Tent Talk & "Bottom-Tier" Houses

[Greek_or_Geek?]

Originally Posted by Jen

Depending on chapter strength at a particular campus, websites can give away a lot to a PNM. You can often see the exact number of sisters, how many take on leadership positions (or multiple ones), what kind of events they attend (and which they don't) and the size of their new member classes. At a school where chapter numbers vary widely, this can be really telling (on the surface) to a PNM.

Someone coming from out of state may be able to tell on certain campuses exactly which chapter is smallest, largest, which seems to be the most active etc. There may be no need for tent talk for a PNM to make snap judgements without even meeting the members, and a PNM may not give them a chance based on what they surmise.

But that happens on the first day of recruitment anyway. Snap judgements have to be made based on a couple of minutes worth of parties. It isn't difficult to see which chapters are smaller or larger, have the best looking women, have the most awkward looking and acting, most fashionably/expensively dressed etc. The PNMs do a mighty fine job of talking amongst themselves based on what they observe even if they had no idea going in. That's been happening long before Al Gore invented the internet.

[LAblondeGPhi]

Originally Posted by Jen

Depending on chapter strength at a particular campus, websites can give away a lot to a PNM. You can often see the exact number of sisters, how many take on leadership positions (or multiple ones), what kind of events they attend (and which they don't) and the size of their new member classes. At a school where chapter numbers vary widely, this can be really telling (on the surface) to a PNM.

Ya, to a degree. Some chapters just aren't very good at making their websites user-friendly or informative, and many chapters aren't particularly good at keeping their websites or facebook pages up-to-date. Sometimes it's the chapters who don't have their ish together, sometimes it's perfectly functional chapter who don't really care so much about web presence.

Originally Posted by Greek_or_Geek?

But that happens on the first day of recruitment anyway. Snap judgements have to be made based on a couple of minutes worth of parties. It isn't difficult to see which chapters are smaller or larger, have the best looking women, have the most awkward looking and acting, most fashionably/expensively dressed etc. The PNMs do a mighty fine job of talking amongst themselves based on what they observe even if they had no idea going in. That's been happening long before Al Gore invented the internet.

I also agree with this... however... I think the biggest concern with "tent talk" is when it changes the mind of a PNM who otherwise liked a chapter, but then made her daily rankings decisions partly based on gossip she heard. Or, that the reputations tainted her perceptions ahead of time and she never gave certain chapters a fair chance to begin with.

It's hard to quantify how many PNMs are just information starved, and how many genuinely go in search of rankings info from the get-to. If information is even part of the culprit, then directing PNMs to positive information sources over the summer could be helpful: to GC, the NPC website, the Sorority Life website, etc.