Indiana University Recruitment 2020

[GreekOne]

Originally Posted by BTGorman

Hi everyone!
I just came upon this site today... a little late into the process.

My daughter is at IU and completed preference round yesterday. She seems happy and excited, but it has been a very difficult week for her best friend. This is taking away some of our joy as we await word tomorrow night.

Can anyone explain Snap Bids to me? I was in a sorority back in the dark ages and we didn't have that process.

My daughter's best friend was heartbroken over first round cuts and again after second round cuts, and again after third round. For preference round, she only had two invites and neither was one she could see herself at, and she dropped out. Would she be able to get a snap bid? Or she could go through informal rush? How does that work?

She's just such a great girl. Fun, interesting and has 3.8 GPA, too. So disappointing.

Also, can you tell me if my daughter is at risk of not receiving a bid Tuesday night? She went to 2 final sessions for preference round, loved them both, and submitted her preferences. Back in my day, you could still get cross cut in this stage, if you just ranked them a certain way. Is she safe from that? Will she get a bid from one of these houses?

Way more nervous going through this as a mom than I was for myself back in the day.

Also, how important are recs at IU? I made sure to get some for my daughter and her best friend, but only at about 5 houses. Could that have impacted her friend? Could it impact my daughter receiving a bid tomorrow night?

And finally, do houses cut gals who are legacies because they assume they will follow the legacy route? I wondered if her best friend could've been cut by some houses because they assume she won't choose them.

OK, sorry I wasn't on the site until now and you're getting all of my questions at once!

But this will keep me busy & distracted as i wait for her answers tomorrow night. :-)

Thank you!

Yes, the friend is eligible for a snap bid from any chapter (those that were remaining on her list and those that were not). She can sign up for informal recruitment. The link is up on the Panhel website to register. This is her way of letting the chapters know she still has interest.

Your daughter should be okay. She should have a bid on Tuesday. There is no "cross cutting". She would at least be a quota addition and should be on one of those chapter's lists.

No matter what anyone says about recs, they can only help. People at IU like to say they don't matter. However, having been in membership selection meetings, I know firsthand that when you have hundreds of pnms with very little to differentiate one from another, a rec can break the tie.

I do not think listing a chapter as a legacy hurts your chance of getting a bid. Most chapters look at having Greek affiliation in your family as a plus, indicating that you are aware of financial commitments and lifelong benefits of membership.

[carnation]

Originally Posted by hiro11

First post here. I'm a father of a freshman daughter at IU. She had two "pref" parties yesterday and has rank-ordered both on her MRABA.

I wasn't familiar with rush prior to my daughter going through it. This is a tough processes to put these young women through. Rush places high demands on the self-confidence, endurance, perseverance and tolerance of everyone involved. I'm proud of my daughter for gutting this out as I'm sure most parents here are. There are aspects of "character building" to this process that I can appreciate dispassionately, but this is frankly stressful if you have a kid going through it yourself.

A few things for IU to consider:
1. Please make better transportation options available during rush. I understand banning Uber, but the houses are all far apart and the weather is terrible. More buses going more places, please.
2. Speed up the 22-9 process. I know classes start to slow things down here, but allowing a full week for these cuts seems excessive.
3. Similarly speed up the pref-bib process. The houses should know who they're going with very soon after pref.
4. Consider making the Greek system bigger at IU. I know there are many factors here, but having only 50-60% (from what I've heard) of women get a bid seems pretty tight. Maybe offer "social membership" or something similar?

Hiro, "social membership" is not practiced for many reasons, liability being a major one.

Also, enlarging the system won't work. If that many girls aren't getting bids, it's because they dropped when they didn't get a bid from a (usually) selective group they desired and they sure aren't gonna jump at the chance of joining a new, unhoused group. There are already some new groups that have a difficult time rushing because of that.

[IndianaSigKap]

Originally Posted by hiro11

4. Consider making the Greek system bigger at IU. I know there are many factors here, but having only 50-60% (from what I've heard) of women get a bid seems pretty tight. Maybe offer "social membership" or something similar?

Congratulations on your daughter making it through the process! I know it is a long grueling process and I do agree with you that the process could be made easier. The transportation has always been an issue, some things never change. When I went through recruitment, I had my car there and I crammed as many girls as I could into the car between parties with the heat blasting and definitely offered rides to PNMs going my way.

The reason for the delay between preference and bid day is the MLK observance. I have often wondered if chapters could have preference earlier in the day maybe 9 or 10 a.m. and then having bid night later that evening. With everything being computerized, it might be feasible to explore.

Your last point is one that I wanted to specifically address. I do believe around 2000 women registered for recruitment. Not all of them make the grades to continue. Then you have the women who are dropped completely from recruitment which is a very small number each year. Add to that the women who CHOOSE to drop out, that's why the placement rate looks like it's 50-60%. In reality typically between 1200 and 1100 women are eligible for preference. Then a few of those don't match because they listed only one chapter or drop before attending parties or right after parties. Once you take all of that into consideration, the placement rate is much higher. I don't believe that you should count women who voluntarily drop into the overall placement rate, as they chose to not continue with the process.

I hope your daughter is on cloud 9 tomorrow night! :-)

I read a recent post about "cross cut". That is a myth someone devised to ease the sting of a PNM being too low on both chapter lists to match. Now that IU is utilizing all of the features of RFM, a PNM will be matched with one of her two choices if she lists both. If she has only one chapter at pref and lists that chapter, she will match. If she has two chapters, but lists only one, she is decreasing her odds to match. She may not be high enough on her preferred chapter's list to be matched with them before they close.


Good luck to all of the PNMs tomorrow night!

[IUMomof2]

Originally Posted by hiro11

4. Consider making the Greek system bigger at IU. I know there are many factors here, but having only 50-60% (from what I've heard) of women get a bid seems pretty tight. Maybe offer "social membership" or something similar?

So I can definitely see where that seems like a good idea when you look at it from just coming in...1800-2000 women vying for 1200 spots. The problem is, we consistently have 2-3 chapters (if not more) who do not make quota. That means they are sitting there with open spots that the PNMs do not want to take, because they went through rush with the hopes of getting into a specific few chapters. If they get cut from those chapters, they drop out.

If chapters were filling their quotas and women weren't getting because of that, I can definitely see an argument for expanding the system. But I remember my time back at IU in the 90's. We went through expansion back then. I believe the last chapter added when I was there was SSS. My chapter's rush numbers fell through the floor. Because even though there are sooo many women going through rush, there are a few who are willing to consider ALL the sororities as a choice. So you add more sororities and it seems to me you are spreading thin the number of women willing to go to these newer chapters. Just my opinion.

[33girl]

Quota is the number of women at pref divided by number of sororities. Period. Mathematically, there is a spot for everyone.

If women choose not to take a bid offered or put a group on their bid card, that’s their prerogative.

[Cookiez17]

In a thread I found in the archives (this was before the big expansion they did over the last few years), IU did say that eventually they did want all 26 NPC orgs on campus one day which sounds insane. I bet that could happen one day and there would still be gripes over everything being unfair. I know that recruitment is extremely competitive here but it's crazy that people will drop just because they didn't get into (I don't know anything about IU rankings) what 3 houses that the loads of PNMs are vying for? It stinks how hard the ranking goes and it even extends to the parents telling their daughters to drop instead of giving their lists a chance.

[IndianaSigKap]

Originally Posted by Cookiez17

In a thread I found in the archives (this was before the big expansion they did over the last few years), IU did say that eventually they did want all 26 NPC orgs on campus one day which sounds insane. I bet that could happen one day and there would still be gripes over everything being unfair. I know that recruitment is extremely competitive here but it's crazy that people will drop just because they didn't get into (I don't know anything about IU rankings) what 3 houses that the loads of PNMs are vying for? It stinks how hard the ranking goes and it even extends to the parents telling their daughters to drop instead of giving their lists a chance.

The idea of all 26 NPCs at IU was under a previous FSA, and there have been two FSAs since this one. I no longer think that is IU's goal. They have issued a moratorium on land sales which would definitely keep some nationals from pulling the trigger.

[Cookiez17]

Originally Posted by IndianaSigKap

The idea of all 26 NPCs at IU was under a previous FSA, and there have been two FSAs since this one. I no longer think that is IU's goal. They have issued a moratorium on land sales which would definitely keep some nationals from pulling the trigger.

Yeah as I said it was an extremely old thread. I would like to see tri sigma and tri delta back there at some point, certainly not now since they have a ton of houses.

[33girl]

Tri Delta left under extremely acrimonious circumstances. I don’t think they will want to give that a try for quite a while.

[Cookiez17]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Tri Delta left under extremely acrimonious circumstances. I don’t think they will want to give that a try for quite a while.

Yeah it was really sad especially reading how they were on suspension for a good while and nationals was the one to pull the charter, not the school, which means something really bad must've been going on.

[Rod D]

Most will not agree, but I believe IU is out to eventually eliminate greek life altogether. An uber competitive recruitment process will only help that. Add greek agreement which are unworkable and designed to cause "violations." It won't be this year or next, but it's coming one day.

As for sorority recruitment, it seems to me that girls need to be strategic and realistic in who they target. Very similar to college admissions -- don't just apply to the most competitive schools. It's a tough process. Good luck to all.

[Cookiez17]

Not to steer the topic hard but the amount of dropping I'm hearing from the IU page is crazy. There was one parent whose daughter's rho gamma group when from 18 to 6!

[IndianaSigKap]

Originally Posted by Cookiez17

Not to steer the topic hard but the amount of dropping I'm hearing from the IU page is crazy. There was one parent whose daughter's rho gamma group when from 18 to 6!

That is so sad. I wish the girls would stick it out until the end, they can always drop after their last pref party and they would be eligible for snap bids and informal. Sometimes pref really is a game changer, you see the chapter at its best and you gain a new appreciation for the women in it.

[BBH]

I saw that too. I also saw a post from a mom who said her daughter only had one house for pref, selected them but was called and told no bid. I didn’t think that could happen this year since she would have maximized her options.

[AZTheta]

The number of PNMs dropping has nothing to do with the number of chapters at IU (or any other campus). Young women have the right to decide not to continue with the process if they don't get what they want. *shrug* This is "mutual selection", is it not?

Having Tri Delta and Tri Sigma return to IU would give the PNMs two more options. I don't see that as negative in the slightest. ETA: we'd still see PNMs dropping, even with all 26 NPC member sororities on campus. That's a fact.

FYI: pulling a charter or closing a chapter doesn't necessarily have anything to do with "something really bad...going on". It could be due to low membership numbers or scholarship issues, for example. If you've been around for more than a few minutes, you'd know this. In every single case, closing a chapter is incredibly painful for everyone (actives, alumnae, families and friends). I know about it. Trust me. It really hurts.

BBH, I totally question the veracity of that mom's statement. If IU is following NPC recruitment policies, then her daughter would have been eligible to be a quota addition.

Definition of terms: "snap bids" are offered in the very brief time period between the end of the last preference party and the start of bid day activities. Please refer to the NPC MOI for specifics.