<p>I am perfectly willing to believe that there are sororities–many of them–full of nice, welcoming girls who aren’t mean, don’t care about money or looks, and are more interested in the moral qualities of potential sisters than they are about social status. Maybe that’s even the norm. I certainly hope so.</p>
<p>But my life experience tells me that there are plenty of chapters–and probably whole systems–that aren’t like that. This is why I keep coming back to the same thing–if you are shopping for colleges, one of the things to look at, in detail, is what the social setting is, and that includes the Greek system (if there is one), and how it actually works–don’t accept at face value any generalized statements about how it is at other schools, or even in the past at that school.</p>
<p>"There is another thread where the OP couldn’t help but keep on bringing up this so prestigious school her husband went to and where her D is at now ( starts with H), and there are few people who do not see anything wrong with it. Really? You are so socially unaware that you don’t think its weird?"oldfort</p>
<p>No, it isn’t weird if you have the least bit of insight or sensitivity into others, which I admit is hard to discern online. However, bullying is bullying, and to the trained observer is obvious.</p>
<p>I find posters who mention their Hermes handbags much weirder and socially unaware.</p>
<p>That’s because you’re assuming “cutting” = “I’m going to sneer at this girl and turn my head every time I see her in class or at a party.” Think of cutting as like filtering. You just don’t have time or interest in all the people that you come across, whether that’s in a rush setting or in another setting (class, dorm, interest group). If I were throwing my own little party and inviting CC people, I know those people who (based on their postings) would be on my first-guest list and those I wouldn’t bother with. We all do. And some of those people would accept my invitation, and others wouldn’t. That’s ok. That’s life.</p>
<p>If you live in a dorm and you find yourself hanging out with XYZ people there and not ABC people, are you “snubbing” them? Are you being cruel to them? Or are you just not interested in pursuing a deep friendship with them based on your interactions to date? </p>
<p>JHS, I’m sure you weren’t equally buddy-buddy with everyone you met at Yale. I’m sure you formed your friendships, too. And they may have waxed and waned accordingly, and you might have liked some people more upfront and then turned out not to like them, or vice versa. Same thing, really.</p>
<p>Yes, I think you’ve articulated it quite nicely. In a “loose,” not uptight or overly competitive system, the Greek system is (generally) beneficial for those who decide to join, and largely irrelevant for those who don’t. In an uptight, overly competitive system, it can be beneficial for those who decide to join, but it can be exceedingly hurtful and limiting for those who don’t. It all depends. I have no hesitation about S going through fraternity rush at Northwestern, but there are certainly schools where I would not want my D going through sorority rush at all – but then again, that gets to the impact of the system on the school overall and would be a black mark against the school in general.</p>
<p>I don’t know any threads on which Hermes handbags are being discussed, but if there is a fashion thread and it comes up, I’m not quite sure what’s so “socially unaware” of that. Is it socially unaware as well if you talk about sending your child to an elite school without needing FA, or sending your child to an expensive private or boarding school, or taking a nice vacation?</p>
<p>Edit: I’m guessing from the above that oldfort has a Hermes bag. Well, good for her and may she enjoy it in the best of health! She’s worked hard for her money, not sure what the problem is with that.</p>
<p>JHS- I wish that I was bowing smoke. Yes, i do advise a sorority, and you would be amazed at some of the things I have seen from PNMs. Just as it is common advice on CC to clean up your FB page in case an adcom looks at it, you can be sure that someone in the chapter has looked you up. Can I guarantee you all that no girl has been released because she is heavy, unattractive with a hick accent? No. In fact a girl isn’t actually DROPPED from any sorority with a school with RFM. She is ranked. That doesn’t mean that she isn’t worthy, it just means that the girls ahead of her made a better connection. While my example may have seemed like an charicature to you, that same girl from my own hometown went through recruitment last fall at my alma mater and her dear mother wondered why she didn’t get a bid. Since she and I are friends and classmates, I pulled up her own daughters FB page for her. Question was answered. Not everyone who did not get in a sorority is a poor little wallflowers who didn’t get a chance to shine. And yes at schools like UT, FSU, IU, there are many wonderful women who don’t get placed. People don’t have to like it. I would love to see more schools guarantee placement, at least if they make it to preference round.</p>
<p>Also, grades really do play a part in cuts, especially the first round. When you have thousands of girls going through and you have had very little contact with them, rec letters and grades are easy ways to make cuts. After all, most of the girls going through are poised, with great ECs and great grades. A poor GPA hurts the house and pledging does take time. Why not cut those who may not be able to handle the extra stress based on past experience?</p>
<p>Parent1986- As I said in my post, I wouldn’t be everyone 's idea of fun person to be around either. I am sure if you were recruiting, I wouldn’t be on your list, and it would be ok, you wouldn’t hear me whining about it.</p>
If you’re agreeing that some of them fit this description, then I think we’re making progress here.</p>
<p>Here’s a question: if there are chapters that are mean, base their decision on looks and money, etc., is this more likely to be a characteristic of specific houses on campuses with other houses that don’t behave this way, or is it more likely to be characteristic of the whole Greek system at a particular college?</p>
<p>That’s a really good question. I do believe / perceive (rightly or wrongly) that there are certain campuses where, as a whole, the system is more “mean” / based on looks and money than other campuses. </p>
<p>OTOH, if there’s a campus in which there is only one “mean” house where it’s based on looks and money, then it’s pretty easy to ignore that house – as it’s not as though you would have hung around those girls anyway in the absence of a Greek system.</p>
<p>This is certainly true, but…in normal interactions, relationships just fail to fire or people just gradually drift together or apart.</p>
<p>It is different when a person is actually APPLYING to join a social group, where they can receive an outright rejection. It’s like asking someone out on a date and having them say no, and I would think that that is what it feels like on the receiving end. (Kind of like college applications: first they encourage you to apply and say they want to really know YOU, then they say that who you are had nothing to do with the fact that they rejected you. )</p>
<p>True, though those of us who are parents of daughters don’t want to encourage our daughters to say yes to every guy who wants to go out with them, just for the sake of sparing feelings :-).</p>
<p>In the ideal situation, the rejection from house A doesn’t matter because you just found some cool new friends in houses B and C. That’s why keeping the open mind to all houses is so important for the girls going through.</p>
<p>Hunt, I am not quite sure what you are getting at. Did you read how recruitment works from Soccergirls posts? Lets say that 1000 girls go to house A on round 1. There are numbers set in place for the next round of invitations, say 500. So the sorority will review all the applicants, make immediate cuts for chapter GPA cutoff. Lets be generous and say that they have trimmed the list by 100, leaving 900 hopefuls. From there they would rank the girls based on membership criteria imposed by the national and chapter. Those things include letters of rec, legacy status, GPA, ECs, then get into the personal stuff like relationships with members, shared interests, majors, and the actual conversations. Many on CC want to believe it also involves Daddy’s checkbook and fancy clothes or looks, and nothing that has been said countless times over the years seems to change that impression, or even bend it a bit. So be it. Truth is, no national sorority is going to tell you the EXACT process because 1) it is secret; 2) it literally can vary from campus to campus and year to year. So they have a list of 900 names all ranked. Depending on how the potential new members ranked them, the computer will match them with the first 500 girls that also ranked them. So it is entirely possible for the wallflower with a hick accent that has a great GPA and a great conversation with someone from the chapter about their philanthropy will get an invitation to the next round at that house. It is also possible that the cheerleader with a BMW was not ranked high enough on the list to get an invite, or didn’t rank that particular chapter high enough. At competitive schools it is entirely possible that fantastic women don’t get invited back. I have never denied that. I HAVE pointed out that there are other factors than money, status and looks that cause a person’s recruitment to go awry. Some of it can be just not cliquing with a particular person on a particular day up to and including the fact that Susie College has made an impression contrary to what that particular house desires. It is not a perfect system and some schools do it better than others.
Funny how with Greek threads it always ends up being drinking/hazing with the guys and unfair recruitment with the girls, and every time we always have parents that try to dispel the rumors with the same arguments every few months. The problem is for those of us who did participate, the criticism either don’t match our experiences, is just plain false or seems like a personal attack on us. It is particularly baffling to me when I know that by virtue of joining a sorority I am thought to be an elitist who dared judge other people. Considering that I came from a blue-collar family, was a first-generation scholarship student from a hick town of 800 people who was a crazy theater chick with gay friends and radically liberal political beliefs, I just don’t buy the discriminatory spoonfuls that is being fed to me about what these organizations are actually like, from people who are not members.</p>
<p>Hunt, and others with such knowledge, can you elaborate on how a concerned/interested parent would go about doing in depth research about Greek life on a campus? Beyond College Prow***, which is flawed data at best because of the relatively small sample group creating the ratings and comments, where would I go to get reliable data? TIA</p>
<p>In real life, I know a couple of people who were cut from all Greek chapters. They did NOT have borderline GPA’s, were not unattractive, and were not (at least not consciously) “jerks”. They were not even the types who were not really welcome anywhere, as they went on to be successful in college (academically and in service fraternities) and achieve professional success in adult life. But, in the short run, from what they reported, the experience tended to be devastating in a way that not making a team, not being asked out on a date by a crush, not getting an interview, interniship, or job, or not making the cut at an audition, was not. Some even began to make plans to transfer the minute they were rejected from all Greek organizations at their school.</p>
<p>What scared me when Frazzled D wanted to rush (I discouraged but allowed this) was the potential - as someone upthread mentioned - for seemingly random rejection at a transitional time in life when individuals are perhaps most vulnerable for onset of mental illness. I was not reassured when I was told that “only jerks” don’t get any bids.</p>
<p>I am surprised that more girls are not set loose (given low rankings) from all sororities even in relatively non-competitive rushes, where the quotas are adjusted to the numbers of girls who are rushing and recs are more the exception than the rule. I expect this is because girls who choose to rush are on the whole a self-selected group, that each pnm falls into one or more “groups” (athlete, legacy, ethnic group, theater or dance type) that would immediately up their ranking at least somewhere, or that beyond a few queen bees, the process is fairly random with the odds meaning that a few girls not all that different from the majority who are rushing will not get bids.</p>
<p>All that said, being released from all sororities is not an experience I would have embraced for Frazzled D, whose personality is, all said and done, fairly resilient. From this parent’s perspective, the best part of the system is that nobody needs to know whether a girl dropped out of rush voluntarily or because she was released from every group. I prefer systems that guarantee bids, though.</p>
<p>Every time a thread about Greeks/recruitment and/or the value of Greek life I notice several things:</p>
<p>The posters who are violently against Greek life haven’t been involved in it and refuse to “let” their kids go through recruitment.</p>
<p>Greeks/supporters and families are at best delusional or gravely misinformed about EVERYTHING…because they are rich/Republican and closeted racists. (Because NO house has an Asian/Black/Hispanic/multi racial/Jewish/Muslim member…and if they do have such a member, it was a mistake.) </p>
<p>Where else does one see the insult and character condemning comment about someone…they have an Hermes purse?! because they may support or don’t condemn Greek life?..oh, wait that is because they are elitist snobs.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but these threads about Greek life are redundant. Why don’t we say, “Don’t confuse me with the facts. I have my feelings and that is enough.”</p>
<p>The least the poster can have is a Birkin - she owes us that much!!</p>
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<p>Even this isn’t accurate from my experience. Legacy status was the only thing that might “pull” someone along the system, but since this wasn’t some huge Southern school where everybody’s momma went, you might have only a handful of legacies. Letters of rec served mostly just to introduce the person, but you weren’t at a disadvantage if you didn’t have one. GPA was irrelevant since everyone was smart in high school. Specific EC’s were of no interest. What was of interest? Did you like this girl when you chatted with her. Did she seem someone that you’d like to get to know and that you could envision being friendly with. It was truly as simple as that. You didn’t get extra brownie points if you had a BMW. How thoroughly stupid (and why would your BMW have come up in the first place?).</p>
<p>Gosh, even back in the 1980’s we had whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians (both South and East), Catholics / Protestants / Jews, etc. in the same house. During my time there, one year our chapter president was Hispanic and the year after I left, the chapter president was black. H’s historically-Jewish fraternity had a president who was half-white, half-black and wasn’t Jewish at all. Really, no one thought twice about any of this stuff. Could we PLEASE stop conflating the southern-belle-what-does-your-daddy-do systems with the normal ones?</p>
<p>pizzagirl, I did not say that a girl would get bonus points for a BMW. I was actually attempting to disprove the notion that girls were judged on wealth or beauty. Since you went to Northwestern, you didn’t have to worry about GPA, but you can see why that would matter at a state school. Also, rec letters don’t matter at a small recrutiment, but you can also not deny that for a first round cut they can help a girl out initially for a 2nd party invite. Same with legacy, they will probably get you a second look, but it is up to the young lady beyond that.</p>
<p>Also, I think ellebud was trying to show not how greek supporters actually think, but how the NON-Greeks see those Greek supporters, simply because there are some on this site that refuse to believe that we are not alllike the Southern Belle stereotypes. Heck with 40% of Alabama PNMs from out of state this year, even the Southern Belles are not necessarily Southern Belles.</p>
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