinois flagship university. In my opinion, UofI loves out of state kids, and in-state kids are getting shafted. So that's why I think Iowa, Michigan, Indiana are getting boat loads of kids from Illinois. At my daughters high school, Iowa was the number two choice of college. Right behind UofI!

AGDee · #3 09-10-2011, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DG Illinois

It seems to me that Illinois wants to be like Michigan or UVA when it comes to admissions rather than a state university. My mom said she would of never gotten in now and I would of been one of the very last to make it through the door and I thought I was smart back then. The numbers these kids are getting back on their ACT's and SAT's are insane and with all the AP classes kids are applying with GPA's above their 4 or 5 point. While I'm proud to say I went there I do miss Illinois being more realistic to get into. I like that the state universities etc offer an education for our kids who do very well but aren't always the top 5% of their class. Some of my very best friends ended up at Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana and loved it and I loved it when I visited them. I would of been happy at any Big 10 school or probably anywhere as I was amazed by the college experience and felt very fortunate my parents were so generous paying for it and I didn't have to take out a student loan.
I need to figure out the quote message in reply because even with my stellar education I'm not smart enough to figure that out

!

The University of Michigan is a state school too. It's simply the state school that is highly selective. There are other state schools that are much less competitive. I think state schools should vary in this regard.

To quote a message, click on the "Quote" and it will take you right to the message. If you want to quote multiple messages, click on the ditto marks icon for all them and then when you click Post Reply at the bottom of the thread, it will quote all of them.

DeltaBetaBaby · #4 09-10-2011, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AGDee

The University of Michigan is a state school too. It's simply the state school that is highly selective. There are other state schools that are much less competitive. I think state schools should vary in this regard.

To quote a message, click on the "Quote" and it will take you right to the message. If you want to quote multiple messages, click on the ditto marks icon for all them and then when you click Post Reply at the bottom of the thread, it will quote all of them.

I believe that Illinois has one other public university listed as an R1, and two other public universities considered to be R2. So, it is not as though raising the admissions standards at Urbana prevents other in-state students from getting a great education.

DeltaBetaBaby · #5 09-10-2011, 04:04 PM

It's just really tough to have opinions about 18 houses, or even to keep them all straight. Sure, you can make notes, but at the end of two days, everything is jumbled on both sides. It's almost easier just to really start weighing your options in round 2. When I went through, they were still doing invites first (instead of ranking), and I think it was probably easier for the PNM's.

IL Anchor Girl · #6 09-10-2011, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

It's just really tough to have opinions about 18 houses, or even to keep them all straight. Sure, you can make notes, but at the end of two days, everything is jumbled on both sides. It's almost easier just to really start weighing your options in round 2. When I went through, they were still doing invites first (instead of ranking), and I think it was probably easier for the PNM's.

You are so right! I found my rush booklet from the early 80s, how funny it was to look through. When I went through, there were (apparently, according to my rush book) 24 houses we went to first round. I remember our rush counselors telling us to take notes or we'd never remember all of them. So of course, I dutifully did that. But as I looked over my booklet, I had to laugh because most of my comments were about the houses: "Great house!" "Beautiful house!" "Such a pretty house!" That couldn't have helped me remember them much later!

I had never been in a sorority house before, and clearly I was enthralled by the whole thing. But I did do a rudimentary "yes", "maybe", "no" that may have helped a little. I was sort of surprised to see we had gone from 24 first stage to only 8 second stage (then 5, then 3 for pref). I didn't remember that big dropoff after 1st stage.

Clara Mom · #7 09-10-2011, 02:48 PM

U of I is a good school, but it's not the bargain it used to be. If tuition keeps rising, a lot more top in state kids will start looking at other schools.

My daughter has been too busy to talk to me, but I did get the following texts:

Mom: How was last night?
Daughter: It was okay.
Mom: Did you visit any houses you'd want to go back to?
Daughter: Ehh. I didn't really love everything about any one yet.
Mom: That's actually good.

I'm right, right? Also, I like the way she put "yet" at the end of her "I didn't really love everything about any one yet."

scrapcat · #8 09-10-2011, 03:03 PM

I think that's a good sign. They move so quickly through the houses. My daughter is a bit of a freak with note taking. She wrote all sorts of notes about each house. I also wonder if the girls think "what the heck am I looking for?" It's such an intangible thing. It moves so fast, and then "poof" it's over.

I totally sympathize with your lack of info from your daughter. I felt like I was dealing in telegraphic speech for a few days. As a mom I want to hear each and every detail! Skype worked for me when I finally nailed my daughter down.

Clara Mom · #9 09-10-2011, 03:31 PM

Scrapcat, I'm glad to hear that I am not the only mom for whom getting information about this is like pulling teeth. There are so many moms on GC posting their daughter's recruitment stories, right down to the tiniest detail. I was starting to think there was something wrong with our mother/daughter relationship!

DG Illinois · #10 09-10-2011, 04:02 PM

Complete opposite over her, my girl thinks she has found her favorite. She is trying to go through very open-minded but I can tell right now she is in love with a particular house. I'm interested to hear what she thinks after tonight when she has been to all of them. There is just that sound in her voice that gives it away. Her talk with her Mom was much more neutral though so sometimes I think our kids try and keep it calm because they are worried we are so worried about them.

Clara Mom · #11 09-10-2011, 11:33 PM

Over 1,400 NPMs going through recruitment ...

UofISigKap · #12 09-11-2011, 12:16 AM

Okay, thank you for clarifying. Don't get me wrong, I was starting to get a bit giddy when I saw more chapters listed. I literally thought, "Oooh! We're getting close; just a few more to add, and then we'll have them all!" It's the only reason I questioned it. Is your daughter excited for the next round?

Clara Mom · #13 09-11-2011, 12:28 AM

While I'm waiting to get a text from my daughter to let me know how today's open house events were, I found this PowerPoint presentation on the internet entitled "RFM - Release Figure Method/University of Illinois 2006." (I was curious about how release figure numbers were determined.) The author is the "NPC Release Figure Team Leader," and it's designed to explain to the houses how the new system works - with pros and cons for chapters and NPMs.

The link won't post, but if you google "sorority recruitment the next generation of release figures" you will get to the .pdf file.

Page 17 gave me the impression that the deepest cuts are after the open house round. But then it got me wondering - are subsequent release figures dependent on the number of NPMs wanting to return to specific houses? In other words, does each chapter know before recruitment begins how many NPMs they have to release after each round, or do they get a new figure following each party depending on the parity of the NPM choices?

Yes, I really do need to take a chill pill, or whatever the lexicon is these days. I have no idea how I will be spending my computer time after rush is over ...

IL Anchor Girl · #14 09-11-2011, 12:28 AM

Sorry, all, my lane swerve back to the '80s got us off track.

Now back to our regularly scheduled 2011 programming!

Very interested to hear how 1st round went for anyone who wants to (discreetly, of course) share...

DubaiSis · #15 09-11-2011, 01:18 AM

Clara Mom, it depends. You're welcome. HA! But the cuts are going to vary based on each chapter's historical return rates. A chapter that gets 50% returns after each round is going to be doing way fewer cuts than the chapter that gets 99% returns. Although this method isn't used any more, you can still use it as a rule of thumb - you want a pledge class at each party - so whatever cuts they have to make to get to approximately 50 girls per party is what they're going to be doing. But keep in mind the more competitive chapters have to get to fewer than that more quickly so as not to be stringing girls along. (I've used 50 as a really rough estimate. I have no idea what they are anticipating pledge class size to be this year). And they do have to make the biggest cuts after the first round because if you have 50 girls at a party, the number of girls you have attending total goes from 1400 to 500. And that's based on approximately 10 minutes of conversation. YIKES.