I'm going to go on and say as well that a lot of Freshmen don't know what we know. At all.

I came from a non-Greek family. I straight up told another fraternity that I was rushing SigEp. Whoops. But I had absolutely no idea that that was taboo. I never had to prove myself to join an organization. We also didn't have Meet the Greeks or anything along the lines when I rushed.

Ignorant? Sure. I wouldn't say stupid, though.

Clemsongirl - you are too kind. The information they need is all over this site. In some cases by specific school. And there is an annual thread for Ole Miss for the last three years. Ignoring what is front of you is something entirely different.

I just did that now, just for funsies, and found the following that made me laugh.
http://i39.tinypic.com/2s834hk.png
and also this:
http://i44.tinypic.com/j7avrs.png
Hijack over.

This happens at my school more than you would expect. I remember during fall recruitment a girl telling me she was an in house legacy to ABC and so she was only interested in them. She was going to be an ABC, or she was going to keep trying till she got it. And in the spring, there is a lot of "I only went to XYZ's party because other sororities suck"

I think it's absolutely INSANE that someone would actually want a certain sorority based on their colors or mascot or something else really superficial. Hopefully if it happens, it's a very rare occurence. Maybe I wasn't a typical rushee, because I thought it was insane back in the day when I rushed. But then again, I had really good Rho Chis who kept emphasizing how important it was to figure out which group of women made you feel the most comfortable - "popular" house or not.

I will confess that my 16-year-old self made grand decisions on which sororities I thought would be more desirable by their composites (did they wear the same thing or were they individuals), how many Greek letters (as opposed to Roman ones) were in each sorority;s name, and what their colors were. We fully discussed them at camp during the summer prior to rush, so it wasn't just my age, either. BUT! Once rush started, I realized immediately how superficial that all was, and made decisions based on compatibility.


While I realize that the young women coming here for the first or second time may not understand how terribly naive they sound, there's just too much information given on Greek Chat to ignore that lack of knowledge for very long.

In other words, PNMs, in the name of all things sane, PLEASE read all of the stickies!!!

IMO, it's crazy that girls open their mouths at all about which particular chapters they want to join (aside from telling their close friends and family).. especially before arriving at school. I will admit that when I had my first tiny inkling of wanting to join, I had a chapter or two in mind for partially superficial reasons (e.g. colors, letters, history, etc.), but at that point I was already at school, I had met some of the members, and I wasn't truly serious about going through recruitment. And even when I had members actively recruiting me and I knew that I definitely wanted a bid from the sisters who showed the most interest in me, I never made it a point to publicly announce that "I so want to be an AST!"

(And essentially, without realizing it at the time, I learned that meeting the members and learning what they were all about was the most important thing about recruitment, and about finding out where I truly fit in)

I'm sure there were girls before the internet age that were more than willing to spill the beans, but it bears repeating that you should keep quiet and that social media is a..

Yes, I'm quoting myself.. simply to say that part of the reason why I think I was so hesitant to announce my hopes and dreams to the world is because I was also aware of the possibility of rejection. As we've said many times here before, there are PNMs going through recruitment who have never had the experience of someone telling them, "Sorry, you didn't make it," or "No, you can't do this," or "It's unfortunate, but you're not going to be able to participate in that." Some PNMs are expecting to get a bid from a particular chapter, regardless of whether or not they know how the process works. They've always received what they wanted in the past, so why should anything change when they get to college?

Fraternity rush is COMPLETELY different. Completely. Announcing you were only interested in one fraternity is not on a par with announcing you are only interested in certain sororities. As you point out, you were able to participate in a far more informal and unstructured recruitment. The way sorority recruitment works punishes pnms who are ignorant or foolish in a way fraternity recruitment does not.

I'm curious to know if any of the young ladies you describe ever see the error in what they did by announcing they only wanted to join a particular NPC org?

Sometimes. Sometimes they're friends-of-friends whose posts just show up on my feed or whose stories I hear about. About half the time, it's someone I know. I have only known this to work out the way the girl wanted it once but then her school wasn't highly competitive.

Thanks!:)

The summer before my son started college, he joined the Facebook group, "Samford class of 2012". There was a thread for people looking to find roommates, and one of the students had uploaded a questionnaire that asked among other things, whether the student was going to rush or not. The majority of the girls who filled out the questionnaire also spilled their guts on which sorority(ies) they were interested in. My daughter (going in to her junior year at Samford-and a sorority member) and I got a big kick out of the unyielding certainty that so many of the PNMs showed, that ABC or DEF was the place for them. There were even a few who said "any group but KLM". The funniest thing was that of the girls who completed recruitment, 9 times out of 10 the PNMs did not join the group they thought they were destined to and some who had said any group but "X", joined X.

Prezactly.

Your point, which was not lost on me, is that sometimes people just don't know. That doesn't make them stupid.

You point was anywhere near about the differences between fraternity and sorority recruitment because you already stated that what you said and did was taboo on your campus.

People read what they feel like reading. smh

Yep, if I was applying to competitive schools I certainly wouldn't say what my first choice was or be buying their stuff online, as I would look like a jackass if what I wanted did not occur. I think ASTalumna06 hit the nail on the head when she said many of these kids have NEVER been told "no, you can't have that" or "no, that prize is only for the people who do the best job." Time to learn.