Link to article in the Daily Mississippian
About 1,500 join greek organizations
by Melissa Sindelar
DM Campus News Editor
October 07, 2003
About 1,500 students found new homes Monday as they received their bids from sororities or fraternities.
Almost 800 females, or about 92 percent of total Rush participants, and nearly 700 males or 85 percent, received placement in a greek organization, according to Jason Dean, consultant for Greek Life.
"We're just as happy as we can be," Dean said. "This is definitely one of the better ones we've had."
A record number of Rush participants, both male and female, participated in recruitment this year. Just under 900 females and about 780 males participated in Rush.
The 15 percent enrollment increase caused the Panhellenic Council to create a new group for the female Rush participants, resulting in the first round starting an hour earlier and a 20-minute break.
Another new aspect of recruitment this year is the use of a new computer system. Many rumors flew around this weekend of problems with the computer system, and female Rush participants getting mistakenly cut from Rush. These rumors were unfounded, said Sara Fay Peters, Panhellenic public relations contact.
The computer system worked fine, she said, but the council wanted to transfer information to Excel and print.
"It was a printing problem," Peters said. "We were trying to make it easier for the girls. It was just mixed up. So we called the girls back, and they went to the education building and did it on the computer. Nothing was wrong with the way the system is set up."
Peters said all Rush participants had to come and fill out the forms again in order to keep it fair when the mix-up occurred Saturday morning.
Peters said everything turned out "fabulous."
All nine sororities made their quota, Dean said. The quota was set at 86. This number is found by figuring out what percentage of Rush participants will join and dividing that number by nine.
Dean said the "new regret with interest" used by the Panhellenic Council helped with the high placement.
"Regret with interest" is a system used on other campuses, Meredith Padalino, vice president for recruitment, said in an earlier interview.
After the first round ended, female Rush participants could only go back to six houses in the second round. They could cut one house with regret to let that sorority know they had to cut them, but they are still interested.
The sorority could have issued an invitation to that female for the third round or Pref night. It was then up to the Rush participants to decide if they would visit that sorority as one of the three they could visit in round three.
Battle Ewing, Interfraternal Council president, said Rush went well and he was happy about the placement percentages, which were higher than last year.
The computer system and printing did not create any mix-ups for the male Rush, he said.
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