<p>poetgrl, at schools where houses meet quotas and are at total, continuous open bidding (COB) just doesn’t occur. A sorority can not just add new members when it chooses if they already have enough members. It wouldn’t be fair to the other chapters on campus.</p>
<p>Okay. So ? </p>
<p>Carry on</p>
<p>Yes, but you can structure a system where the quota is determined by the number of girls at final rush divided by the number of houses, which means that most every girl will find a spot, or you can have the obnoxious systems where there is an arbitrary limit for no reason other than to be jerks.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, plenty of schools do just that. In fact that is how RFM does the numbers. Only Indiana pulls the rug out from under the young women that do it the right way.</p>
<p>Yes, I know.</p>
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<p>Likewise, PNM’s reject houses all the time, or don’t go back there, because they perceive that a house is the “fat girl house” or the “loser house” or the “nerd house” or whatever. It works both ways.</p>
<p>And I’m going to be a snot here and say that scholarship played no role in it, because we didn’t have to look for “smart girls” because by definition, everyone who was at that college was already smart. The adcoms did that part of the job for us. I don’t think it says a lot about a school’s admissions standards if you can’t already assume the girls going through are smart.</p>
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<p>I didn’t pick new sisters based on “values and character.” I picked them based on whether I enjoyed meeting / conversing with them and wanted to be better friends with them (and felt that they wanted the same). The EXACT SAME WAY I “picked” who I wanted to eat with in the dining hall or who I “picked” that I wanted to hang out with in my classes or other extracurricular activities. The exact same way all of you ultimately picked your real life friends. </p>
<p>Look, if everyone on CC all got together at a party, I know the posters that I’d gravitate to, who I found witty and funny and humorous and had something I could appreciate. And I’m sure all of you could think of the same. It’s the same thing. Could we all stop pretending it’s anything more than a structured version of meeting new people?</p>
<p>But isn’t the difference that in a formal rush process people don’t just go on instinct, but rather “score” potential friends based on certain attributes? In real life I have never interrogated new friend prospects or asked for references or a CV of their wonderful accomplishments. We either clicked or didn’t. And I certainly didn’t discuss with existing friends whether a new person could join our group.</p>
<p>(I’m not anti-Greek, BTW. Just think it is what it is.)</p>
<p>Some day, we’ll all be as tolerant, well-bred, enlightened, and gracious as you. Until then, I will probably be over in the corner of the CC party wondering why no one wants to talk to me – but closer to the beer.</p>
<p>I never claimed to be tolerant, well-bred, enlightened or gracious, SOG 
Enjoy the beer!</p>
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<p>And I’ll be organizing a group to crash the party in order to carry out all the food, desserts, hors d’oeuvres, beverages, sign up party guests to join WWE as “surprise wrestlers”, etc… :D</p>
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<p>I’m actually not anti-Greek, either. I just never saw them as appealing. From observing older cousins who joined and attending/crashing frat parties…it just seemed like a booze-oriented social club for those with more maturity issues*.</p>
<p>*i.e. Weird/silly initiation rites, alcohol fueled vandalism sprees in the Boston area confirmed by local cops as work of fraternity members from nearby universities.</p>
<p>This is neither here nor there about the desirability of sororities and joining one, but wow, rush is so an experience for extroverts. An extrovert would say, what fun, I get to go to all these parties and chitchat with people I don’t know. Whereas for an introvert that’s pretty much the definition of ghastly torture.</p>
<p>^Cardinal Fang, you nailed that!</p>
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<p>Considering the amount of inebriation among many frat members at some frat parties I attended/crashed, there wasn’t much chitchatting/interaction going on. </p>
<p>In fact, as someone who leans slightly on the extroverted side of the spectrum, I’d think joining a frat/sorority would be great for introverts…especially with some alcohol to reduce inhibitions. </p>
<p>Personally, I only drink alcohol toward the end of a social gathering or if it’s a real relaxing “chill” gathering. If there’s interaction/chitchatting, dancing, or singing/performing on stage…I’d rather be pepped up and fully engaged, not boozed out.</p>
<p>Joining a sorority might be good for introverts but rushing a sorority would be ghastly torture.</p>
<h1>313 Shrinkrap wrote:
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<p>I wonder if you have the time and interest to describe how rush works in the NPHC? And the purpose/mission of the sororities? To compare and contrast NPHC and NPC? I am particularly interested in the difference in approaches to philanthropy and service.</p>
<p>Cf - that’s a very fair point. As an introvert, rush exhausted me but it enabled me to meet more people. I am quite certain I would have had a narrow social circle, confined to my dorm, if I hadn’t joined. It made the process easier since it was structured, versus having to put myself out there every time I went to class, etc. </p>
<p>And for all the “rejection,” you don’t think there’s plenty of social rejection when all the girls on the third floor go out for ice cream and don’t invite the girl in room 302? That’s a lot more personal than “the ChiO’s invited me back but the Kappas didn’t.”</p>
<p>PG: If it had been possible at your undergraduate university to change to a pull-names-out-of-a-hat sorority selection - do you believe you would have ended up in a group with which you had a less than optimum chance of being friends?</p>
<p>You say you were friends with women in other sororities, right? I am understanding you to say all sorority women can potentially be friends with all other sorority women and that is actually the norm? If so, what’s the problem with random selection?</p>
<p>alh - Your question was directed to another poster, but if you don’t mind I would like to address it.</p>
<p>I pledged ABC sorority because that was the group that I felt the most compatible and comfortable with. Note that I did not say that the members were all exactly like me or exactly like one another for that matter, it was that we were compatible as a group. I don’t see this happening with a randomly selected group. There also happened to be girls outside of my sorority (members of other sororities and non sorority members) with whom I felt compatible who also became my friends. </p>
<p>I will share that when I went through rush, I was not invited back to one of the houses that I liked. No idea why, perhaps the girls that I met in the process just didn’t feel as if I was a good fit. I took no offense. And yes I ended up being friends with some girls from that sorority. We liked each other as individuals. No big deal.</p>
<p>Thanks for responding FallGirl. I got asked back to all the parties and got to pick my group. Everything was hunky-dory till I saw how rush worked from the other side. Obviously, I’m still not over that experience.</p>
<p>If the selection were random, you have less confidence the groups would be a “fit” for the majority of young women interested in sororities? Within the group of young women interested in sorority membership, are there enough differences that random selection could not be successful?</p>