Appearance may not be all that important to some houses, other than a basic sense of good grooming.
If you look at pictures of many houses, they aren’t all just Barbie dolls. Tall, short, wild hair, lots or make up or none at all. Yes, many of the pictures used for recruiting show the most beautiful girls, but so do the photos the college uses on recruiting brochures. My daughter’s photo has been used on several promotional pieces because she is smiley, beautiful, and a minority.
It will also reflect the prevailing fashions of the area of the country. Girls in the southeast tend to wear a lot of sundresses, Lilly, etc even to football games because that’s simply the style there and the weather also lends itself to it. Girls up north are likely to wear less makeup and wear t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc and be more covered up - because cold and because that’s the style. It doesn’t “mean” anything other than regional differences in what is considered attractive.
So the moms who stay in town getting professional hair and make up done for their daughters (posts #3 and #6), the t-shirts in only small sizes so everyone’s weight was apparent (#24) , the beautiful hair required for walking around campus (#32), the sorority that doesn’t allow women to leave the house w/o make-up (#57), all these things are myths or lies and don’t exist? Or the people putting serious time, money and effort into looks are wasting it all because no one cares? Is the prospective pledge thin enough, pretty enough, stylish enough are never concerns?
Are there actually women on college campuses picking their friends based, at least in part, on appearance and being encouraged in this by parents and alumnae? And if so, why? It baffles me and I can’t be the only person who would like to understand.
Why would the mere fact that someone is overweight or doesn’t like make-up mean they’re not acceptable friend material?
Of course they are sometimes concerns. There are 2500 women going through rush at Alabama, Georgia, FSU and some other schools. Are some of them going to be concerned with hair and make up? Yes. Are some of their mothers? Sure. Does that mean every girl on every campus cares about it to a high degree? Does that mean there aren’t fat girls in sororities? Of course it doesnt.
My daughter has a friend who rushed at FSU and the tshirt seems to fit her just fine, and she is a short, not thin girl. I’m guessing it was a medium. The idea of the tshirt is to have the PNMs look the same, so they don’t worry so much about their clothing choices for the long days of parties. If they wanted to judge just based on clothing, why have the tshirts?
If you look for problems, you will find them. Of course there are mean girls everywhere, even in sororities. Some are going to judge on looks only. There are 6000 women in sororities at Alabama. Some of them are not attractive. Some of them are fat. Some of them probably have horrible personalities. I think the system does a pretty good job of finding a place for each one.
Do people not consider looks when hiring? When voting for candidates? When asking someone on a date? Someone posted above that they don’t pick their friends by looks. Really? Just walk up to someone of any color, sex, age and say ‘hey, let’s be friends’ even if that person smells or looks like she doesn’t own a hairbrush? I don’t believe it. First impressions matter. We tell our kids that all the time.
If a girl pledges to belong to a group for the rest of her life and then gets in and is annoyed by the fact that she can’t leave the house in pajama pants or is horrified to find out the house is racist they have to accept some of the blame for putting themselves in the situation.
It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of recruitment but there is no reason in this day and age to not know these things going in. Everyone on campus knows that XYZ is always made up when they leave they house. If you don’t like it, you can choose to leave the group or you can try to change things. You aren’t trapped in the situation.
@STEM2017 on your question about rushing as a sophomore, my experience is only from my kid at a midwest flagship, but fraternities on his campus do take sophomores. Most of the kids interested are freshman, but a few kids decide after freshman year that they would like to be part of greek life and so go through the process. His campus also has both fall and spring pledge classes, so a kid who doesn’t do fall rush as a first semester freshman, can do second semester. The second semester pledge class is usually smaller than fall, just because most of the kids interested in greek life have already gone through it. I can’t speak to sorority life at all though.
@Midwestmomofboys Thank you. I know my S and I think rushing as a sophomore would be best for him, only because I’m sure he won’t dive in as a freshman, but may regret it later.
"So the moms who stay in town getting professional hair and make up done for their daughters (posts #3 and #6), the t-shirts in only small sizes so everyone’s weight was apparent (#24) "
But this is different from school to school. If you read the thread you would have figured this out. The idea of moms in hotel rooms with hair and makeup stylists may be commonplace in Texas, but it would be absolutely laughably ridiculous at other schools. Please don’t make the continued CC mistake of thinking all systems are the same.
I don’t “pick my friends” based on looks but I typically find myself attracted to people who are reasonably current in their style, well groomed and look like they care about themselves, and keep themselves in reasonably decent shape. As an 18 yo girl I was very serious about schoolwork but I also enjoyed looking good in the fashions of the day, and it was fun to discuss clothing with other girls. (Why else are there so many threads on CC on "what should I wear to XYZ occasion? Women talk about this kind of thing. Even "serious@ women.)
^ Agreed. The "moms in town " thing was unheard of at my school and I really doubt it happens there now. I have several friends whose D’s recently pledged at such school as UVA, VA Tech, Wm & Mary, U Del, Johns Hopkins, among others and it was not a “thing” there.
The first I heard about the “moms in town grooming the D’s” was about 5 years ago and it was at an informal gathering of sorority women who had attended schools across the country. Almost none of us had heard of it and were surprised and amused.
As far as pledging sophomore/junior year it was not uncommon at my school. It was great for me as a transfer student. Interestingly the young woman in our chapter who won our National’s highest award (and it is a large National) pledged as a second semester sophomore during informal rush (formal rush was in the fall). Another girl who pledged as a junior later served in several high level positions with our National and was the lead alumnae in colonizing a new chapter.
"Do people not consider looks when hiring? When voting for candidates? When asking someone on a date? "
I was attracted to my H because he was cute in a young Tom Cruise way back in the day, and he was attracted to me because I was reasonably cute as well. If he’d had long greasy hair or tattoo sleeves I doubt I would have been attracted.
I think the whole “looks as a basis for selection” has been blown out of proportion. Or, at least, while that may be the case in some systems, it is far from universal.
If you look at the sorority group shots on my daughter’s campus, for example, the people shown are virtually indistinguishable from the group shots of the “Society of Women Engineers” or the “Peer Advising Team” at the same university. To my 60-year-old eyes, they all look young and happy. But they are not all conventionally attractive and there is no identifiable sorority “look” either in terms of physical appearance or dress.
Re #111
There were some threads about recruitment videos by different sorority chapters at different schools. There were some comments about what they implied about the chapters’ preferences.
Yes, and those videos are marketing tools. Don’t most schools, businesses, clubs use the most attractive members to ‘sell’ the product? My daughter is often chosen as the ‘model’ for the brochure because she is cute but I know it is because she is a minority (and sometimes the only minority). She was chosen about 5 times for girl scout news articles or brochures, and gee, my same age blonde child who was at the same events was not picked. She’s a good player on her team but not the superstar, yet her photo is often used on posters for ‘game day’ because she’s the only minority on the team, looks very athletic and is attractive. She is not often featured in her sorority marketing stuff because she is not the only minority and they have other girls who want to do it.
^ That really depends on the Chapter/School. I see a lot of photos from a chapter of my sorority (not my school’s chapter) because I “liked” the FB page when they were being colonized (I knew the alumnae in charge). The photos depict a wide range of racial/ethnic backgrounds, body types, etc. A few girls in the photos look like the stereotypical sorority girl, but not most.
That may be case. I think every chapter makes their own recruitment video. I just watched the one for my daughter’s house at her campus. And it reflects her chapter pretty well. I think that would probably be a good way for parents and students who are thinking about rushing to get a “feel” for the personality and presentation of the groups that they will be meeting during the process.
I also looked at the infamous recruitment video that started the earlier discussion. When you look at that presentation compared to the one from my daughter’s school, what people have been saying about how the sorority experience varies from campus to campus becomes VERY obvious.
FSU’s Delta Gamma bid day videos are legendary. The girls literally all look like models. But Delta Gamma at Northwestern is made up of lots of run of the mill cute engineers and pre-meds
By whatever measure you use, the worst sorority and the worst fraternity are pretty bad, and the best are pretty good. You have to do specific research.
We can argue forever about whether the average, or typical, chapter is good or bad, but that’s actually irrelevant to any individual’s decision-making process.
And this also gets at some of the problems with prejudging one greek system based on what makes the news or becomes the topic of discussion from another system. If my daughter had seen the Alpha Phi recruitment video that was making the news last year, she would have immediately said “I don’t belong there” and “I don’t feel comfortable with that image.” But she sent me the link to the one from her house with a note that basically said, “I like these girls and I feel at home here.”
(I won’t post it publicly, but PM me if you want to see it. I think it illustrates the point pretty well.)
I do think this thread serves a purpose by giving people a platform to ask questions. The system can be complicated and confusing but there is a method to the madness (most of the time).