Questions about GPA Requirements and PNMs

[MaryPoppins]

@33girl - Your use of the word gauche made my day!

[HQWest]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

^^^I dunno. I feel like even if you have recs, if you have a low HS GPA, and you're in a pool of people who are FAR beyond the minimum, your chances may be slim.

Maybe it's not as big of a deal if maybe you're an in-house legacy and you have a 3.49 (and the min is a 3.5.) but an unknown PNM with 2 recs and a low GPA is a hard sell.

An example was a girl with a significant health problem one semester. If you took that semester out and redid her GPA, it was much higher. All the other indicators were there - dance team, SGA, active with her church, etc. Based on a good rec. and meeting her, the girls took a chance. She ended up president.

[MaryPoppins]

Originally Posted by HQWest

An example was a girl with a significant health problem one semester. If you took that semester out and redid her GPA, it was much higher. All the other indicators were there - dance team, SGA, active with her church, etc. Based on a good rec. and meeting her, the girls took a chance. She ended up president.

Couple of years ago I wrote a letter of reference on just such a girl from my parish church. Not one chapter here carried her beyond second round. She was and is cute, creative and academic, active hands on volunteer, with lots of friends. Heart breaking.

[Titchou]

Originally Posted by AzTheta

carnation, I spit coffee all over my screen, I laughed so hard the dogs barked!!!

ETA: at Arizona, where +/- 1200 PNMs have gone through the past two-three years, the University Panhellenic publishes a minimum GPA for participating and strongly urges women with less than that GPA not to register. They even refund the application $ for PNMs who insist on registering but then think twice prior to the start of recruitment.

THat's fine. As long as the school is up front about chances with low GPA's. They just should not be in the business of deciding who meets ANY qualification for membership.

[AZTheta]

Originally Posted by Titchou

THat's fine. As long as the school is up front about chances with low GPA's. They just should not be in the business of deciding who meets ANY qualification for membership.

They are up front, and as far as I can see, they don't make decisions regarding membership qualifications. Did not mean to give that impression.

Here's a link to The Bond, which is provided to all PNMs and is available on line. On Page One, lower right hand corner, you'll find information about GPA requirements. If a PNM with a GPA < 2.8 decides to go ahead and go through recruitment, that's her choice. But she's informed at the outset that there is a minimum GPA for all chapters.

http://arizonagreek.orgsync.com/org/pan/registration

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I could care less if a GLO wants to set their GPA at (random number) 3.9. However, if all of them do that, and Panhellenic lets someone with a 2.7 sign up and pay the $100 fee, KNOWING she will be cut by all the sororities, I consider that irresponsible. This isn't about membership requirements and lofty things like that, it's about something a little more practical - not allowing a young woman and/or her parents to throw money down the toilet. If that's too gauche for NPC to even talk about, whatEVER.

This! And forget just the application fee.. There are house round casual clothes and preference dresses to be bought!

At many schools, there would be no harm in going through recruitment with a low GPA. At others, however, I'm sure there are girls who are spending hundreds of dollars for just a chance to be in a chapter. If you give PNMs no warning, that's a very quick way to potentially build a list of girls who resent sororities and everything they're about.

Originally Posted by 33girl

Welcome to the Northeast. As violetpretty said one time, at her school, alumnae sending recs could almost make a rushee's chances WORSE - it's seen as undue interference. We don't like to be bossed up here. I would wager Towson would be the same way, even if all the chapters got a truckload of recs tomorrow.

Exactly. I didn't know what a rec was until I came to GC a few years after I graduated. If my chapter received one, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have known what it was, or what the hell to do with it.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by carnation

That wasn't sarcasm. It was the unvarnished truth and I said it because so many PNMs go into recruitment thinking that they will do the choosing and at many schools, that's not so. You choose from what you're left with.

This is the truth.org.

The "party line" is that selection is mutual. It's less mutual than it's portrayed. The balance of selection tips in the favor of the chapters.

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

This is the truth.org.

[AXOrushadvisor]

Originally Posted by AzTheta

They are up front, and as far as I can see, they don't make decisions regarding membership qualifications. Did not mean to give that impression.

Here's a link to The Bond, which is provided to all PNMs and is available on line. On Page One, lower right hand corner, you'll find information about GPA requirements. If a PNM with a GPA < 2.8 decides to go ahead and go through recruitment, that's her choice. But she's informed at the outset that there is a minimum GPA for all chapters.

http://arizonagreek.orgsync.com/org/pan/registration

You have such a good and informative web site. On the academic page http://arizonagreek.orgsync.com/org/pan/racademics All 11 Chapters require a 3.0 from HS. I think that is smart to include that information. That way if a PNM goes through with a 2.8 from HS she knows she got released for grades and not some other reason.

[Old_Row]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

This is the truth.org.

The "party line" is that selection is mutual. It's less mutual than it's portrayed. The balance of selection tips in the favor of the chapters.

That's the truth and I don't know why so many people here get bent out of shape when it gets said.

Mutual selection only really exists for the top PNMs and the top recruiting chapters.

[carnation]

Originally Posted by Old_Row

Mutual selection only really exists for the top PNMs and the top recruiting chapters.

Too true!

[KSUViolet06]

I've been debating making a thread about the whole "selection isn't really all that mutual" thing (for the benefit of PNMs and parents), but there's no real nice way to say "it's more sorority selection."

I think it is much more mutual in the actual bid matching process, but...that's after we've made the bulk of the selection decisions in the earlier rounds. Like, you're mutually matched with what you have left after we're done doing most of the choosing. lol.

[Titchou]

What's wrong with looking at it this way. I invite people to my home. They just don't show up for parties - they're invited. So, we invite PNMs to our chapters. They "accept" or "decline" based on their rankings of us. After all, a bid is an invitation to join. We invite; they accept or decline. It is mutual - but we're the ones having the parties...so we get to say who's invited.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Titchou

What's wrong with looking at it this way.

Ask the 1990s. It's their fault. LOL.

I think it's a misguided attempt by women who have been out of college for FAR too long to attract different kinds of women than the ones who have traditionally been members and stop their orgs being tagged as the "snobby old-girl network." Not that attracting different kinds of women is misguided at all, but making them think it's going to be easy peasy lemon squeezy is..."it" being rush, or sorority membership/Greek life itself.

The plain fact of the matter is, not everyone is cut out to be Greek - some people not at certain schools, and some people not at all. But in a college culture where calling a building a "dormitory" instead of a "residence hall" apparently hurts the building's feelings, it's par for the course.

[MaryPoppins]

ROFLOL

Originally Posted by 33girl

The plain fact of the matter is, not everyone is cut out to be Greek - some people not at certain schools, and some people not at all. But in a college culture where calling a building a "dormitory" instead of a "residence hall" apparently hurts the building's feelings, it's par for the course.