Sororities that don't have strong Formal rush? - Page 2

Little E · #16 12-02-2002, 12:56 PM

I can not fathom having Rush work so well. We work so hard to get only 10 women. Anti-Greek sentiments are so strong here that it makes it very hard. Unfortunatly getting adivce is equally as hard. Beta Theta Pi recently tried to re-colonize here and until their Traveling Counselor came they didn't realize how much of a struggle it was going to be. National has a difficult time because many of the tried and true method seem to fall short here. (We are the only NPC) And now a third group wants to form, but the local and us are already struggling below 30.
Sorry lost the point
More support from the school would be great. But it takes a lot of heart to get the numbers every year. We get stressed and we have to rush ALL YEAR LONG. Anyone with ideas please let us know! It is just so hard to get passed the sterotype and get an image that is positive (esp with the hazing the local does)
Sorry if it was incoherent, but we work hard and don't stop.

RUSH=365 days, 24/7

Tau Love
Lil E

33girl · #17 12-02-2002, 01:18 PM

Sometimes I think we would get better numbers if we weren't so worried about numbers.

When rush is just a big stress and the fun of welcoming new sisters gets lost in worrying over the girls you DIDN'T get, I think it shows and really turns a lot of people off to Greek life in general. If you don't have a big house to fill and you are happy with having 12 sisters, you should be allowed to have 12 sisters and not get a lot of crap about it.

At small schools, there are years where the rushee pool just sucks and there is no one who would fit with your chapter. It happens. You shouldn't be forced to take women you don't want just to get numbers up. Clashing personalities the chapter more than small numbers. I think the nationals would like to believe that once we give women bids they're magically transformed, but that just is not the case.

Glitter650 · #18 12-02-2002, 02:24 PM

My school has a VERY small greek system..(3 npc soror) and rush ISN'T a huge deal AT ALL... we're lucky to get 100 girls going through. So we do LOTS of COB... we post signs, hold events, and table by the student union. It's ALOT of word of mouth, and it definitely is harder since the girls defintely don't "flock" to us at my school.
My sorority actually has a plan called Vision which is a system for COBing.. I won't get into the details because it's a half day presentation when nationals come a do it for you... but it includes wish lists and such. My chapter hasn't really ever used it since the way it works doesn't really fit with formal rush, but for spring we're definitely going to implement it.

FuzzieAlum · #19 12-02-2002, 02:30 PM

I agree with 33girl in sentiment, but I think that sadly most of the time there is a house (or equivalent) to worry about. Even if the advisors and nationals weren't putting on pressure, even if all the other chapters weren't that much larger, you'd still have to make the mortgage, or get the money together for repairs, or have X number of sisters to keep your university-designated space. Chapters can and do say "screw the space," but experience has shown time and time again that it does not work to be unhoused when the other sororities are - whether that's fair or not. You have to work three times as hard to be half the size of the other chapters.

As far as the original question - my campus is one of those where as many people join via informal rush as formal. They've swapped formal rush back and forth between fall and spring without much impact.

Generally here's what the chapters do: The semester formal rush isn't being held, most sororities will have maybe three weeks of casual events - movie nights, coffeehouse hangouts, ice skating. They'll poster like mad. They get a big class that way. Also, they give out "reading days" bids. These are the days at the end of the year between classes and exams, and chapters, even the at ceiling ones, can give out bids to replace their graduating seniors.

The chapters that are smaller will really put the CONTINUOUS into Continuous Open Bidding. I'm not kidding, events month after month ... it's really wearying for the sisters, and I'm not sure the results justify it.

The thing is, the way most girls join is that they hadn't considered Greek life, but their friend Susie joins Mu Mu. They hang out with Susie and her sisters sometime and think, "Hey, they're cool. Maybe I'll rush. I'll look at Mu Mu, since they're cool, and I'll check our Nu Nu since they have this great reputation." The only way a girl looks at smaller Pi Pi is if a friend is a member, and with fewer members there are just fewer friends to draw in that way.

adduncan · #20 12-02-2002, 02:30 PM

I'm wondering if the Greek alumni can exert any pressure or influence on the school to facilitate Greek life on campus. Just an idea I had. BU has similar issues: low rush turnout, membership numbers WAY below the artificially-imposed ceiling, and the SAO treating all clubs (including Greeks) like an assembly line. FWIW, this is NOT a small school, but anti-Greek sentiment (or just plain apathy) are very high.

The thought crossed my mind that if any Greek alumni, (in the case of BU, particularly DDD and LXA, since they were founded there) decided to put their collective foot down and demand support for a traditional Greek system, the school might pay attention. It's amazing what the suggestion of witholding donations can do......

Maybe calling in the cavalry in the form of alumni organizations and getting them involved at the school's admin level could improve things.

Just a thought from left field.

Adrienne

shadokat · #21 12-04-2002, 11:07 AM

If you're an alum and can afford to make nice donations to your school, they won't have such a bad attitude about greeks. And as alums of your organization, make sure that you keep contact with your chapters and know what's going on and if there are issues that need to be worked on to reduce risk management, hazing and other issues.

gazta02 · #22 12-04-2002, 11:54 PM

i come from a school where there is only one NPC sorority, yet we have the hardest time getting girls to join. our chapter is very strong and has a good image on campus with most people, except for an organization(which happen to get the girls we want) who put crazy thoughts into their heads about how greeks are the devil!
another problem is that our school is what you would call a commuter college. we have no campus housing or dorms. most students that attend are from the surrounding areas, and despise going there. they also have part time jobs and live with parents.
our chapter only has 23 members, but we continue to stay alive. our international office continues to be amazed with the amount of things we accomplish.
formal rush on our campus is considered a big deal to us. we recruit like crazy and sometimes we'll have 7 or 8 girls come to our parties. sidewalks are usually covered in chalk, posters and flyers are everywhere, and sheet banners are hung in various places. we even attend a freshman orientation and hand out information to incoming students. during spring, we have more recruitment parties, and if we want more girls we have crown parties.
in august we had 20 girls come through recruitment, and we extended bids to 9. our numbers are starting to go up, but it's just taking time and a lot of effort. we unfortunately do not have the luxury of girls flocking to us, we have to get out on campus and do a lot of leg work.

EGDeepher · #23 12-18-2002, 09:34 PM

Our school is very small with only 3 sororities. It's an engineering school so there are only 450 women at max. The campus prohibits pledging freshman in the fall, so our formal rush takes place. We usually get about 70 girls that go through rush and about 12 get bids fromeach house.

FuzzieAlum · #24 12-19-2002, 12:34 PM

I've wondered this before ... at schools where the Greek system is smaller and/or not as competitive, why do so few girls who go through rush end up with bids? It's not as if there wouldn't be places for almost all of them.

I understand some women will be cut for grades and that there is always a psycho to weed out. But in EGDeepher's example, 36 out of 70 women got bids, and I doubt the other 34 all had crappy grades. At my school, it was something like 70 girls sign up, 50 actually show up for first party, quota is 8 or 9, and at most 25 girls get bids.

Why do so many girls drop (or bother to pay $ and sign up and not even show)? At my school we always suspected it was the high ceiling of 50 - you can do the math and see that even if you always get quota you can do COB, too - which led PNMs to drop out without consequences and rush their first choice informally rather than take their chances and get their second choice. But surely that can't be the case everywhere.

Are we turning off girls by the formal rush system? Are they really deciding Greek life isn't for them? What gives?

MoxieGrrl · #25 12-19-2002, 02:27 PM

FuzzieAlum: In my experience, it seems that at the smaller schools who have only 3 or 4 sororites and Greek Life tends to be popular, people are buzzing more about recruitment and sadly, the sororities' stereotypes/reputations. When the student body is small and everyone knows everyone and will know you as "Kristi the XYZ", it seems very important to some girls to get the "right" house. They don't necessarily want to be Greek....they want to be popular.

Edited to add: Oh yeah, and every house seems to want the same 10/20 girls. The "it" houses know that they can not bid some girls during formal b/c those same girls will be hanging around waiting for COB. Seen it happen a million times.

kiqualey12 · #26 12-19-2002, 02:58 PM

EWU is a kinda small school and we have 4 sororities and 4 frats and formal recruitment is a big deal. I just went through it this fall and there are so many girls, like hundreds who go through it. It's so overwhelming, but it's a great experience. We do it in 2 weeks, 4 parties on Saturday and Sunday then the following weekend 3 on Friday and then Preference. There are Alpha Chi's (they won't let us call them Rho Chi's anymore because it's the same symbol as some pharmaceutical company) that go around the dorms, because that's how I learned about it. I think that that helps spark interest in Greeks and helps with getting people to rush. Greek Life on campus is a big thing and for the most part we have a really good reputation on campus. Yeah, not very many girls didn't get a bid and you would think out of hundreds, that there would be more that didn't. The only thing that annoyed me was that I heard that a certain sorority on campus made girls go alum because they wanted more new girls. We get the majority of our girls during fall formal recruitment and very few during cob'ing. Our sorority is the only one on campus without a house, but I don't think that that puts us at a disadvantage, in fact, I sometimes think that it's a plus because we don't have to give out bids just to make sure that we pay the mortgage, we give out bids to girls that are truly AOII.

APhiAngel · #27 12-19-2002, 03:09 PM

At my school, we have a very small greek system as well. We only have 2 NPC sororities, and it is very hard for us to even get 50 girsl to go through fromal rush. Are we doing something wrong? We have tried so many different things. It is very hard for us to get people interested in comming to meetings, we even post flyers all over campus. We get some replys, but mostly people just disreguard them. Do you guys have any suggestions for us?

FuzzieAlum · #28 12-19-2002, 03:47 PM

I would discount that rumor about making girls go alum! For one thing, it wouldn't make them any larger, and it might even make them smaller.

Ceiling (or total) limits the total number of girls that can be a member of any chapter. The only way to go over that is through formal rush. Let's say total is 50, and quota is 15. Even if the chapter has 49 girls going in, they can still get quota and go over to 64, but then they are "stuck" until their numbers drop below 50 or the next formal comes around.

But let's say they "force" someone to go alum, however that is done. Let's say they make ten girls do it before formal. They're down to 39 then, and they get 15 through formal (which would be harder to do anyway with fewer girls to rush), they would end up with 54 - still big, but not as big.

Even if the best scenario they could at best replace the girls they alummed, so they wouldn't end up larger but the same size. And why would they prefer "new" girls over "old" ones? That doesn't make sense.

This sounds like the kind of rumor some unkind sorority started to hurt another, or an misunderstanding of an explanation. It's entirely possible a chapter lost several girls. However, as an outsider you'll probably never find out why, and if you do that's bad PR on their part, since chapter troubles should be chapter business.

EGDeepher · #29 12-19-2002, 08:50 PM

In response to Fuzzy Alum the reason so few girls get bids is because of the houses. Only 1 of our sororities has a house, so it tends to be most popular. It's sad but you would be surprised how many people would pledge for a house. The other sorority is local and many girls do not want to be a part of a local sorority so their numbers tend to be smaller. Because of cieling each house is allowed to give out the SAME number of bids. Therefore a lot of girls get cut simply because the house they want to be in has no room for them.