<p>Soccergirl is right…there is a lot that the stats don’t show. There are some girls who even though they attend three pref parties will only list one house. there are other who go throughout the process and don’t maximize their options and list all of the houses they could. It’s crazy but there are some that do it. We have even had girls sign bid cards and not show up on Bid Day. As I have said it’s not a perfect system but it’s all we have right now.</p>
<p>We are working with UA Houston rep Mike Olive to visit UA the last week of March, and want to maximize our HS Jr DD’s opportunities to prepare for recruitment in 2013. Would a visit with the Panhellenic Council be a good idea? We wonder about the issue of being OOS…</p>
<p>We will work with our county Panhellenic Council for recommendations, but want to become involved with UA opportunities early to visit and establish contacts in preparation for recruitment summer after next.</p>
<p>We would appreciate any advice you could provide. She is considering SMU and OU, and I’m afraid that the UA sorority competitiveness might scare her away from UA. She’s got the full resume like most of the girls, and will be a National Merit Finalist.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>I wouldn’t let the competitiveness scare her away. Aphimommy has the correct stats but I believe over 50 percent of the girls that joined sororities last year were from out of state and 50 percent of the oos girls were from Tx. Next spring she will have the opportunity to attend preview weekend and make contacts. Panhellenic will also come to Houston to provide recruitment information. I haven’t heard of anyone meeting with Panhellenic but it may be done. Most of the girls who didn’t get placed were for grades or only wanting specific sororities. Unless she only wants one or two sororities then she should have no problem. She needs to choose a school for the whole package not just the sororities. My daughter will be going through recruitment this fall so I completely understand your concern but I am confident DD will find her sorority home as will yours.</p>
<p>Thank you PinkTurtles…I agree with you that it will work out. DD is one who is comfortable with maximizing her chances and has always had many friends in diverse groups at school, so with no preconceived affiliation, I imagine there won’t be a problem.</p>
<p>I mis-typed my post above: we are planning to visit the last week of MAY not March. (We just had prom last Saturday and staying up until four a.m. waiting for the return from post-prom IHOP has this mom a little groggy still, lol)</p>
<p>On the other hand, she didn’t make NMF by failing to prepare, so she’s interested in things like the UA Panhellenic visit to Houston, and any other events she can attend to begin the process. I think the mere idea of getting involved in things “college” is most appealing…with AP exams and finals looming large, it is fun to think about the big pay-off down the road. </p>
<p>The University of Alabama sounds like such a great school, we can not wait to see it. And thank goodness for Mom2collegekids for advocating UA on this board, or we may not have considered UA at all.</p>
<p>TX Architect – You may want to try to set up a meeting with a Greek Ambassador – a program administered through the Office of Student Affairs. Excerpt from the Student Affairs website below:</p>
<p>Greek Ambassadors</p>
<p>This unique program enables potential students at the University to receive tours of a sorority or fraternity house led by a current Greek member. This also enables the potential student to ask questions and talk about Greek Life at the Capstone with a current member of the community.</p>
<p>Oooooooooooouuuuuu! DD would love that! Thank You.</p>
<p>We may have to stay thru the second morning to get all the departmental visits, Honors College, campus tour, etc in.</p>
<p>what part of houston are you guys from? what high school?</p>
<p>The John Cooper School in The Woodlands. Mike Olive the UA Houston rep is setting the visit up for us. He’s been great. DD met hjim initially when he visited her school and stayed an extra hour just to talk to her. Then we saw him at the UA Houston Reception a few weeks ago, then I spoke with him for quite some time Monday…</p>
<p>Just want to comment on those 2011 statistics…I believe they were skewed more than normal because many girls withdrew and later signed up to interview with the Delta Gamma colonization team. DG had just over 400 sign up for interviews. Out of that, 221 were invited to pledge.
If a girl is truly willing to consider all sororities, and she has the grades, then yes, she will more than likely get a bid to join one. But there are no guarantees.
And, although the spotlight is on formal recruitment in August, some sororities do continue to consider women for membership through Continuous Open Bidding, both in the fall and spring.
The trouble comes when Princess decides she will accept bids only from A,B,C,D, or E, and nobody else. ;-D</p>
<p>A girls mantra should be “maximize my options”…I wouldn’t rely on COB to get a bid. Go through formal recruitment. Make sure your resume is comprehensive and well done…get one but I always tell girls… 2 recs for every house, be confident, make sure you are on top of your conversations skills, you don’t have to wear designer clothing but make sure that you are well put together (dresses ironed…appropriate accessories), smile :)…remember the actives who you are speaking with are nervous as well. And most importantly MAXIMIZE YOUR OPTIONS…be open to finding your letters in any of the sororities that are participating in formal recruitment. Make sure you list all of the houses you can each time…don’t listen to tent talk!!! Of course bids are not guaranteed…recruitment is a mutual selection process but if you do all of the above chances are you will find a sorority home at Alabama.</p>
<p>Late to the party but trying to stay ahead of the game.</p>
<p>A quick question for the Dallas area ladies: My DD will be graduating this year here in a Dallas suburb and will be attending UA in the Fall 2013. She plans to rush. We are already planning on attending Preview in February. I have found the Dallas Panhellenic site but it specifies the girls must live “in the Dallas city limits”. Is this correct? Not just Dallas County? I did find a Panhellenic contact for our city (phone number, no website) and she plans on contacting that contact person. </p>
<p>We visited UA back in October. Wish we would have thought to have her meet with someone with the campus groups. </p>
<p>Hoping we are on the right track and this is what I’ve gathered so far (thanks to the many on this site, a blog and other tidbits of info):
- I’m making contact w/ all of my friends that I remember were in a sorority and all have been more than happy to rec DD. When should the rec requests be sent to these wonderful friends? When should they send them on to the campus chapter? Or, from reading this to the local Panhellenic group in our city?</p>
<p>2) DD needs to write her resume. Just got told by lovely DD just 10 minutes ago that right now she is going out w/ friends and going to be a “high school senior right now”. Silly girl, it’s Friday night in December and she should be prepping for college and sorority life by writing her resume :)</p>
<p>3) As we are planning on attending Preview… how does she go about making them aware of her existence besides registering to be able to get invites to all of the functions that will transpire that weekend? </p>
<p>4) What else does she need to gather and get taken care of? We have already done her senior pics and now waiting on getting them back. Ordered her personal stationary :), all of those Thank You notes. </p>
<p>Just have to say… I laugh whenever I hear someone say “enjoy their senior year”… REALLY? By now we are so knee deep busy in college prep activities that high school is almost a dream, lol. And to think in the last few weeks I’ve actually had some moms tell me their child is still trying to decide on where they even want to go and have not applied to one single school. YIKERS!</p>
<p>does your D know girls at UA already? in sororities? that would be your best bet for party invites.</p>
<p>you can probably get a few invites through people on this site.</p>
<p>i don’t know who all has kids in sororities, but i know a number of people here do.</p>
<p>i am one of them.</p>
<p>TXNewCollegeMom – The Dallas Alumnae Panhellenic includes Highland Park/University Park as well as the city of Dallas and also covers any girl who goes to a DISD school or a school within the city limits of Dallas. (So girls who live in Addison or who attend a private school in Dallas are also covered.) </p>
<p>In the greater Dallas area, in addition to the Dallas Alumnae Panhellenic there are Alumnae Panhellenic organizations in all of the following cities: Mckinney, Allen/Frisco, Plano/Richardson, Carrollton/Farmer’s Branch, Coppell, Mid-Cities, Arlington, Fort Worth, Southern Dallas/Ellis County, Cleburne, and Parker Country. All except Cleburne and Parker County seem to have websites – and many list the cities they cover. </p>
<p>It is often useful to check out all the websites, besides the one that covers your city because most have very helpful recruitment guides on their websites. (To some degree all of the recruitment guides emphasize things that are unique to Texas – like having a gajillion letters of support – that may not apply in other areas of the country, but most are quite helpful in the area of preparing for rush, creating packets, drafting resumes, etc.)</p>
<p>The types of help that the area Panhellenic organizations provide for rush vary. Most hold some sort of sorority recruitment information session. Some, like Coppell, will accept recommendation packets at their information session and actually endeavor to obtain a rec for each house at the school the potential new member will be attending. Others, like Dallas, simply create a list of women interested in recruitment that they distribute to their member organizations (which may or may not result in recs being written for the potential new member) – leaving the PNM to find her own recs.</p>
<p>TXNewCollegeMom – Your rec writers won’t forward the rec to your city Panhellenic. Many of the sorority alumnae groups in the Dallas area have a rec board that processes all the recs for their sorority from the Dallas area. The alums who write your daughter’s recs should know whether or not their sorority has a rec board. Most of the groups that have rec boards have a May 1st deadline for receiving recs from their alums, so you will want to be sure that your rec writers have packets in hand from your daughter no later than early April. For groups that don’t have a rec board, the recs go directly to the college chapter.</p>
<p>TXNewCollegeMom - I don’t think you are allowed to PM yet (I think you have to have 15 posts first though I might have that number wrong). Once you hit the magic number and gain that ability, please send me your email address and I will send you a “how to” sorority packet that the senior room moms from my Dallas-area private school give the senior girs to help them in the process. And you will definitely want to read Ahpimommy’s blog if you haven’t already. It is at sororitygirl101 dot com.</p>
<p>TXNewCollegeMom…I can help you if you need help. Go to my blog…sororitygirl101.com and email me :).</p>
<p>Just a note on resumes - once your daughter has written her’s - please review it and make sure that it is follows the usual resume form. I just got a resume in from a rec that I was writing for spring rush at an ACC school. I almost considered rewriting it before I sent it in, it was in such bad shape. However my sorority has online recs now, so I was able to cut and paste the information in to that form and clean it up some.</p>
<p>I agree with Wrestlingmom…check your resume over and over and then one more time for good measure. Sorority resumes are a little different from a standard business resume. If you need help pm me…I help girls put together resumes every year. There’s a lot we can do with language to make a PNM look “Great” on paper. Remember you rec and resume often is the first impression a sorority gets of you!</p>
<p>Thank you all for all of this invaluable information!<br>
Yes, have been reading Sorority Girl blog, LOVE!</p>
<p>Watching this game and I don’t think I have any nails left. 2 minutes. Come on, Roll Tide!</p>
<p>sent you a PM TxNewCollegeMom. My D is a freshman from the Dallas area.</p>