Indiana University 2014 Recruitment

[KDCat]

Originally Posted by Katmandu

In no greek system except for one, do all women who register have happy outcomes or self determine their ending. In every system, there are heartbreaks and bad outcomes. But ascribing deliberate malice, using loaded words, such as "bullying", and "hazing" is going too far in my opinion. Most people agree this particular system is flawed, but even if changed there will still be girls who go bidless or feel hurt, and sororities still have the right to invite, not invite, and rank and select members according to their own reasons.

I would be interested in knowing how many of the bidless women maximized their options and how many left off one or more chnpters from their final card. Maybe none, but I suspect more than a few.

It was striking to me how much all of the new members looked alike....really, really, alike.

Sure. But Indiana is only placing about 60% of the women who start the process, and IU is dropping a bunch of them after pref. University of Illinois places around 97% of the women who go all the way through and don't drop out. There was a really great webpage that listed how many women were dropped at U of I, but the school deleted it. Very few women at University of Illinois are dropped completely. Quite a few quit because they don't like their options, though, but that is on them.

I think guaranteeing a bid to women who maximize their options and are invited to pref would take a lot of heat off IU sororities.

If the IU sororities are worried about spaced, space could be created by asking for volunteers to live-out (seniors first, then juniors). Not everybody loves living in a house. I loved being in a sorority. I loved hanging out at the house. I didn't really love living in the house. If there aren't enough volunteers, the House Corp. or the chapter can prioritize who lives in. There are lots of ways to do that. Ie. all elected officers have to live in. After that, each pledge class chooses to live in or out based on initiation order or GPA or a random draw. It's honestly not a big deal.

[silver_blue]

Originally Posted by KDCat

Sure. But Indiana is only placing about 60% of the women who start the process, and IU is dropping a bunch of them after pref. University of Illinois places around 97% of the women who go all the way through and don't drop out. There was a really great webpage that listed how many women were dropped at U of I, but the school deleted it. Very few women at University of Illinois are dropped completely. Quite a few quit because they don't like their options, though, but that is on them.

I think guaranteeing a bid to women who maximize their options and are invited to pref would take a lot of heat off IU sororities.

If the IU sororities are worried about spaced, space could be created by asking for volunteers to live-out (seniors first, then juniors). Not everybody loves living in a house. I loved being in a sorority. I loved hanging out at the house. I didn't really love living in the house. If there aren't enough volunteers, the House Corp. or the chapter can prioritize who lives in. There are lots of ways to do that. Ie. all elected officers have to live in. After that, each pledge class chooses to live in or out based on initiation order or GPA or a random draw. It's honestly not a big deal.

THANK YOU. I feel like half the people commenting on this thread know nothing about the peculiarities of IU. You can question how many girls maximized their options or how many suicided because that's an issue re: placement AT EVERY SCHOOL.

However, no other school places only 60% of women going through. That is madness and completely unpanhellenic. My chapter house slept around 45 women and was filled by elected officers and then whoever wanted to live in the house (usually out of the sophomore pledge class). Just because only 45 women actually slept there does not mean every other member wasn't welcome at the house whenever for lunch, dinner, and hanging out. I wish IU sorority members could get off their elitist high horses and realize that their way is wrong.

[Sigmapsimom]

Originally Posted by silver_blue

THANK YOU. I feel like half the people commenting on this thread know nothing about the peculiarities of IU. You can question how many girls maximized their options or how many suicided because that's an issue re: placement AT EVERY SCHOOL.

However, no other school places only 60% of women going through. That is madness and completely unpanhellenic. My chapter house slept around 45 women and was filled by elected officers and then whoever wanted to live in the house (usually out of the sophomore pledge class). Just because only 45 women actually slept there does not mean every other member wasn't welcome at the house whenever for lunch, dinner, and hanging out. I wish IU sorority members could get off their elitist high horses and realize that their way is wrong.

Truth. Thank you for posting this. Even if EVERY PNM at IU maximized their options, 40% still would not be placed. That's insane. And most of these girls are lovely and don't have personalities of " wet mops" as one poster put it. You have to have a decent amount of confidence even to sign up for rush at IU.

[33girl]

I think the thing is that women who hate the idea of living in the house are for the most part not rushing at IU to begin with because they know it's a requirement. Just like women who would not want to be in a large chapter wouldn't rush at an SEC school.

[silver_blue]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I think the thing is that women who hate the idea of living in the house are for the most part not rushing at IU to begin with because they know it's a requirement. Just like women who would not want to be in a large chapter wouldn't rush at an SEC school.

I agree to a point, though IU is such a wonderful school especially if you're in state. Purdue and IU don't have a ton of overlap in programs offered (this is on purpose, so the two schools don't compete in the same areas), so I think not attending IU is probably good advice if you don't want to live in a house, but what if you're a music major from Indianapolis? Seems kind of ridiculous to not attend IU and if you want to go greek you're screwed? The system needs to be fixed.

[33girl]

Devil's advocate post.

Say IU did change to quota/total, made everyone's house capacity the same and Greek life in general became less elite? Would there still be as many women rushing?

Everyone is yelling that the sorority women like their elite status and that's why they don't want to change. I would say that there are women out there rushing only to gain that status and if it diminished, so would their interest.

And if you're reading this thread don't get your panties in a bunch thinking I'm talking about you or your daughter because I'm not...unless, of course, I am, and that's something you have to be honest with yourself about.

[stbemtpynest]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Devil's advocate post.

Say IU did change to quota/total, made everyone's house capacity the same and Greek life in general became less elite? Would there still be as many women rushing?

Everyone is yelling that the sorority women like their elite status and that's why they don't want to change. I would say that there are women out there rushing only to gain that status and if it diminished, so would their interest.

Devil's advocate response . And I am not trying to offend anyone or say one side is right or wrong...

So what if Greek life at IU became less elite? So what if fewer women rushed? Is that really a bad thing?

[Sigmapsimom]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Devil's advocate post.

Say IU did change to quota/total, made everyone's house capacity the same and Greek life in general became less elite? Would there still be as many women rushing?

Everyone is yelling that the sorority women like their elite status and that's why they don't want to change. I would say that there are women out there rushing only to gain that status and if it diminished, so would their interest.

And if you're reading this thread don't get your panties in a bunch thinking I'm talking about you or your daughter because I'm not...unless, of course, I am, and that's something you have to be honest with yourself about.

I doubt it. There would still be a social pecking order of chapters. Some will always be considered more elite than others, just like at OU or Alabama.

[silver_blue]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Devil's advocate post.

Say IU did change to quota/total, made everyone's house capacity the same and Greek life in general became less elite? Would there still be as many women rushing?

Everyone is yelling that the sorority women like their elite status and that's why they don't want to change. I would say that there are women out there rushing only to gain that status and if it diminished, so would their interest.

And if you're reading this thread don't get your panties in a bunch thinking I'm talking about you or your daughter because I'm not...unless, of course, I am, and that's something you have to be honest with yourself about.

I honestly don't think it would diminish the girls going through. Look at Alabama and Ole Miss where being greek is still seen as incredibly elite: they don't all live in the houses and interest in their recruitments is growing, not waning.

If you want to compare to a more similar school, I think Illinois is a really good comparison to IU and they're doing just fine. I think the elitist mindset kicks in once PNMs become new members, but I don't think it's as much of a thing before they actually join.

[seraphimsprite]

Originally Posted by KDCat

Sure. But Indiana is only placing about 60% of the women who start the process, and IU is dropping a bunch of them after pref. University of Illinois places around 97% of the women who go all the way through and don't drop out. There was a really great webpage that listed how many women were dropped at U of I, but the school deleted it. Very few women at University of Illinois are dropped completely. Quite a few quit because they don't like their options, though, but that is on them.

Recruitment at IU is absolutely brutal and I'm not defending it, but the statistician in me is really cringing at this. I've seen a few people in this thread tossing around similar numbers but it's comparing apples to oranges with the statistics. IU's placement rate was 64% in 2013, which is undeniably low, but it is the percentage of registered women who received bids. That includes the women who were dropped for grades, those who were released before preference and the women who dropped out. If you calculate U of I placement in the same way, their placement rate is about 71%. At Miami of Ohio, 70% of the women registered received bids in 2013.

The comparable statistic to the 97% figure for U of I is 88% for IU (at least for 2013, I don't know how it will shake out this year.) Of the 1160 women who attended preference at IU, 1025 received bids. Now I'm of the opinion that if you go all the way through the process and maximize your options you should get a bid (barring exceptional circumstances) so I think 88% is still too low of a placement rate at that point in the process. But that's the figure we should be comparing to the argument that 95% or more of the women at other schools are placed. (For additional comparison for fellow statistics geeks - at Miami of Ohio the comparable placement rate is 92% and at Alabama a very impressive 99.5% of the women who attended preference received bids in 2012!)

[suzy88]

NPC has a set formula for determining placement rates. I am not sure you are using that formula. Again, NPC has a message board for people to make comments about their experiences with IU recruitment. IU is the only school in the nation that has been selected for that special honor. Not sure why they would provide that forum if they thought things were going great at IU.

[stbemtpynest]

Originally Posted by suzy88

NPC has a set formula for determining placement rates. I am not sure you are using that formula. Again, NPC has a message board for people to make comments about their experiences with IU recruitment. IU is the only school in the nation that has been selected for that special honor. Not sure why they would provide that forum if they thought things were going great at IU.

Do you have a link to this message board?

[suzy88]

Originally Posted by stbemtpynest

Do you have a link to this message board?

http://sororityparents.com/2011/01/s...y_bloomington/

[seraphimsprite]

Originally Posted by suzy88

NPC has a set formula for determining placement rates. I am not sure you are using that formula. Again, NPC has a message board for people to make comments about their experiences with IU recruitment. IU is the only school in the nation that has been selected for that special honor. Not sure why they would provide that forum if they thought things were going great at IU.

There are absolutely different ways to calculate all-sorority placement rates, mostly varying in terms of the starting point (# of women registered, # of women who attend the first party, # of women who sign pref cards, etc). Different campus panhellenics calculate this statistic in different ways - most of the reports I've seen try to advertise a high placement rate for the campus and I do think it's interesting that Indiana presents the lowest rate possible by using # of women registered as the denominator. You might be confusing what I'm talking about with quota, which NPC does have a formula for.

Also I was pretty clear that I'm not a fan of the IU system, just advocating proper use of statistics.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by seraphimsprite

Also I was pretty clear that I'm not a fan of the IU system, just advocating proper use of statistics.

I appreciated your post a lot.