Why in the world should a lady be expected to join a house she didn't want to?

[sugar and spice]

Originally posted by ktsnake


Oftentimes though, the system is very unfair to the individual.

You can say the same of the fraternity system. Or of the system that the NPHC utilizes. There is no recruitment system that will work one hundred percent of the time for all the rushees and all the chapters. We all choose what we feel is the best compromise.

[astroAPhi]

Originally posted by 33girl
This is NOT the case at many, many, many, many etc schools. No generalizations please.

Astro's example shouldn't be looked on as "how the system works" because her rho chi ucked fup. At campuses that don't allow women to suicide, there's usually a legitimate reason, and it's to protect the rushees not the sororities.

I'm with 33girl. Sorry that I may not have been clear. I thought I stated that there were ONLY 2 sororities and in that case, suiciding shouldn't be seen as so horrible. They didn't even tell us it was an option... it was just DON'T DO IT. I understand why it is there to protect the rushees. If I had been on a bigger campus, I'm sure I would have found 2 or 3 places that I could have been happy, even if one stood out above the rest.
In that case I wouldn't have wanted to suicide.

And how is a girl going to be a second semester sophomore? That would only be on a campus where they have deferred Recruitment. OMG they might as well not pledge any of those freshmen because they're 2nd semester freshmen and might as well be sophomores.

The cream rises to the top. Those who do not compete fail.

How is this the best system? How are you supposed to pick one group out of many the first night, and know that you're meant to be there? Because let's face it, if you go Rush party-hopping, with the way it's set up in NIC, you're not going to get a bid because the brothers aren't going to get to know you well enough, or you're going to come off as uninterested or desperate.

The NIC system works for you guys. The NPC system works for us. Guys want a "survival of the fittest" type thing, and girls want everyone to get a fair chance. That right there is the difference between men and women. We're not going to change because some guy told us our way is dumb, and you're not going to change because we don't think it's fair.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally posted by ktsnake
And that's my point.

Someone said (don't want to go look to see who) that it's like trying on shoes. If you don't like one pair, go try another one.

Unfortunately, in many cases, with the sorority system, it's like having a salesman come up to you, shove some shoes in your face and say "Here they are... do you want shoes or not?".

But I agree, systems vary. People vary. Situations vary.

Oftentimes though, the system is very unfair to the individual.

I think you are mis-interpreting the original point, here. She is not saying go through FR, and if it doesn't work out, go the following year. She is talking about really considering all your options the first time you go through.

Let's say your campus has five houses. After the first round, you LOVE AAA, kinda like BBB and CCC, and don't really feel EEE or FFF. You get your invites, and AAA has not invited you back. Well, maybe BBB or CCC is that second pair of shoes, and you should give them a shot to impress in the subsequent rounds.

[bluefish81]

Originally posted by ISUKappa
I absolutely agree there is a big difference between "I cannot see myself in this house, ever" and "well, they weren't my first choice but they were up there, so I'll give them a try." And there are some ladies who really felt comfortable in all houses they preffed and would be equally as happy for a bid from any of them. A PNM never, ever has to accept a bid if she absolutely doesn't want to and the Recruitment Counselor needs to make it absolutely clear that if she lists the sorority anywhere on her preference card, that means she is willing to accept a bid from them.

Things were done in private at our campus, as well. Each morning of recruitment our (then) Rho Chis would meet with us each individually to go over our invite lists and make sure we were okay with who and how many we got invited back to. There was one morning I was absolutely crushed I didn't get invited back to some particular houses and my Rho Chi was the only one who knew. Same thing went with our bid cards. They were given out individually and each girl had her own moment to open and see what it was. If she felt like she wasn't able to accept the bid, she told the Rho Chi in private and then had the opportunity to leave before the rest of the Bid day activities began.

You met in private? For both your lists and your bid cards? Wow! We didn't, we met in groups and our Rho Chi handed the lists out to us face down and then we had to go through the books and review our notes from our real estate books. I think that everyone in my Bid Group was given their bids in public too. We got them by Lake LaVerne right before we met up with everyone else. I like the way your Rho Chi did it better.

[bluefish81]

Originally posted by carnation
Do y'all remember a few years back when a PNM told us that at her school on Bid Day, the PNMs stood in a circle holding hands and shut their eyes and the Rho Chis came around and tapped the shoulders of those who didn't receive a bid and they had to step out of the circle? Then everyone opened their eyes to see who was still in the circle and had a bid.

I almost cried for the girls without bids.

Oh my! That just sounds so completely wrong and heartless.

[honeychile]

Originally posted by DeltaBetaBaby
I think you are mis-interpreting the original point, here. She is not saying go through FR, and if it doesn't work out, go the following year. She is talking about really considering all your options the first time you go through.

Let's say your campus has five houses. After the first round, you LOVE AAA, kinda like BBB and CCC, and don't really feel EEE or FFF. You get your invites, and AAA has not invited you back. Well, maybe BBB or CCC is that second pair of shoes, and you should give them a shot to impress in the subsequent rounds.

Thank you! I didn't think it was that hard of an analogy to interpret!!

[ISUKappa]

Originally posted by bluefish81
You met in private? For both your lists and your bid cards? Wow! We didn't, we met in groups and our Rho Chi handed the lists out to us face down and then we had to go through the books and review our notes from our real estate books. I think that everyone in my Bid Group was given their bids in public too. We got them by Lake LaVerne right before we met up with everyone else. I like the way your Rho Chi did it better.

Well, it's been a while, so my memory could be a little faulty, but I distinctly remember meeting individually with our Rho Chi in the mornings because she called us each into our floor lounge to fill out our party acceptance cards.

As for bid day, I'm going on what the other girls in my rush group told me--I had marching band so I didn't get to do all the fun things. Our Rho Chi was super awesome. I saw her a few years later at People's and she remembered me!

[HotDamnImAPhiMu]

Originally posted by honeychile
Thank you! I didn't think it was that hard of an analogy to interpret!!

it wasn't.


and thanks to 33 and S&S for saying eloquently what I was thinking.

[shadokat]

ktsnake, I've seen your system at work, and to be honest, it's not a system. It's a free for all. And yes, maybe that's the way the men want to run things.

It's not tradition for the sake of tradition. The system works. Unlike fraternities, the # of sororities on a given campus is usually what the campus can support. With fraternities, you all come on, colonize, and then another and another and another. For instance at U of Illinois (numbers are from their website, Spring 2004), there are 45 fraternities and 18 sororities! And the numbers...they tell the story. The largest fraternity at Illinois has 139 members, which is fabulous, but the smallest has 16. For sororities, the largest has 167...the smallest 107. Yes, a big difference, but nowhere NEAR the difference of the fraternity numbers. And average chapter size, well, it's no contest really. For fraternities, average chapter size is 64. For sororities, 147.

I'm not saying we have a perfect system. I'm saying we have a system that works to build and maintain a greek community. We don't bring in more than the campus can handle, and when the campus determines its readiness to add new chapters, then we go ahead. Our system tries to help weaker chapters become stronger, though it doesn't always succeed. While every campus isn't Illinois, I think it shows the example of how NPC and the system it uses for recruitment works.

As for cream rising to the top, I don't buy it. The largest fraternities, #s wise, on my campus, were always the biggest partiers, biggest hazers, and couldn't give 2 craps about what their founders built the fraternity on. Again, my experience only, but it's what I know.

Anyway, off the soap box...

Originally posted by ktsnake
So tradition for the sake of tradition?

If it works, why mess with it?

Do you not think that it could possibly work better?

[twhrider13]

Originally posted by ktsnake
The cream rises to the top. Those who do not compete fail.

It's the free market at its finest.

But if an organization weren't the "cream," so to speak, would that organization not be the first to b!^@h that they were not getting a fair shake and insist that the rules be changed in their favor? We bypass that by already having those rules in place.

*The above may not make a lot of sense, because I'm about to leave for work. I'll clarify later if necessary.

[Kevin]

Originally posted by twhrider13
But if an organization weren't the "cream," so to speak, would that organization not be the first to b!^@h that they were not getting a fair shake and insist that the rules be changed in their favor? We bypass that by already having those rules in place.

*The above may not make a lot of sense, because I'm about to leave for work. I'll clarify later if necessary.

A group that cannot succeed on its own is doomed to fail. A small group does not usually have the clout in IFC to get the rules changed to favor it. Even if they were, they'd still continue to suck despite the rules.

As for the Illinois example, according to the numbers I'm coming up with, there are still 400 more men involved in greek life than women. Usually the women outnumber the men. If the average size is so high, I'm sure the campus could support more. Someone is underachieving due to some kind of problem that is most likely exclusively theirs. Should they be allowed to continue and bring the whole system down by not allowing expansion? It works both ways.

It's one of those situations where there is no situation that is really "better" than the other. Y'all chose your way, the NIC chose its own path. We as members get to live with the results.

[ISUKappa]

Originally posted by ktsnake
It's one of those situations where there is no situation that is really "better" than the other. Y'all chose your way, the NIC chose its own path. We as members get to live with the results.

Exactly. So it's best not to question how NPC does things if it works for us.

[suwhitestl]

It has always seemed to me that we would all be better off with a little different of an approach.

The men could benefit from adding some structure to their process and the women could loosen up a bit so it was a more comfortable (read less formal) experience.

Instead of pushing our way or nothing -- we would probably be more successful from learning from each other and the benefits of each system.

[Senusret I]

I just got off the phone with my mom, who pledged Delta Sigma Theta in 1971. The way rush worked at Ferris State College (in those days) was that there was a rush "period." The way she remembers it, you would just get invited to teas by whatever sorority was interested in you. You had to attend every tea you were invited to, not just the one you wanted to join.

My mom apparently had friends in NPC sororities, and she has kept the invites and souveniers in her scrapbook.

I think it is interesting to see NPC and NPHC women going through the same rush, and I don't think it's a bad idea. The part I don't like is the mathematics of it all.

[Senusret I]

Originally posted by suwhitestl
It has always seemed to me that we would all be better off with a little different of an approach.

The men could benefit from adding some structure to their process and the women could loosen up a bit so it was a more comfortable (read less formal) experience.

Instead of pushing our way or nothing -- we would probably be more successful from learning from each other and the benefits of each system.

You are so right.