Bingo. Perhaps if they didn't call it "mutual selection", that would clear up some of the confusion.

To the top! Such good points made in this one.

The use of mutual with the word selection is such total garbage it makes me want to yak.

I posted about this before! It really needs to be called something else!

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...d.php?t=127132

Bumping this one! :)

bump

Bump again

Bump again

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhh with the BUMPS.

This year, I know of 5 PNMs who claim that they won't be getting recs for SEC rush, something along the lines of "if they don't like me for who I am, I don't want to belong". Um, we're talking about 2 different things here. Move along.

Trophy culture and recruitment
 

I have also been thinking a lot about this topic this past weekend after seeing an HBO special about trophies and youth sports. I used to think the "everybody gets a trophy" thing was hyperbole, but apparently it is common. I'm in my mid-30's, and it wasn't the case when I was a kid. I now have kids of my own, but they aren't at the age where they are playing organized sports.

I have encountered a few PNMs who are over-confident, and plenty who are grounded in reality. I recently met a young woman who had done pageants all through high school, but had never won a pageant. When I talked with her about bracing for disappointments (she is attending a large SEC school), she said that she had no illusions about the fact that she WILL (not might) be cut and she had learned how to handle disappointment because of her pageant experience. She stated that she thinks recruitment will be a lot like pageants -- lots of attractive, well qualified, involved and well spoken girls, but only one gets first.

I've never been a huge fan of pageants, but the way she talked, it made me think of it in a whole different light. This was a young woman who knows she is talented, but has the self-awareness to know she isn't the best -- a stark contrast to some girls I'd met. Then, this last weekend I saw this Real Sports talking about our "trophy nation" and how giving kids continual medals for being last is actually harmful to their brains and neurological reward system.

It made me realize that recruitment for some young women might be the first time in their life they experience real disappointment -- and the coddling and praise some girls and teens get from parents and teachers make them very ill prepared for the realities of recruitment. People are often quick to judge the recruitment system and process, but it just made me wonder, what kind of message does it send if we give this illusion that it is truly mutual selection? Perhaps it should be rephrased at "Primary/Secondary" selection -- meaning sororites get to make the primary selection, and a PNM makes the secondary selection, IF she has multiple selections.

http://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/races-sports/how-participation-trophies-are-making-our-kids-soft-20150725

I think that the phrase mutual selection is correct at some recruitments, and those recruitments are often the ones where the pool of rushees is made up mostly of what are called maybe joiners. In that case I think it's a good thing to say, and alleviates rushees' fears that they might end up somewhere or in something they don't want.

There have always been girls who were "miss everything" at their hs and got to rush and didn't get what they wanted.

What slays me the most about this generation is how the kids are perfectly OK with their parents calling and complaining about them not getting into this or that Group, bad grades, etc. I was very sheltered and closer to my parents than most kids of my generation, but if my mother would have said anything to anyone asking why I didn't get in to a certain sorority's pref party, I would have been MORTIFIED and wanted to quit school.

So many good points here.

I do kind of like the primary/secondary selection thing, but it's just not as catchy a phrase. I wonder if part of the solution to the mutual selection messaging is to emphasize the competition among PNMs. During orientation, point out that each sorority will only get to take a quota's worth of girls, and then make that really clear to the girls.

To use Alabama 2014 as an example: of the 2,276 women registered, quota is expected to be about 120. That means that YOUR favorite chapter can only bid about 5% of the PNMs. Same with your second favorite, and your third favorite. With those numbers, keep in mind that it can be much easier for YOU to decide the order that you prefer the 17 chapters, but it is extremely difficult for the chapters to decide which women they will invite back each day.

Just like college admissions, this is a numbers game: keep an open mind for all of the chapters, and you will find a home. If you have your sights set only on Harvard, Stanford and Yale, then you have to accept the risk that you may not get into any college at all.

All I can say to that is bless their hearts.

I would have dropped out and started over again at another school never to be seen or heard from again had my mother done something like that. I might also have possibly considered changing my name.

I so agree LAblondeGPhi. Also, keep in mind that at a recruitment as large as Alabama's (once again record numbers), the number of legacies for each chapter more than meets quota, so there will be many disappointments. I have begun to cringe at the number of recent FaceBook posts recently seeking recs for PNMs. My daughter's chapter at Alabama stopped accepting them on 7/15. It's a bit late in the game now to be looking for recs for many larger SEC competitive recruitment schools who have an early fall recruitment.

It is exactly like college admissions, just at a much faster pace.

I think the adjective I would use instead of mutual is layered.

The first layer of decisions is made by the sorority, and the second layer of decisions is made by the PNM.

But as compared to college admissions, most students know they are not Harvard material, and don't go visit Harvard, fall in love with Harvard, apply to Harvard, and then get rejected from Harvard.

Point of fact - Harvard has an extensive admission process and lots of people take the tour but don't finish the application. Harvard also has a 5.9% admission rate so LOTS of people fall in love with Harvard and don't get in to Harvard or go to another school for a year and then try to get in to Harvard. Its a pretty good anaolgy.

Oh nonononono. Local high school graduation was today and several girls told my husband, a teacher, which sororities they plan to pledge this fall.:(

Oh dear. Recruitment is going to be a quite the eye opener for those young ladies.:(

Wishing for the HaHaHa "Like" icon from Facebook!!!

If you are told to get recs., get them. You might be all that and a bag of chips at your HS, but you will be a small fish in a big sea at your state university, and all those other fish are also all that and a bag of chips. Do everything you can to boost yourself up.

I chatted with a mom at a high school grad party yesterday who told me her daughter will be going through Auburn recruitment. The mom wasn't Greek and the daughter will be OOS. I've known the family through sports and church for years, so I asked her if her daughter needed a rec for my sorority. The mom shrugged and said "eh, I don't think she needs that because we've got recs for three or four houses already, so I think she'll be okay"!

oh my!

I hope you tried to talk some sense into her. Maybe she's not familiar with the process since she's not Greek.

Yes!
A few moms on our recruitment moms Facebook page come in thinking that.
They are quickly disabused of that notion!

Definitely going to work that into conversation this week. Like!

After all these years of teaching college, I continue to be shocked by all the superstars who are shocked when they get to college and--they're not the only superstars. What on earth do they expect if they're going to a competitive school? There will be zillions of valedictorians, Miss or Mr. Everythings, and state athletics winners!

Have you never heard that expression before? Perhaps it's not as common and well-known as I thought?

I remember using it in the early 90s.

I tell my seniors that every kid going to college is smart, has activities and volunteer work. What are they going to do to separate themselves from the herd...in a good way, of course.

30 years ago I thought I was a very special snowflake too. Cheer leading captain, salutatorian, etc. I was so in shock when I got to my university and had to really, really try to get good grades.

SO....I give these kids a break.

Have heard it but in the south you're more likely to hear "greatest thing since sliced bread."

So for over 20 years, I have thought that “All that and bag of chips” came from the “Men On Film” sketch on In Living Color (Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier). But Googling it now, it appears there is no connection. But I think people did start saying it around that time that show was on, so I must have linked them in my mind.

Recently had a PNM tell me "I don't need recs from (and she listed several outstanding NPC sororities) because I'm only interested in (and she listed a few other NPC sororities)."

I've never been able to hide my thoughts behind a neutral facial expression.

She didn't pick up on my horror, but her friends did, and so did her mother (who is not a sorority alumna).

I politely refused to write her a rec, although my chapter was one she deemed worthy. I also informed her that it was unfortunate that she had made up her mind before going through recruitment. I wished her the very best of luck.

Stupid idiot. I have access to rec writers in 22/26 NPC sororities right here where I live. And yes, she is going to a competitive recruitment school. Somehow I don't think this is going to end up quite the way she envisions it ending.

It was a thing for a while among audience members on the daytime talk shows (Ricki Lake, etc.) in the early '90s. That and "You need to dump that zero and find yourself a hero!" :P

Just this week I gave a presentation to the mothers of pnms. "Your daughters are undoubtedly beautiful, poised, intelligent, and have a slew of extracurricular activities. Guess what? So are the other hundreds of girls going through recruitment." (I then went on to explain RFM and how they needed to encourage their daughter to have an open mind, support them emotionally as they ride that roller coaster, and ESPECIALLY if they are sorority members to remember that what was right for them might not be right for their daughters. Whew.)

Never heard it before.

Sliced bread I've known and used forever.