NPC Recruitment Change...

[CutiePie2000]

Originally posted by KarenC725:
But you did end up being in a house? Did it all turn out well in the end?

No, KarenC725, it did not turn out, and thus, I never pledged in college. Miraculously, this has not soured me from wanting to go Greek.

I am now finished with college and have been out for a few years. I am pursuing alumnae initiation. It seems to be going well.
I feel good about this. I know that membership is for life, and maybe the "roulette" nature of formal Rush was not for me. I feel very fortunate to have learned fairly recently that some groups do alumnae initiation. When I learned this, I felt very excited, because I thought for the longest time that since I didn't pledge an NPC group in college, I couldn't become a member. Now, I know that this is possible and I feel elated about it.

[CutiePie2000]

We kind of got off topic there, so I am interested to hear some posts to the original question, which was regarding...
"It's the part about not being eligible to pledge another sorority for one calendar year if you decline a bid offered to you."

What is everyone else's thoughts on this? Would the NPC ever re-address this issue? I know that given my own personal experience, I feel that 1 year is too long.

[33girl]

Hey CutiePie -

I hope you didn't think I was getting on your case or implying anything (like you would suicide bid). I was addressing the bigger issue and your issue at the same time. In your case the local Panhel definitely deserves a spanking. Bad Panhel! Bad!

Does anyone know if a local Panhel can be "disciplined" by National Panhel for not following procedures, etc?

Reading all these rush stories, I see how lucky I was to a) have Greek friends before I rushed and b) live in a very pro-Greek dorm. I think I absorbed a lot of the info about rush, etc. that I needed to know through osmosis.

As far as NPC re-addressing the year wait rule - if it could be shown that it was keeping LARGE amounts of women from going Greek they might, but until then, I doubt it.

[CutiePie2000]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by 33girl:
Hey CutiePie -
I hope you didn't think I was getting on your case or implying anything (like you would suicide bid). Okay.

I was addressing the bigger issue and your issue at the same time. In your case the local Panhel definitely deserves a spanking. Bad Panhel! Bad!
Does anyone know if a local Panhel can be "disciplined" by National Panhel for not following procedures, etc?
I guess what I'm wondering (and maybe Pnguintrax can help out with this one)... did the local Panhel actually do something wrong? (I realize now, that, at the very least, that in "bullying me", the Rho Chi did) Or was it just my own "tough luck" that the campus that I rushed on happened to have the practice of not permitting rushees to drop groups?

Reading all these rush stories, I see how lucky I was to a) have Greek friends before I rushed and b) live in a very pro-Greek dorm. I think I absorbed a lot of the info about rush, etc. that I needed to know through osmosis. I felt that I knew a lot about Rush, but I did not know anything about bid-matching, or that you can "drop out" and potentially pledge a few weeks later. I just felt that if I dropped out, people would think that I was no longer interested, and pledging a sorority that I would have been happy in was something that I really, really wanted. I guess that's why I went through Rush to the bitter end.

As far as NPC re-addressing the year wait rule - if it could be shown that it was keeping LARGE amounts of women from going Greek they might, but until then, I doubt it.Well, I will say this....I ran into 5-8 rushees after rush to ask them where they ended up. Half of them dropped out of rush (with no intention of following up with informal rush) or they declined their bid because it was a group they didn't want (because they couldn't drop either).

Another thing I wish I had known is: I wish I had known that informal rush
existed, and took place AFTER formal rush. I had NO IDEA and I figured that if I didn't do formal rush, I would have no mechanism through which to potentially pledge.

As for the original post, when and why did the NPC come up with the rule of: "Decline your bid - no eligibility for a year". Is this so that girls don't make "flippant" decisions or......?

[tcsparky]

[quote]Originally posted by CutiePie2000:
[B]

I am now finished with college and have been out for a few years. I am pursuing alumnae initiation. It seems to be going well.

I'm doing this also, and know of one other person who is pursuing this. Write me offline so we can chat about it! It will be nice to have several people we can talk to during this process.

TCSparky
future greek



[This message has been edited by tcsparky (edited October 31, 2000).]

[coffeemug]

I don't know if a Panhel can be disciplined by NPC. I think the Area Advisor (most people don't know there are greek alums who volunteer to advise college Panhel groups)would work with the campus and try to strengthen Rho Chi training.

As for alum initiation I am interested in where you live and which groups you have looked at.

[SoCalGirl]

I think that the one year rule should stay. It gives a girl plenty of time to really think about her decision, make sure it's right for her. Also it gives chapters a chance to really get to know a girl.

But mainly...I've always been under the impression that the rule was in place so that the CHAPTERS didn't rush dirtier than some already do. Like if a girl gets a bid from a house that she's not positive about and is thinking about DPing; and then another house says "Just drop them and we'll take you in informal." That'll kill the first house!

[CutiePie2000]

Originally posted by SoCalGirl:

I've always been under the impression that the rule was in place so that the CHAPTERS didn't rush dirtier than some already do. Like if a girl gets a bid from a house that she's not positive about and is thinking about DPing; and then another house says "Just drop them and we'll take you in informal." That'll kill the first house! Ah yes, very true! I did not think of this.

[AlphaGamGirl]

About the whole waiting a year deal, girls at my school aren't usually seen as "used goods" as far as I know. But then I just became a sister, so its not like I'm a wealth of wisdom. Most girls I've talked to have taken the year to get to know sisters outside of the Rush atmosphere which helps them make a more educated choice(plus they are practically guaranteed a bid). I feel so bad for everyone who goes to the big school were they Rush is dirty and people get bullied into putting down sororities they don't want. My school's Panhel is very good about making Rush clean and the Rho Chis are great about being helpful and unbiased.

[tcsparky]

[mets31grl]

Originally posted by SoCalGirl:
But mainly...I've always been under the impression that the rule was in place so that the CHAPTERS didn't rush dirtier than some already do. Like if a girl gets a bid from a house that she's not positive about and is thinking about DPing; and then another house says "Just drop them and we'll take you in informal." That'll kill the first house!

This has happened to our chapter! Another chapter promises bids to potential new members telling them that if they can not take them now, they will informally rush them later, which they oftern cannot! It is a way to preveother sororites from promising what they can not deliver!

[shadokat]

Coming from a campus where dirty rush is rampant, I can tell you that the one year rule thing can be bypassed, if the sorority to which the woman first accepted the bid and then depledged released the woman. It happens all the time on my campus. A woman things, oh I want to go to XYZ. Then she realizes that XYZ is hazing the hell out of their new members, so she says screw this and depledges. But she still wants to be in a sorority. So, she goes through informal rush the next semester, telling the women at the parties that she depledged XYZ last semester. If one of the groups she goes to really likes her, they go to the Greek Life Office and ask the Greek Advisor to ask the sorority to release her so she can pledge at the new house. And 9 times out of 10, they release the girl and she pledges.

At our campus, unlike most campuses, if a girl intentional single prefs (suicides) a sorority, she MAY NOT COB at that sorority if she does not get a bid through formal recruitment. We had a huge problem with this, where women in sororities would say, listen, suicide us, and if you don't get a bid, then come to our COB and we'll get you a bid that way. This made 2 sororities huge and the other 8 of average size. People started to wonder, and hence this rule was put in place. It's not like that at other schools I've done bid matching at. One place I did bid matching, girls preffed two sororities...nearly all the same two sororities. So, like half of them went bidless, while 5 sororities got like 2 new members each, and the other 2 sororities got 8 or 9. Then, COB started and all the girls that didn't get bids at the two "popular" houses went to their COB parties, COB'd to ceiling, and the other houses ended up getting maybe 3 or 4 more per house. What a mess!!!

Anyways, enough of my rant. Rush can be a dirty process, but Panhel does try to make things fair. If Greek Advisors do not implement rules properly and address problems, and if sororities do not work together instead of against each other for women, the systems will suffer.

*off soapbox and back to work*

[RedHotChiO]

Does the one year rule apply from rush to rush or from the time you depledge? At a bigger school, this could totally ruin a girl's chance of ever getting into another sorority.

[Eirene_DGP]

I had a problem similar to this. We had some girls who depledged and wanted to pledge something else the next semester. Even though we are not in the NPC, the NPC director will not allow anyone who has previously pledged in that same year to pledge something else the next semester. As far as getting bids, I think if you really want to be in any particular sorority and that is in your heart, you will wait a year. Some people really need time to mature, because I honestly don't think pledging your first semester, freshman year is for everyone.

[33girl]

Originally posted by RedHotChiO
Does the one year rule apply from rush to rush or from the time you depledge? At a bigger school, this could totally ruin a girl's chance of ever getting into another sorority.

I believe it is a year from the time you sign your bid - i.e. if you sign a bid to ABC in August and quit pledging in October, you can go through rush again next August. That's how it always worked at my school.