NPC Recruitment and Chapter Listing: Fall 2022-Spring 2023

[FSUZeta]

I’m glad you joined us and I am sorry you feel what I wrote is harsh. Statements here can seem harsh, but reality often is. What I said is experience based-I have advised chapters, PNMs and their parents( and still do) and the phenomenon mentioned seems to be growing exponentially. PNMs and parents are shocked when their high achieving, pretty, sociable, accomplished, smart daughters don’t get asked back to Tau Tau Sigma( top tier sorority). They don’t realize that a high majority of the PNMs fit that description.


A mom in an advisory group I’m in had 2 daughters rushing. The younger daughter rolled with the punches all week and found her people. That chapter was a good, solid chapter, but on the campus is not considered top tier. The older daughter was dropped by the house she had singled out was the only one for her, and even though her remaining choices were fine chapters, in her eyes they didn’t measure up to the one that did not invite her back. Despite being advised to continue and see if any of her remaining chapters might be able to change her mind, she withdrew. Her mother reached out because her daughter regretted her decision and was hoping she might get picked up as a quota addition or snap bid ( I see many girls thinking this is an option). We ( ladies in other Panhellenic sororities and I) advised that, while she was eligible, it was a very small possibility that she be chosen. Those opportunities came and went and mom and daughter started hoping for a COB bid, but only to her chosen chapter. Her dream chapter was not COBing, and did not COB this semester. I advised mom that since younger daughter was so pleased with her chapter that she might begin inviting older sis over for a couple of meals and to just hang out at the chapter house, in the hopes that this chapter might COB in the spring, but daughter stubbornly refused because it was TTS or no one. So she sits in her dorm room miserable, due to her own decision. This is what I’m referring to, and what we see over and over and over. Yet it is the sororities that are called elitist.

[navane]

Originally Posted by FSUZeta

I’m glad you joined us and I am sorry you feel what I wrote is harsh. Statements here can seem harsh, but reality often is. What I said is experience based-I have advised chapters, PNMs and their parents( and still do) and the phenomenon mentioned seems to be growing exponentially. PNMs and parents are shocked when their high achieving, pretty, sociable, accomplished, smart daughters don’t get asked back to Tau Tau Sigma( top tier sorority). They don’t realize that a high majority of the PNMs fit that description.

Yes and this is true for many facets of life: college, jobs, sports teams, etc.

I'm a Fire Captain. Competing to get hired as a professional firefighter is like running the gauntlet. You have thousands of people (literally) applying for 30 or so spots for a city fire department academy. Nearly all candidates are top notch people - EMT/Paramedic, college degree, fire science classes, volunteer firefighter experience, athletic accomplishments, strong community service resume, etc. It can take years and many tries to get on with a fire department.

I got hired at a big city fire department - 4,800 people applied for 30 spaces. 744 of us passed the written exam with a "tier 1" score. After reviewing resumes, 300 of us were invited to interview. I made Top 30 and was hired/got selected to the academy. GET THIS: In my academy group, we had, for example: an Army football player, a guy with a master's degree from Harvard, an Army Ranger, and a multi-season contestant from America's Ninja Warrior. Ridiculous. LOL Here I made top 30 out of 4,800 people and yet I felt like I was one of the weakest recruits in the group because everyone was just so excellent.

Like I said, the same goes for many things in life. When you're competing at a place where everyone is a high achiever, it's hard not to feel lesser. Sororities included.

I just watched a documentary on PBS Independent Lens which is along these lines. The episode is called "Try Harder!" and it's about Lowell High School, the #1 public school in San Fransisco. The students at this school are extremely high achievers competing to get into the nation's most prestigious universities. These students would blow most other public school students out of the water at any other high school; but, here, they stress over not being the best of the best of the best.

Link "Try Harder!": https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/...es/try-harder/

My point is that PNMs clinging to this idea that they are surely qualified for all of the best top tier sororities can bring about disappointment when walking among other PNMs who are equally as excellent. It's hard not to feel like a failure in that environment. But it's important to keep a perspective on it....the big picture. That they *are* excellent, but so is everyone and thus the whole system is very strong (including the "mid-tier" sororities). It's good to have a grasp on that concept now, when they are young, so as to set themselves up to successfully navigate when they are competing in the real world later on.