Defered Recruitment: Pros and Cons

[blackngoldengrl]

At my undergrad, one must be a sophomore, and it is held in the fall. So yes, PNMs have had a year to hear rumors, be annoyed by sorority cheers, date/hook up with the "wrong" guy (ie an ABC's Boyfriend), or even gain "bad" reputations.
AND they also have a year to meet friends who are in sororities, get good grades, find their "niche," and explore the rumors themselves, only to change their minds about sororities and decide to rush in the fall. I didn't even think about them until the spring before, and researched over the summer...
I have seen some dirty rushing, evidenced by freshmen at the bars (grrr) but you keep that in mind for the fall and there are PLENTY of women who sign up on a whim the next year too.

I really think that deferred rush promotes what higher education is all about, learning and growing as an individual. The women have time to figure themselves out and adjust to college life. Though rush is held during classes in the fall, it is spread over 1.5 weeks, since it usually will start in the evenings. Also there are four sororities total at my alma mater, 3 NPC and 1 local. I guess that makes it a bit easier to get done during the school year.

When I found out that a lot of large schools do recruitment BEFORE school started, I was shocked! There was a lot I didn't know-some of your schools really don't mess around!

[honeychile]

I've seen both, and I have to admit that I prefer the idea of rushing prior to the academic term. Especially in a small sorority, many of the sorority women experience a drop in grades when they are preparing for rush party after rush party.

Our rush was about a month into school - not really deferred that much, but by then, MANY of the fraternity guys would ask you which houses you were rushing, and which of those they'd chose. That goes a long way with a freshman.

On the other hand, a sorority could bid someone who had it all - including the roundest heels on campus! So, it's not just a negative that the PNM may find out reputations of the different GLOs; the reverse is also true.

The bottom line is, I'll be all for any rush that doesn't allow cheesecake!

[SigKapSweetie]

Why did the article keep referring to the NPC groups as Pan-Hellenic?

[ufdale]

As someone who was an older rushee, I wish I'd have more time to spend with my sorority! If rush is deferred till sophomore year, NMs are losing out on a whole year of fun activities and sisterhood. Plus, it is SO HARD as a junior pledge. My classes are 10X harder than freshmen's. I like the idea of rushing before school starts freshman year, I just wish that the school had advertised greek life and deadlines a little more (so many girls just don't know about greek life if their parents/sisters weren't greek).
What I don't like about the way that my school does rush is that it only happens once a year. If you miss out on fall rush, there is no spring rush to go to. Most of my guy friends waited freshman year to rush in the spring so that they knew the guys more in each fraternity. There are soo many fraternities (high 20s) that if you don't know which to go to during rush, you'd be lost.

[PhoenixAzul]

Originally Posted by SigKapSweetie

Why did the article keep referring to the NPC groups as Pan-Hellenic?

Just as a journalism side-note:: AP stylebooks don't say anything about how to write about sorority/fraternity affairs, so most schools and newspapers are left up to their own devices to create a house style. This may be a case of house style, however incorrect. For example, to write about GLO's on our campus, we write out letters and then parenthesize their nickname (example: Sigma Delta Phi (Sphinx) will be holding a bake sale this week.) We never abbreviate the letters, unless it is a direct quote (IE. Tau Delta president Jane Jones said "I love being a TD, my sisters rock!"). But it took a while to develop that style and those rules and to teach them to our staff writers, usually bitty little freshmen. Usually, a well worded quick note to the editor does the trick. It may be a case of simply unaware, inexperienced or missed copyediting, but we always appreciate things that help us from making the same mistake twice.

[SigKapSweetie]

Originally Posted by PhoenixAzul

Usually, a well worded quick note to the editor does the trick.

Done.

[TSteven]

Originally Posted by ufdale

What I don't like about the way that my school does rush is that it only happens once a year. If you miss out on fall rush, there is no spring rush to go to.

I've wondered this as well. Do any campuses do this - a fall and spring recruitment? Other than COB/COR that is.

Why not have some sort of formal spring recruitment? Basically scaled down and perhaps less structured. All NPC rules and regulations would apply. Girls would still have to sign up and there would be quotas etc. If Polly Pledge signed her fall bid card and drops, she still has to wait a calendar year until the fall to rush again.

Basically, the women that want to rush (join) in the fall can do so and the women that want to wait until the spring to rush can do so.

[ufdale]

I think most of the other campuses have both spring and fall, just spring is more informal. My campus gets enough girls in the fall class that most of the chapters don't need to do spring.

[Drolefille]

Millikin University in Decatur does a structured informal rush for sophomores and up in the fall and formal rush in the spring. Freshmen must wait til spring. I don't think many chapters want to go through the stress of formal recruitment twice a year.

My chapter COB'd every year and it was fine. One year we did more of an invitational informal (reserved a room in a restaurant, that sort of thing) but our COBing went better if it was just... informal.

[kiteflyerzl]

I am recruitment advisor at a school that decided to move recruitment this year from August to NOVEMBER OVER FALL BREAK. It is a huge mess! Dirty rushing is rampant. The women in my chapter are drowning between the school work (mid terms) and trying to prepare for Recruitment. I think it has been bad for chapter morale (no time spent bonding at the beginning of the semester over Recruitment prep like usual and no new pledge class (other than a small COB group of upperclassmen) to get excited about. Every fall we have a Greek event around the beginning of basketball season that includes skits put on by the new members. The skits for the sororities were cancelled this year because we don't have new member classes yet. We can't get midterm grades (not all professors provide them) so we could end up taking a whole class of women who are failing out of college despite the fact that they did well in high school.

It's also terribly hard on advisors like myself who have children in school. I'm trying to juggle work, advising, family life, soccer practice, homework, etc.

Say a prayer or just think positive thoughts for us. Recruitment starts Saturday morning and runs for 4 straight days - with Preference AND Bid Day on the last day.

I need a drink...

[violetpretty]

My school does a deferred formal recruitment that starts the weekend after spring classes start. It's not too hard to juggle the work, because classes just started, so you're not too bogged down. Every chapter does informal recruitment in the fall. The only way a freshman can join in the fall is if she has 12 credits (usually AP credits). I guess the reasoning is that a freshman who has earned AP credits is more likely to not fail out of school than a random freshman who wants to pledge. I can't say that there's too much dirty rushing, at least not with the chapters that we "compete" with. Deferred recruitment is not without its downsides, but I think the pros outweigh the cons.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by kiteflyerzl

Recruitment starts Saturday morning and runs for 4 straight days - with Preference AND Bid Day on the last day.

Now see, this is stupid.

If you're going to have rush while classes are going on, it should be spread out - over a week AT LEAST.

Not to mention that judging by your post, they just made this decision like 2.5 seconds before the fact and the sororities didn't have time to reschedule or plan properly.

This is the kind of thing that pisses me off because it makes deferred rush look so terrible!! If it's done right, it's NOT this horrid.

But as far as worrying about getting a pledge class filled with "women failing out of college despite the fact they did well in high school" - couldn't that happen just as easily, if not more easily, when you pledge women who haven't even had a college class yet? At least this way, you might avoid bidding someone who's realized that either her major or the college isn't for her and she needs to transfer or make other changes, academic wise.

[KSUViolet06]

Our recruitment is *somewhat* deferred. It isn't before classes start, but it's not super late either. It's usually the first 2 weekends of September. I think that's a good time for it. It gives freshmen time to adjust and get used to their classes and such. It's good for the members because there isn't really a ton of homework in our classes yet and we can spend alot more time preparing. There also isn't much room for "dirty rushing" and the PNMs don't hear too many rumors because school really has just started.

I think a problem with having rush BEFORE classes start, is that PNMs join, then start classes. They could get overwhelmed with class and depledge. With having rush during school, girls get a realistic picture of how it is to balance sorority and school because they already have had to go to recruitment events and school too.

Then there are issues with having recruitment later in the semester. Last year, Panhellenic had to move recruitment to October because of a conflict with University Scheduling. It was a mess for us. October is MIDTERM TIME for everyone. We were all up to our necks in homework and tests. Day 3 of recruitment is on a Friday afternoon, and every sorority had at least 10 or so women missing from one of their rounds because they had midterms in their night classes!