<p>Her friends who are actives in ABC shouldn’t have promised her a bid. That’s a rush infraction and ABC could be fined for that. In terms of minimizing options (suiciding) your D shouldn’t have listened to her friends who are actives but instead to her rush counselor who would have encouraged all the rushees to go back to all parties to which they were invited.</p>
<p>Motherdear, Yes I agree. We did have a few converstions about keeping an open mind. She just felt strongly about ABC. Oh well, good lesson learned. I also think she would have made better choices if she had rushed in Spring of freshman year, when freshmen are first allowed to rush. She may have kept a more open mind. One comforting thing is that her school has a very large non-Greek population. She’ll be ok. It’s just me obsessing! Thanks for listening.</p>
<p>If formal rush is deferred to spring AND she is at a school with a miniscule Greek population, she could very well successfully find her home as a sophomore in January.</p>
<p>True, I will tell her that when she is ready to listen! You never know, she may decide to try again in the spring. I’m thinking though that she may not be remembered kindly by the others because she concentrated on only ABC. Also, last time we spoke at length, she only felt a connection with ABC. This might not be the case at present!! But if she wants to try with an open mind, I would encourage that. Thanks for listening Motherdear. My own mother, my husband and my older daughter think I’m a little silly for putting all this effort into worrying about D! And I do know that whatever happens she will be fine. She has been disappointed before and bounced back.</p>
<p>My daughter rushed this fall, which was the first week of school. She found the process exhausting, but positive. She finished with a bid to the sorority that had been the sorority of many dancers from her dance school. (Only two are still in the sorority, the rest had graduated.) And she sounds extremely happy about that. (Now, if her voice would just come back…)</p>
<p>My husband and I are not Greeks, nor were any aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. But when she wanted to go for it we were very supportive. My husband’s health has taken a turn for the worse, and the thought of her far away without emotional support was heart wrenching. It comforts me to hear she has 35 instant friends (her pledge class), who can pull her through hard times.</p>
<p>UCD, I’m sorry to hear about your husband’s health. My older D was a freshman when my H was diagnosed with agressive cancer, 4 and a half years ago. It did help that she had good friends up at college, even though she was not in a sorority. I’m sure your D’s new “sisters” will be very supportive, and that will be a big help. I remember feeling torn, not wanting to tell older D all the details of my H’s medical condition, not wanting her to worry, not keeping her updated. </p>
<p>Looking back, I probably should have kept her in the loop more, but didn’t know how to do that without tempting her to “run back home.” It was hard, but we got through it. Also, part of the reason I know my younger D (see above) will be OK is that she was at home with us during the worst part of the diagnosis, prognosis, uncertainty, craziness of finding specialists, and nutty relatives and friends hounding the begeebies out of HER for info on her Dad!! It was hard on her, but made her a stronger person. And thank God, my H is doing well today. Good luck and we send you positive thoughts.</p>
<p>My kids all met their college friends in dorms, classes and at activities so they ended up with an incredible variety of people they are close to. Their perception is that frats and sororities attracted a more homogeneous crowd. Disagree? Agree?</p>
<p>The fact that a sorority might be more homogeneous doesn’t mean that a sorority member will not have the same diverse group of friends on her college campus. Her sorority friends will be one part of her life, but she will also have friends in her classes, her sport and her on-campus extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>I was thinking the same thing, siliconvalleymom.
But then there are people who totally submerge themselves into their small group (whether it’s a greek, a religious organization, a political cause, their workplace, etc.). And there are those who compartmentalize their social circles and have friends just about everywhere. I would never recommend to my sons that they limit their circle to just a fraternity.</p>
<p>Relative homogeneity will depend a lot on the campus. There are certainly some campuses where the student body as a whole is very diverse and the fraternities and sororities reflect that.</p>
<p>There are others where the stereotypes hold true - the campus is diverse and the Greeks are WASPs and prep school grads.</p>
<p>There are certainly other campuses (like my alma mater - a flagship state public) where the student body isn’t very diverse at all simply because the state isn’t very diverse. The fraternities and sororities don’t really care and as such are decently accurate representations of campus as well. </p>
<p>At my campus, I had many friends I met through various means, but because the Greeks were so prominently involved, almost all my friends I met in on-campus organizations (and I was very involved) were also Greek.</p>
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<p>Disagree 90%. The 10% agreement is that greeks are homogoneous in the sense that they have similar social lives. Otherwise, they have different socio-economic backgrounds/majors/sports/ECs just like everyone else on campus.</p>
<p>“Rushed,” a controversial documentary on Northwestern University’s sorority recruitment process, received honorable mention at Northwesterns film festival.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.northbynorthwestern.com/2006/12/1148/rushed/[/url]”>http://www.northbynorthwestern.com/2006/12/1148/rushed/</a></p>
<p>The greek system and the rush process is not an easy one by any stretch of the imagination. I spoke to my D’s whose school is going through sorority rush this year, and she did say it is going to be difficult and each round beoming more and more difficult as they look at 370 young women knowing that they can only take ~40 women into the house (she said a lot of wonderful young women will be cut simply for a lack of space). She told me about one of her friend’s sorority took 7 hours for deliberations the other night just in the first round. The men’s process is much shorter happens over the period of a weekend and has the option of shaking out (you simply offer your handshake letting the frat know that you are interested and if admitted you will attend- although not obligated to. Kind of puts you in the mind set of applying ED).</p>
<p>But the one thing you must keep in mind is that the greek system varies from school to school, so Northwestern’s greek process does not mean that the process is the same at other schools (even within the same greek organization). So parents/students looking at greek systems will need to focus on the greek system at the school that you attend. Just as with everything else, YMMV.</p>
<p>In the fraternity system, a visitor can be offered a bid (invitation to join) anytime during the pledge week. They are simply taken aside, and offered an invitation. Infinitely more humane than that proferred up in the video, although I can totally understand why sororities do it that way- it’s their way of being as fair as they can be. Fair, sometimes, is not exactly the most compassionate way, but hey, can anyone come up with anything better?</p>
<p>The harsh aspects of sorority rush run both ways. Just as some girls fare better during rush, a few houses on every campus are considered by the rushees to be the most desirable and the other houses are cut by girls as long as they still have other options.
What I wish that colleges provided more information to incoming rushees about the process. It is hard for houses to cut, too, and it would be so much better if rushees understood that GPAs, freshman class standing (or not) and rec letters make a big difference. I sat through many teary meetings during rush. There was no one in my house who took any pleasure in cutting anyone.</p>
<p>Food for thought…
How is the selection process a whole lot different than aspects of the college acceptance process? Isn’t selecting a kid who lived on a dude ranch in Montana over a kid who played basketball in the suburbs, because the dude ranch kid is more interesting, or “diversified” (less <em>boring</em>), just as arbitrary as selecting girls because they’ll be more interesting/attractive at future mixers? Holistic admissions is, in MANY cases, just as superficial as selecting girls to be food servers rather than greeters. Please. Why don’t people speak out against holistic admissions? There’s more here than meets the eye. Sororities make up SOOOooo little of the total population of college students, yet get the brunt of “not faaaaiiirrrr!”. Personally, those girls in the video (the wanna-be’s) came across as whiney and spoiled. They wanted to be in, but were quick to criticize when/if they felt like they weren’t going to get picked. Oldest story in the book.</p>
<p>Except for IU and a couple of other schools, quota is NOT set by “empty beds in the house.” It is set by the total number of PNMs divided by the total number of Panhel organizations. So if there are 200 rushees and 5 sororities, quota is 40 even if the chapter only graduated 20 seniors last year.</p>
<p>The problem that many rushees have is that they don’t keep an open mind and give all the houses a fair and thorough look. Some rushees want only the houses they perceive as most popular and ignore the rest. They get cut from the “top” houses and rather than continuing to go through recruitment at the other houses, they whine and complain.</p>
<p>For January PNMs: To maximize your deferred recruitment experience, get recs to every house on your campus,maintain your grades, and get involved in ECs at college. Don’t act like an idiot or a floozy at campus functions, keep your FB, LJ and MS squeaky-clean (no Dixie cups). During the actual recruitment, go to each house with an open mind, and go back to all houses if you don’t have to make cuts.</p>
<p>FB? LJ? MS? Dixie cups??? (I don’t even want to mention what that made me think of) What are all those?</p>
<p>I was aiming my last comment for the college rushees. Facebook, LiveJournal, Myspace are used by many students. You never know who is perusing your page whether it be a Greek upperclassman, a college administrator or faculty member, an employer…Too many college students have those gigantic plastic cups (I think I meant Solo and not Dixie) in their pictures on their account. Of course they could be holding water or soda, but people may infer otherwise.</p>
<p>Is anyone bothered by the story in the news in the last year or so that a sorority was cutting its less physically attractive members when the National organization said it was too big? I can’t remember the story in detail or the sorority but I got the impression that for some sororities “looks” are very important.</p>