University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign Recruitment

[IL Anchor Girl]

Originally Posted by Katmandu

OK, someone who knows the IL campus, please tell me what the KD house looks like.... the photo of the KD house as compared to all of those gorgeous tudors and colonials with turrets and columns and verandas looks a tad forbiding. Was it a bad camera angle or is it a modern building?

It's actually a very nice house, but much simpler in style than some of the others. I believe it's been added on to quite a bit, and was not originally built as a sorority house, so is a little bit more streamlined and modern than many of the others. But it's very nice.

Looking at the DG house - that picture does not do it justice one bit! And could they not have moved the cars from the parking lot for the picture, for goodness sake?!

[Clara Mom]

Over 1,400 NPMs going through recruitment ...

[UofISigKap]

Originally Posted by IL Anchor Girl

Looks like we visited 25 houses, but two appear to have been non-NPC sororities: 4-H (who did not participate in formal rush) and Phi Beta Chi (not sure but don't think it was NPC). The other 23 were:

Delta Phi Epsilon
Phi Mu
Phi Sigma Sigma
Sigma Sigma Sigma
Zeta Tau Alpha

So - we did go from 24 (including Phi Beta Chi - there was no note stating they were not participating in formal rush, unlike 4H's note) to 8.

Confused. I took out many names since I knew they were present on the Panhellenic map and in the recruitment booklet, but are the five listed above on UofI's campus? Did they (re)colonize and I was asleep? Does anyone know what's the scoop?

[Clara Mom]

UofISigKap, I believe those 5 chapters have closed at Illinois. The 18 that are recruiting this year are:

Alpha Chi Omega
Alpha Delta Pi
Alpha Epsilon Phi
Alpha Gamma Delta
Alpha Omicron Pi
Alpha Phi
Alpha Xi Delta
Chi Omega
Delta Delta Delta
Delta Gamma
Gamma Phi Beta
Kappa Alpha Theta
Kappa Delta
Kappa Kappa Gamma
Pi Beta Phi
Sigma Delta Tau
Sigma Kappa
4-H House

[UofISigKap]

Okay, thank you for clarifying. Don't get me wrong, I was starting to get a bit giddy when I saw more chapters listed. I literally thought, "Oooh! We're getting close; just a few more to add, and then we'll have them all!" It's the only reason I questioned it. Is your daughter excited for the next round?

[Clara Mom]

While I'm waiting to get a text from my daughter to let me know how today's open house events were, I found this PowerPoint presentation on the internet entitled "RFM - Release Figure Method/University of Illinois 2006." (I was curious about how release figure numbers were determined.) The author is the "NPC Release Figure Team Leader," and it's designed to explain to the houses how the new system works - with pros and cons for chapters and NPMs.

The link won't post, but if you google "sorority recruitment the next generation of release figures" you will get to the .pdf file.

Page 17 gave me the impression that the deepest cuts are after the open house round. But then it got me wondering - are subsequent release figures dependent on the number of NPMs wanting to return to specific houses? In other words, does each chapter know before recruitment begins how many NPMs they have to release after each round, or do they get a new figure following each party depending on the parity of the NPM choices?

Yes, I really do need to take a chill pill, or whatever the lexicon is these days. I have no idea how I will be spending my computer time after rush is over ...

[IL Anchor Girl]

Sorry, all, my lane swerve back to the '80s got us off track. Now back to our regularly scheduled 2011 programming!

Very interested to hear how 1st round went for anyone who wants to (discreetly, of course) share...

[DubaiSis]

Clara Mom, it depends. You're welcome. HA! But the cuts are going to vary based on each chapter's historical return rates. A chapter that gets 50% returns after each round is going to be doing way fewer cuts than the chapter that gets 99% returns. Although this method isn't used any more, you can still use it as a rule of thumb - you want a pledge class at each party - so whatever cuts they have to make to get to approximately 50 girls per party is what they're going to be doing. But keep in mind the more competitive chapters have to get to fewer than that more quickly so as not to be stringing girls along. (I've used 50 as a really rough estimate. I have no idea what they are anticipating pledge class size to be this year). And they do have to make the biggest cuts after the first round because if you have 50 girls at a party, the number of girls you have attending total goes from 1400 to 500. And that's based on approximately 10 minutes of conversation. YIKES.

[FSUZeta]

but the chapters will be interested in different girls, so it is possible that all 1400 girls could receive invitations, so moms, don't fret.

[DubaiSis]

As we saw from the statistics noted above, the chapters at Illinois seem to do a great job of spreading the happiness around. Otherwise there would be a lot more girls cut or dropping out.

[lovespink88]

Originally Posted by Clara Mom

UofISigKap, I believe those 5 chapters have closed at Illinois. The 18 that are recruiting this year are:

Alpha Chi Omega
Alpha Delta Pi
Alpha Epsilon Phi
Alpha Gamma Delta
Alpha Omicron Pi
Alpha Phi
Alpha Xi Delta
Chi Omega
Delta Delta Delta
Delta Gamma
Gamma Phi Beta
Kappa Alpha Theta
Kappa Delta
Kappa Kappa Gamma
Pi Beta Phi
Sigma Delta Tau
Sigma Kappa
4-H House

I don't believe 4-H house participates in formal recruitment...I believe the chapter you are missing is Delta Zeta.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

As we saw from the statistics noted above, the chapters at Illinois seem to do a great job of spreading the happiness around. Otherwise there would be a lot more girls cut or dropping out.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, as two chapters have left since last year (though only one was participating in FR). Obviously, the release figures will be updated accordingly, but you have to wonder if the new weakest recruiting chapters realize that they are the new weakest recruiting chapters.

Originally Posted by lovespink88

I don't believe 4-H house participates in formal recruitment...I believe the chapter you are missing is Delta Zeta.

You rushed more recently than I did...you went to 4-H house in the first round, right? Or do they not do that anymore?

[Clara Mom]

Originally Posted by lovespink88

I don't believe 4-H house participates in formal recruitment...I believe the chapter you are missing is Delta Zeta.

Honey, you are right. Have no idea what I was thinking!

[DG Illinois]

The girls have already started going to their parties after their first invites.(Sisterhood Day)
I did not hear anything yet, so I'm not sure if she didn't have time or was upset after her cuts and didn't call. She called her Mom but didn't leave a message. Not sure if anyone has heard how severe the cuts were today. Clara Mom, I hope you're
daughter is having a great day so far and you got a chance to talk to her.

[Clara Mom]

I have not heard from my daughter. I texted her last night around 12:30 just to see how her second day went, but then it occurred to me that the NPMs were all probably still working out their lists. Did not hear from her this morning, and they started at 11:00 am and will go until 9 pm. I was hoping to hear from her this morning, but did not. I am not sure the timing between getting their invite lists and starting, so I'm hoping she has a fairly full schedule and just hasn't had time to call. The good thing, I guess, with my daughter is that no news is usually good news.

Of course, there's this little part of me thinking, "Oh god, she didn't get back any invites and is just too hysterical about it to call ..."