Mutual Selection in Formal Recruitment: Not So Mutual? For PNMs and Parents.

[kaeb]

no, this is even among my friends in the "top" houses. I can think of only two or three girls tops out of everyone I know who rushed who got a full schedule of the houses they wanted every day.

I'm not speaking out of bitterness at my own experience with FR. I now realize I was at the bottom of the bell curve (though I, self-inflating as PNMs are wont to do, would have put myself in the middle, but the results indicate otherwise), and I'm very happy with where I am now—just ask literally any of my sisters. I'm just stating my observations of our formal recruitment. As an outsider (for now).

I agree with KSUViolet, every girl whose self-confidence is strong enough to get her into and through formal recruitment at USC is going to have a pretty high opinion of herself, and think she has more power than she actually does in the selection process (except for in the case of the few "hot ticket" PNMs).

To illustrate the general point I'm trying to make, here's an example.
For convo days, PNM visits houses Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, and Iota. A-D are "top" houses, and interchangeable, depending on the PNM's personality and the girls she talks to at the house. Epsilon, Zeta, and Eta are "middle" houses (again, interchangeable, like with A-D), and Theta and Iota are also more or less interchangeable with each other. She loves Alpha-Zeta, and says those are the houses she wants to go back to for house tours, and she'd prefer to drop Eta, Theta, and Iota. The next day, she receives her schedule: Beta, Delta, Epsilon, Theta, and Iota. Five out a possible six. She's been dropped by four houses, three of which she wanted to keep (so she's been dropped by half the houses she wanted to go back to). Again, she tries to drop Theta and Iota. She gets asked back to Delta, Epsilon, and Iota (three out of a possible four), eventually pledging Delta or Epsilon, after getting invited to pref with could be any two of the above three.

That seems like a pretty normal recruitment at SC to me (nothing like my own, fwiw, but like what my friends experienced), and one that is in the houses' favor over the PNMs'. But maybe I'll reevaluate after I participate in formal on the sister side.

I'm sure everyone else will disagree with me and prove me wrong because I don't know as much as they do, but these are just my observations, with my opinion tacked on.