<p>Employers have to pick and choose, because they want employees that can do the best job. Colleges have to pick and choose, because they have a limited number of slots; moreover, they want to pick students that can succeed.</p>
<p>What is the reason sororities have to pick and choose, rather than choosing their members at random?</p>
<p>Do you choose your friends at random, Cardinal Fang? Would you be ok if you went into your child’s high school, for example, and all the parents were there, and you were randomly assigned that you were now going to be BFF’s with a randomly chosen set? Or do you typically like to associate with people that you have something in common with – whether that something is an interest, hobby, background, or just an overall enjoyment of one another’s company? When you host a party, do you send out random invitations to every Xth person in the phone book, or do you invite your friends? Why wouldn’t a party be as good if you invited every Xth person in the phone book instead?</p>
<p>Students already have “random” opportunities. That’s what dorms and classes are. How is joining a sorority any different from joining any other group based on shared interests, whether it’s the tennis team, the sailing team, or the Young Republicans club?</p>
<p>How do you pick and choose your friends?</p>
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<p>Do you set up a formal process to choose your friends, which includes publicly rejecting the people you don’t want as friends?</p>
<p>I don’t understand how sorority rush publicly rejects anyone. No one knows why you didn’t join any particular sorority. It could be YOU that rejected the sorority. I reject people as my friends all the time. I meet them at parties. They invite me out and I make up excuses as to why I couldn’t go. Maybe that’s not a formal process, but the end result is still the same. (People have rejected me too, they invite my friends to their parties, but not me).</p>
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<p>I’m not sure I’d call it formal, but yes, there absolutely is a public process by which I choose my friends and reject people I don’t want as friends. I talk to and go out or hang around with my friends in public. People I don’t like, I don’t talk to them (except to be civil, but even that I will not do with people I think are horrible - I will completely dodge all face-to-face interaction with them), go out with them or hang around with them.</p>
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<p>Everyone in the sorority knows. Maybe they are sworn to secrecy, but people talk. Moreover, other people do know. In this thread, we’ve heard about women being rejected from sororities. Whoever made those comments actually does know that those women were rejected.</p>
<p>I was an assistant rush director and a rush counselor and you’re factually incorrect, Cardinal Fang. I’ll explain why later, as I’m running off to something!</p>
<p>I have said far too much on this thread. I hope all your daughters who want to join sororities get their first choices and have happy experiences.</p>
<p>At my niece’s college a year ago (a Big 12 school), the final results of who got in to which sorority were posted in a large gymnasium and all the girls were let in to find out where they got in, or if they did not. So, I would say that’s a pretty public way to find out and for everyone else to know. Girls could be completely shut out of sororities if they “went all in” on one particular sorority in the final phase. There were evidently some heartbroken girls there who had gambled. Obviously, some very happy girls, too. </p>
<p>That being said, what I have learned from this thread is that sororities vary a lot from school to school. There are some real benefits to being in a sorority, as well as some drawbacks, just like most things in life. When my daughter goes off to school in a few years, I will advise her to investigate the sororities before she decides to rush or not with an open but inquisitive mind.</p>
<p>Yes, a sorority may reject a girl for membership, but I’m not sure the entire membership even knows whether the house as a whole rejected the girl (either just certain house officers or Panhell volunteers compile the lists during rush), and certainly it is very possible and even likely that the girl had no intention of joining that house anyway. So really, no one can ever assume that it wasn’t a mutual rejection.</p>
<p>If your daughter(s) are contemplating recruitment the time to prepare for a competitive recruitment is in the senior year. Recs are needed at some schools. I will say that my daughter had only 3 out of 10 pledged and joined a house where she didn’t have one. But, at some schools they are essential, as are senior year teas. I believe that this is importent in the SEC.</p>
<p>I have heard that some girls spend a fortune on recruitment wardrobe/hair etc. I shop, a lot, but I filled in pieces that she needed for college, not just for recruitment. She did not do “wardrobe checks”. </p>
<p>And, as for rejection: My daughter had a near “perfect” recruitment. That meant that she made most of the decisions. But she didn’t get an invitation from one house where she thought (given clues by them) that she was a shoein. She would have been the “first” in one area (and not Jewish first by the way). Did that throw her? Yes. For a second. And in the end, she really did end up in the right house for her. And that is her assessment, not mine.</p>
<p>if a student were to rush and not be accepted to a certain sorority, or choose, for whatever reason, not to join, can she rush again another semester?
and can someone switch sororities once they have already been a part of one?</p>
<p>Oh my ellebud! I guess sororities are VERY different in different parts of the country. D didn’t have all of her clothes even with her during rush - she was staying with upper classmen during that week because of her sports commitment. Recs?? We don’t know anyone who was ever in a sorority! Maybe these groups -at least on her campus -are less selctive than we thought?? (insert winking smiley face here.) To top it off, hers is known as one of the Jewish sororities on campus. Although she claims to be an atheist, she WAS baptized in a Catholic church when she was a baby.</p>
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<p>Wow! My daughter LOVES to shop and will find any excuse to shop, but I have no recollection of her saying she needed to do such and such or buy such and such prior to her rush week. I do remember a couple of times after joining that she needed something like a simple black dress, because, as a chapter, they had all decided they’d wear a simple black dress (or whatever they’d decided on) for a particular event (probably subsequent rushes when they were the rushers, not the rushees). But it was usually generic enough that many of the girls already had one of what they needed.</p>
<p>Oh, and she never asked for recs, or I guess, needed them, although we could have gotten some for her.</p>
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<p>Yes.</p>
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<p>My understanding is that you can if you have not yet gone through initiation. After initiation, you can quit, but you will not be able to join any other of the National sororities. </p>
<p>Selecting girls at random makes no sense. I agree with the posters that you want to be with people that you have something in common with.</p>
<p>You can rush again if you didn’t pledge. You can’t deactivate then rush again.</p>
<p>Since PG ran out, I will explain how it works at my daughter’s school, which would show why no one really knows why/how a person didn’t get a bid from a particular house. </p>
<p>The first round girls visit every sorority. After the first round, each house ranks girl from 1 to whatever. Every girl picks their top 8 out of 12, lets say. The computer program would try to match each girl’s pick with sororoties’s ranking. If a sorority gets to have 100 girls return after the first round, then as long as you are one of those top 100 and the sorority is also your top 8 then that sorority will stay on your list. Lets say if a sorority has you as their top 100 and you didn’t pick them, then they wouldn’t be on your list, EXCEPT if you were suppose to have 8 sororities on your list and only 5 had you as their top 100, then whichever sorority ranked you higher would get you to come back. That is why some girls wonder why certain sororities keep on coming back to their list, even though they have cut those sororities from their list. They keep on doing this until the final round where only have top 3 sororities left (now remember, not all 3 could be their top choices). Each girl at that point rank those sororities for the first time from 1-3. Each sorority then rank girls from 1-60, knowing they would only take 40 (each house takes different number of girls). The computer program then look at each girl’s list (from 1-3) to see if their first choice also have her as their top 40, if so, then that girl is done, if not then it looks at the second choice, and so forth. It’s the same for a sorority. They may have their top 40s picked out, but those top 40s may not choose them as their first choice, then they would need to dip down below their top 40s to get a full class. If not enough girls pick them as their top 3 then a house could end up with fewer girls.</p>
<p>The whole matching up is kind of complicated, sometimes I wonder if their computer program is full proof. My daughter said they had random girls get selected, and some girls with mutual love for the sorority end up going to different sororities. I am not sure if I explained it very well, maybe PG could explain it better.</p>
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<p>I think each college has their own ways. According to DD, at her college the rush weekend was so much fun filled and happen in the begining of the first semester prior to start of classes.
According to her she was welcomed by all the sorrorities and it was a difficult decision for her as she already had friends in multiple sorrorities. In the end she joined Pizzagirl sorrority and have been very happy with her decision till now.
In the begining some of her friends in other sorrorities were mad but in the end all worked out well. We have been to her sorrority house and liked both the house and the girls. </p>
<p>So to OP I would recommend rushing for it if the participation in greek life is large. At DD college it is > 40%.
Other than a hefty $700 fee per semester and $15-20 per outing, everything else seems advantageous for being a part of sorrority at DD college as the environment is very rigorous and it does provide an outlet and support.</p>
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<p>Girls did this at my school, but they were strongly advised against it.</p>
<p>Ironically my sorority just formed a chapter at D’s school last year. I thought that was great timing except D wants nothing to do with it. I attended a school that was 30% greek (still is), D’s school is maybe 1-2%. She doesn’t even know anyone who pledged. Oh, well…</p>
<p>If your D is attending college in the Big 12 or the SEC, she will need rec letters…even if they tell her she doesn’t :)…recruitment in the South is a totally different animal ,as many here have discussed…</p>