Texas A&M: To rush or not to rush?

[Just interested]

We can discuss this until we are "blue in the face" but the ultimate decision belongs to each chapter to determine their membership. How they deal with the Blinn girls is up to them. Aggiemom14 is referring to the fact that the chapters were blindsided with this decision at the end of the year. There was no vote but a change in their bylaws (which was needed) a matter of semantics and a request from the University.
We will see what each chapter decides to do. This is a slippery slope and it remains to be seen how it will all play out.

[CMDelta]

I understand that they have to "academically qualify" to get into A&M after a year or two but I wanted to comment because I've already met with 2 BT students for recs and I'm sure I'll be meeting with a few more. The first girl came out of an "academy" program in HS, took multiple AP courses that she got credit for and currently has over a 3.4 at Blinn/A&M. She missed automatic admit last year by 20 SAT points since she wasn't in the top 10% of her HS. The other girl went to a private school that doesn't qualify for automatic admit (I don't think) because it's either private or doesn't rank but she had a 3.89 GPA, was in the top quartile of her HS but was 3 points low on her ACT (even though she had a 1710 SAT). We live in an ultra-competitive area so I'm thrilled these girls will have the opportunity to join a sorority and be an involved member for 4 years (instead of having to wait a year or two) even though they didn't automatically get in to A&M. I've shared with both of them that I'm glad they are giving it a shot BUT that we don't know yet how it's going to play out with each chapter making their membership decision. They both already knew that the sororities will know who is at A&M and who is BT. As for promoting it at NSC in the summer, they must have some kind of info session or table because we end up getting quite a few girls who don't register with our panhellenic until after they come back from NSC where they have heard more about Greek life.

[TSteven]

The chapters will know which PNMs are Texas A&M admits and which PNMs are Blinn PNMs. However - and maybe I missed it - will there be a separate quota for the Blinn PNMs?

[aggiemom14]

Yes, there have been information sessions at NSC. However, the years that I attended you had to forego another activity/session to attend. Hopefully that has changed.

[Titchou]

No, there is no separate quota for them.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Titchou

No, there is no separate quota for them.

Given that some groups may not care at all that someone is BT, some may not take BT per their national bylaws, and some might prefer not to take BT, but not have a hard and fast rule against it, I'm pretty sure you can just about throw RFM out the window this year.

I think this is what 33girl meant upthread...this is going to be clusterf*ck. I predict notably lower placement rates than previous years.

ETA:

To give an example, let's say there are 1000 freshman women and 200 BT women rushing. For a WRC, they might be able to, per RFM, invite all 1200 women back for first invitational. But let's say their national bylaws prevent them from taking BT women. Are they going to invite back only 1000? Well, *their* best move is not the most panhellenic: invite back all 1200 so that they have full parties and look cool to PNM's, knowing full well they can't take 200 of those women, and then go ahead and drop those women right before pref.

[AZTheta]

Originally Posted by snowflakemom

Does anyone know how this will affect a chapter's GPA? Will all hours count or just the ones at A&M?

Would depend on the University's policy, is my guess. For example, some UofA freshmen will take classes at the local CC; the hours transfer, but not the grades (those aren't factored in to the semester or overall GPA). I believe (not positive) that is the policy elsewhere - credit hours transfer, but not grades.

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

Given that some groups may not care at all that someone is BT, some may not take BT per their national bylaws, and some might prefer not to take BT, but not have a hard and fast rule against it, I'm pretty sure you can just about throw RFM out the window this year.

I think this is what 33girl meant upthread...this is going to be clusterf*ck. I predict notably lower placement rates than previous years.

I've ordered up extra popcorn. This is already a mess. Someone didn't think this all the way through.

[aggiemom14]

I thought that you were guaranteed placement if you went to all parties you are invited to (up to the maximum) per day. So, if girls get cut from all houses, what happens?

[Titchou]

Originally Posted by aggiemom14

I thought that you were guaranteed placement if you went to all parties you are invited to (up to the maximum) per day. So, if girls get cut from all houses, what happens?

Well then, you aren't going to "all parties" as you weren't invited to "any" parties.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by aggiemom14

I thought that you were guaranteed placement if you went to all parties you are invited to (up to the maximum) per day. So, if girls get cut from all houses, what happens?

You are guaranteed placement if you attend all parties to which you are invited, are invited to preference round at one or more chapters, and list all chapters to which you are invited to pref on your preference card.

It is possible, in any invitational round, to receive no invitations. At most large scary recruitments, it's pretty rare to receive no invitations, because the number of invitations handed out by each chapter is carefully calculated based on the number of PNM's and the predicted number of invitations to each chapter that will be accepted.

What we are saying is that, this year, instead of a pool of PNM's divided up among twelve chapters (which is roughly how quota is calculated), there may be some chapters that can't take certain PNM's and so on...in short, it could be a total mess in which last year's data doesn't allow for good prediction of what would happen this year.

As another extreme example, let's say there are 300 BT women and 300 TAMU women. 600 PNM's/12 chapters gives a quota of 50. But let's say that there are 8 chapters that can't take BT. Now you have 8 chapters chasing 300 women, which is 38/chapter, at most.

To be clear, I know nothing about TAMU or whether chapters will take BT women, and I'm totally making up numbers, I'm just saying that there could very well be some math issues, here.

ETA: If you have a daughter who is rushing this year, either BT or not, this is not something you should be too worried about. If formal recruitment happens to shake out badly, then chapters will snap bid or COB afterwards and it should all work out in the end.

[HQWest]

Yes - it is also possible that we would see another situation where 1 or 2 chapters would wind up with a larger number of quota additions. It would be easy to tell if that was because of the BT girls

[Just interested]

They don't get any group. It happens.

[AOII Angel]

The risk that poses is that the chapters that take these BT students could quickly rack up a lot of desirable, smart, attractive women that will improve their standing on campus. I doubt seriously that fraternity men will care that the beautiful pledge class for ABC is half BT vs the less stellar looks of the XYZ pledge class made up 100% of TAMU students. If it hurts competitiveness, chapters will change.

[LAblondeGPhi]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

The risk that poses is that the chapters that take these BT students could quickly rack up a lot of desirable, smart, attractive women that will improve their standing on campus. I doubt seriously that fraternity men will care that the beautiful pledge class for ABC is half BT vs the less stellar looks of the XYZ pledge class made up 100% of TAMU students. If it hurts competitiveness, chapters will change.

Totally agree with this. I bet there's plenty of "openness to interpretation" here on the part of each (inter)national organization, and individual chapters may be able to petition their way out of the regulation if they so desire.

My guess is that WRCs that have a national policy prohibiting them from taking BT girls will be scrambling to get a special approval figured out this summer. At least, if I were the advisor of a chapter in such a situation, it would be my top priority. It's a no-brainer.

I expect that SRCs with this policy will feel a lot less pressure to get the prohibition lifted, especially if there is any kind of subtle bias against BT girls (concerns about retention or grades, etc).

All that said, I would not be surprised if all the chapters were accepting BT girls within a year or two.

[CMDelta]

I don't understand, if A&M changed the wording in their bylaws to agree with NPC policy and they consider these BT students to be just like freshman A&M students, why would some chapters not be able to offer bids to them? I realize each chapter still has a choice on membership selection like always so if they aren't able or unable to offer a bid to them, wouldn't they just release them after first round just like they do for girls who don't have grades or references?