<p>One great thing about RFM (the system oldfort is describing) is that it gives all houses a greater chance to have full houses. If Suzie ranks house A first, B second and C third, but Houses A and B have Suzie ranked near the bottom, then Suzie will get into house C. That is a big reason why I stress to the women going through to at least go to the Bid Day activites to see who your pledge sisters will be. Back in the stone age, when I went through rush, one of my best friends was devastated when she got her 2nd choice house. They did not actually have a house, which was a big disadvantage at my school. She alsmost thought of dropping entirely. We convinced her to go check them out, especially because the girls we had met were really sweet. I will tell you, it was a great choice for her. That group had won over some amazing women, and their pledge class was quickly known as the “best” girls. That group had high GPAs, raised a lot of money in fundraisers and was paired up all the time for mixers. The chapter image can change a lot based on each pledge class. </p>
<p>As to the question about differences in community service, yes they are different. Most national chapters have a big philanthropy that they support. In addition, the local chapters may have local charities that they focus their efforts. The recruitment guide should list those as well. Off the top of my head I can think of blindness, breast cancer, children’s hospitals, March of Dimes, just to name a few.</p>
<p>I would read MizzBee’s post carefully. I would agree with the info she gave. In addition most Panhellenic boards now put on a recruitment info session that highlights the process, what to wear each day and a few campuses will even have a “practice” day. If recommendations are critical at the campus, they usually tell the girls at the meeting to start gathering them. Good luck to your daughter!</p>
<p>I can tell you from the other side of rush cuts some other factors that matter that many PNMs may not realize:
grades. Some sororities have minimum grade cutoffs that are higher than the minimum set by Panhellenic to participate in recruitment. This mostly impacts sophomores.
activities. Some campuses have all-Greek competitions like “Spring Sing” or all-Greek softball leagues. Know what the big events are on your college campus, and make sure to list any of your relevant talents (singing, performing, softball) on your recruitment form.</p>
<p>Agree with siliconvalley mom about listing activities. A big way that sororities use these sheets will also be to assign your hostess when you come visit the chapter. Some houses assign hostesses at random, others will amaze you when you walk through the door and are paired with someone from a high school next to your hometown that also did show choir and is majoring in Chemistry. More of a chance to make a connection and have a natural conversation. Also, make sure you include your community service work, just like on a college application. A chapter doesn’t want to pledge a girl that is going to only come to mixers. They want someone who will put on her grubby clothes and help them build a house for a charity project, and who will keep the pledge GPA high. </p>
<p>Even at a chapter where recs are not required, they really are nice to have. I especially see the value for OOS students in a deferred rush setting. If the chapter gets a rec early enough (before mandatory silence periods) the girl can be invited over for a casual lunch so they can get to know her. That can make a big difference. It will also help her feel comfortable with the members of the house and the process in general.</p>
<p>Please explain something to me. I have heard of many girls who just have to get into a specific sorority. I have even heard of one girl who didn’t get into the sorority of choice at School A, so she actually transferred to School B for another shot at the same sorority (and got in.) </p>
<p>It seems like a sorority is made up of the girls who are at the school at the time. If Mom or Big Sister loved a particular sorority, isn’t it because there was a great group of girls there at the time? As the membership changes from year to year, doesn’t the personality of the chapter change, so it may be great one year and not great three years later? Or is it more like branches of the military, where people join a specific branch for certain traits?</p>
<p>missypie: yes, we did get that phone call. And it reiterates how diff schools have diff sorority cultures. … At Syracuse, many girls rush “together” in groups. My daughter did not know this and, therefore, remained independent with her own opinions. It’s complicated to explain, but given that stance, she ended up in her fourth choice and is now happy while those who went in to the process as a group ended up at their first choice. All in the past now but just goes to show you about diff school culture</p>
<p>My D has not decided whether to rush. Some girls she has met want to go through the process to meet people. If she decides to rush, I hope she tells me so I can put her in touch with others who can give her tips. She is one of those generic pretty girls…the kind who might well be chosen if a group was basing their decisions on looks…but I am certain that she wouldn’t want to be part of a group like that.</p>
<p>Back when I was in college in the 80s, I was the president of the Panhellenic Association which runs rush on the campus. We did bid-matching by hand - an assembly of alumnae from each of the 17 sororities sat at tables in a closed and guarded room. Each rushee’s name was read outloud with their first choice - if they were in that house’s quota list (top 30 girls) they were a match and got that bid - if not then they went to the round 2 pile… and on and on and on - it took a whole day to do what the computer now does!<br>
While I was there we added another sorority on campus to give more girls a chance to join - that’s my biggest complaint about the campuses with competitive rushes - they really need to add more houses.</p>
<p>First correction: it is no longer called “rush.” The correct term is “recruitment.”</p>
<p>As all have said, Greek life varies widely from school to school. My D’s college had the “place for everyone” system, where the sororities were told the minimum number of bids they had to give out - basically, it was the number of girls going thru recruitment divided by the number of sororities. There were 400+ girls rushing, and 8 sororities. As a result, my D had 48 girls in her pledge class. Some girls did drop out during the process, when they got cut by the sorority they really wanted. </p>
<p>OTOH, at my S’s college there were 300 girls rushing for only 120 available openings. I guess his college allows the sororities to limit how many members they will take - or his college may even limit them themselves, because the current administration is strongly anti-Greek and may want to limit the number of kids who participate.</p>
<p>In general, Greek life in the South -especially the Southeast - is much more intense than Greek life in the North, especially the Northeast. Not sure where that leaves Pitt!</p>
<p>Missypie - you are in Texas. Every single instance that I’ve ever heard of where a girl dropped out of school if she didn’t get into a sorority, or felt compelled / obligated to join her mother’s sorority, has been in Texas or the South. It’s just not as important in the North, broadly speaking. My D’s school doesn’t have sororities, but if she were going someplace that had them, I wouldn’t care at all if she joined a different one from the one I was in. Chapters vary so wildly – the nice girls at College A may be the jocks at College B and the party girls at College D, so it makes no sense to “want” your D to join your house that might be completely different at a different campus.</p>
<p>My S is attending our alma mater, and while it might be neat if he joined dad’s house, what if he doesn’t like them or vice versa – then so be it, certainly no pressure.</p>
<p>Missypie, I also think the “right” sorority thing has a lot more to do with life after college. If mom, grandma, aunties and neighbors are all XYZ, a young lady grows up thinking XYZ is for her. The problem comes at schools like Alabama and Texas where every house could fill 4 pledge classes with legacies alone. That is what is happening now, which is why there are those dreaded phone calls. Houses are on to the transfer school concept and do not need to invite the transfer sister to affiliate with their house when she comes back as a sophomore. The girl is then left with alumnae status, meaning she is in for life, but would miss out on things like mixers and collegiate events.
It isn’t just southern schools,however. I had friends that didthe same thing at IU 25 years ago when they had a bad recruitment. She came back and was unable to live in. If she had not dropped after she didn’t get a “good” house, she would have had it all. In competitive schools there ARE no bad houses. </p>
<p>lafalum84, I used to say recruitment here on CC, but realized that not everyone knew what I was talking about. On GC, I “mostly” use the correct terminology. After all my years working with chapters, I still slip. Last year I had a jar at the college while prepping so that I could toss in a buck every time I slipped. Made for a great pizza party for the girls.</p>
<p>From what I understood, at Frazzled D’s school the number of allotted slots is equal to the number of girls going through recruitment, but it is still possible for a girl to reach a point during the week where she does not receive invitations to any parties and is thus released from the process. </p>
<p>It seems that every year this happens to a number of girls, and I was terrified that my daughter would find herself in this tiny minority. I have to think it is probably more humiliating to find oneself not wanted anywhere in a non-competitive rush than in a competitive rush, FWIW, and applaud those schools that make sure every girl who is willing to stay to the end is invited back to at least one house.</p>
<p>I wasn’t in a sorority in college. The Greek system was making a big comeback at my university, but had a very party-hardy reputation. I was a bit more alternative. My D1 joined a sorority at her school freshman year. It was no stress on me and still isn’t. She pays any cost related to her sorority, just like she picks up the tabs on personal expenses and extracurricular activities. She has met wonderful, caring, smart, interesting young women! (Now, not to say that she would not have made close friends otherwise, because she would have.) But, it has been a very positive, growing experience for her. I’m glad I kept an open mind and trusted her to pick what was right for her. Best of luck to the OPs daughter!</p>
<p>Our recent experience at a large SEC school was that recruitment was predominantly junior league on steroids. Lots of cronyism. A little more than 1 in 5 girls dropped out because they didn’t like the houses they were invited back to or were “released”.</p>
<p>My daughter just pledged so I can’t comment on the sorority experience but the recruitment process at her school is extremely brutal. For the girls that were heartbroken by the process it’s a very hard way to start college.</p>
<p>Missy - I think this is such a good question and thought about how to answer. It seems to me it is sort of like asking “why are HYP so popular?” Just because your parents loved the school, it doesn’t mean you will, though you probably will and the campus personality doesn’t ever change so much that they don’t have more applicants hoping to be accepted than they can take. There is a lot of effort every year taken by admissions to create an exceptional freshman class. I can think of other comparisons.</p>
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<p>I agree with MizzBee but highlighted what seems to me especially important. Thirty-something years ago when I was leaving the south, my mother’s friends gave me a small luncheon and advised me the very first thing to do in the new locale was to contact our alum group. I have lived many places in my adult life, have never contacted the alum group, never paid dues and have never given them a change of address. They always find me, send the magazines and invitations to join local alum activities. If I went they would, I’m sure, welcome me with open arms. Just this month a friend told me her daughter, an engineer, got a job through sorority networking.</p>
<p>My family has four generations of fraternity and sorority members. All my siblings and siblings-in-law belong. My sister is president of the Mothers’ Group of her daughter’s sorority. My sister-in-law is president of her local alum group. Overall I find it a distasteful system and don’t think the positives outweigh the negatives. I think college campuses would be better off without Greek groups. But the one positive I see is that sometimes sororities really do create an empowering and supportive bond of sisterhood. If I had an emergency I bet I could call my local alum group and someone would help me, even though I have given nothing at all the organization.</p>
<p>When you join a sorority you join a national organization. A girl who joins a sorority is promising to be sisters with all the girls at any chapters of her sorority… and all those who were and all those who will be. Since you are part of a national organization I don’t think it is valid or becoming to say sororities in certain geographic regions are acceptable but others aren’t. It really is the same group. Their flaws are your flaws. A lot of women seem not to take that very seriously, but I believe that the idea of sisterhood is one of the few redeeming features of sorority membership.</p>
<p>“When you join a sorority you join a national organization. A girl who joins a sorority is promising to be sisters with all the girls at any chapters of her sorority… and all those who were and all those who will be.”</p>
<p>I think that’s kind of silly in practicality, though. I joined XYZ at a certain college; my younger sister went to a large state u where the XYZ’s were, to put it charitably, not the brightest. They even had a death allegedly due to hazing. Why would I have wanted my sister to have been an XYZ there, and why would I considered myself “sisters” with these girls?</p>
<p>As for the alumnae clubs, I’ve done some activities with these clubs, and like anything, you like some people, are neutral towards others, and maybe even dislike a few. If I moved to a new city, I could certainly see joining an alumnae club as a way to meet people, but having all been XYZs in college would be just something we would have in common as a starting point, and pretty irrelevant to whether we would like one another / hit it off.</p>
<p>I am “sisters for life” with the girls in MY chapter. But I know them!</p>
<p>I am aware of schools where 1) the girls arrive on campus a week (or two?) before classes start for “recruitment” (their moms still call it rush), (2) not every girl is placed, and thus 3) the process is brutal. I just cannot imagine a worse way to start college! It’s not a situation where the girl just doesn’t know people - instead, she has met lots of people and has been specifically rejected by all of them! I know I know, they don’t know her well…but it is a specific, personal rejection. It makes my heart break to even think about it.</p>
<p>Just be careful with the “not every girl is placed.” There is a difference between “I decided early on I wanted only to be an XYZ, so when the XYZ’s didn’t invite me back, even though the ABC’s and DEF’s did, I dropped out and was heartbroken” and “no one invited me back.”</p>