Should we change the way PNMs think of Recruitment?
 

Hey y'all! Sorry for being missing in the wilderness but school/life has been seriously busy for me. The curse of the upperclassman as graduation approaches!

Caveat: Forgive me if this idea has been covered ad nauseaum/is a fire starter, I do not mean to tread on any toes or upset anyone!

I was just watching re-runs of Next Top Model the other day and I had a thought. If you take out the shallow perceptions, the process for entry into both are pretty similar. You have a whole bunch of girls who are very similarly qualified. A few who absolutely stand out and a few who just won't make it for one reason or another.

But at the end of the day even though all the girls want to be part of the top model competition its the Judges that make the decisions as to who gets into the top model house.

The term 'mutual selection' may give the PNMs the impression that their choices are equally important. However the reality is that the GLO chooses you, and if your preferences match then that's the mutual selection part
I know PNMs should be more rational about these things, but we all know
that Recruitment can bring out the most irrational thought processes in some of these young women.

As harsh, and non-egalitarian as it sounds, perhaps there needs to be more emphasis on the fact that dozens to a 100+ girls are the ones choosing the PNM rather than the other way around?

Well thats my rambling, feel free to add your two-cents!

I hope all the GCers are well and especially my Trojan family

Panhellenic Love,
28StGreek

What if the PNM doesn't like the house that chooses her? Plus what determines a PNM's qualification?

Well the PNM's preferences would still have to match the bid list etc.

I was just wondering whether PNMs thought they had more of a influencing factor in the whole process that they do in practice.

A PNM's qualifications: GPA, extra-curricular involvement, and lets be honest, their looks, or at least how well put together they are.

That really was getting at the point that while Little Miss High School Star thinks she definitely has all the qualities which make her an obvious candidate for Greek Life, almost every other girl going through recruitment is also a Little Miss High School Star. Nowadays, just like applicants for college itself, so many young women, have enviable resumes.

Hope that answers your questions princessamy

Yes thats what I was trying to get at. You did a better job explaining my thoughts! If only I always had you to translate myself to my classmates :-)

I agree but I fear that political correctness--i.e., not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings--will keep Panhellenic Councils from doing this. I really wish that they would be blunter about it, especially at highly competitive schools.

Well I was speaking from the perspective of a school with highly competitive recruitment, they seem to be the ones which produce the most sob stories on GC. I guess its either because of the ultra competitive atmosphere, or rather its the PNMs at those schools that take Greek Life more 'seriously' (not to slight smaller/less competitive schools).

Absolutely. This is the same ridiculousness that keeps college Panhellenics from being able to say "you don't have a snowball's chance in hell if you don't have recs/know people from Foofoo High/go to Roundup etc." Which is stupid, because the TRULY politically correct thing to do would be to make sure EVERYONE is informed of this, not just the "old girl network" who knows you have to have recs/Foofoo/Roundup etc - and who therefore keeps tight rein on the membership of the groups.

And if this means that chapters at less competitive schools get recs that they really don't need, well, that's not that big of a deal. Seriously.

When I went through rush back in the dark ages, I was able to cut invites because I'd received more invites than I had parties to attend. I also was under no illusion where the power was. However, I also believe that I received more invites back then than a woman with similar recs and qualifications would now due to the larger groups having to make larger cuts earlier.

It really changed with quota additions, didn't it? If they don't "maximize" their options, they aren't eligible for quota additions but that also means they have to go to some parties that they don't really want to attend. In my day, if you didn't want to go to a party, you just didn't go and there were no repercussions.

I really like the idea of seeing the invites and then choosing. Two questions though:

1. How does it work? The chapters on my campus are matched with a specific PNM who comes to a party. Basically Patty PNM is matched with Sorority Sue at XYZ during party one. Would the PNM see her invites, choose and come back later for her schedule or what?

2. Does tent talk play more in these situations? I'm imagining all the PNMs sitting in a dorm room chatting. On the other hand, having more time to think on the interactions at each chapter aka sleeping on it might help.

I remember going through recruitment a second time and someone in my group asked how our invites were chosen. They were amazed that members would vote/rank/judge the pnms. I don't know how she thought it was before, but she was amazed that her invites depended on what the members thought of her.

It was my understanding that some campuses still do this, and yes - basically just like that. The PNMs meet with their Rho Whatevers in the morning, sit down at a computer and see their invitations for that day and decide who to go back to, and who to regret. In that case, they truly are 'cutting' a chapter because they've already received invitations. My concern with this is two-fold: 1) logistically, it seems like such a waste of time to do this the day of parties (which means a potential time crunch in determining party schedules, and less time for chapters to prepare for the returning PNMs) when they could have PNMs rank while the chapters are ranking. and 2) Yes, I would expect that tent talk would play a greater role when the PNMs have an entire evening back at the dorms to gossip before they have to make their final decisions.

I think it shouldn't be too hard for Panhellenics to take 5 minutes to explain that chapters decide who to invite back, while PNMs are ranking their preferred returns. Chapters have limited numbers of invitations, so not everyone can be invited back to every chapter. You will be matched for the next round with chapters that have invited you back, in order of your preference. Now, whether the PNMs understand and choose to hear it is another issue.

Something that might help the whole situation is an additional print-out showing the results of the previous day's matching, in addition to their party schedule, for example:

Ranks:
#1 - ABC - Invitation / Return
#1 - BCD - Invitation / Return
#1 - CDE - No Invitation
#1 - DEF - Invitation / Return
#2 - FGH - Invitation / Return
#3 - GHI - Invitation / No Return

Party Schedule:
BCD
FGH
DEF
ABC

I think the mutual selection comes more from the PNMs ability to not rank a particular organization. I see it very often at my university where girls will not rank all of the organization available to them.

However, I have always wondered this and maybe someone can explain this better to me. A guy can go through multiple rush's on campus and actually receive more than one bid. It's his choice than to accept one of those bids. What caused or was the reasoning behind a girl only being able to receive on bid at the end of formal recruitment?

Mathematically, the PRUSH (PNM's make their selections immediately after their parties) makes more sense than SORUSH (PNM's get a list of invites and choose which to accept). In PRUSH with RFM, both the PNM's and the chapters have flexlists, so the right number of women end up at each chapter during each round. If a campus used RFM and SORUSH, they could end up with too few women, and couldn't go back and add via the flexlist.

Thank you everyone for the good discussion. Especially to learn about how recruitment used to be structured

Is it really 'mean' and 'politically incorrect' to remind the PNMs that while their preferences are taken into account, not to forget that their preferences only are considered AFTER the Chapters have have made their selections of who to invite back to the next day?

There are many of us who desperately wish that NPC would tell the schools to be upfront about that. Every year, we watch these girls go off to the SEC schools saying that they're only "rushing for" certain groups and then the debacle begins after second parties. :(

And then you get the girls going through non SEC schools who have heard that recruitment is not as competitive as SEC schools and are flabbergasted when they are dropped by their favorites- hello, you are, in reality, competing against the rest of the PNM pool for a few spots that most girls going through also want.

Yes!! That too!!

My personal recruitment experience benefited from having 2 older siblings and 1 older cousin having gone through recruitment at the same school previously. So I definitely knew the reality of the process. After the PC rose tinted glasses have been taken off.

I just can't help but wonder with all the resources/scary stories on the internet now, that some girls going to the really competitive SEC, Big12 (+ SMU) schools not to mention FSU, Arizona, Southern Cal (and maybe even Cornell) that they don't have a realistic expectation. I guess every girl wants to believe they are the best and will be everyone's rush crush, but thats just a recipe for disappointment for the vast majority of PNMs

^^^^ And the PNMs at supercompetitive schools. who drop out after second round, when their top three houses had to cut them, thinking they'll make it next year as Sophomores.

nor are they the ones who COB once recruitment is over.

I have never felt like it was my place (not having ever been through a recruitment) to bring this topic up - but I'm glad that you did 28stgreek because I had resolved that if it ever did come up - I wanted to share daughter's experience with this subject since she saw the honest approach and the "rainbows and ponies" approach used in her two recruitments and she knows which one worked better in the long run. Warning: this is long and windy.

As I mentioned in her recruitment story, daughter was a sophomore with grade issues (not to mention a few other issues) when she went into recruitment at her first school. She had spent enough time reading on GC to know she might have a problem on her hands.

After reading on here at least 1,747, 657 times that your best bet if you had specific questions about recruitment at your school was to call your Greek life office and ask, she did just that. The person in charge of Greek life at WSU in 2008 (want this to be mentioned because whoever she was - kudos to her) was polite but honest in telling her that she was facing an uphill battle, the odds were not in her favor, she would probably face stiff cuts and if that was going to devastate her she might want to get her grades up first and go through next year or think about informal although she couldn't say if that would be happening. In other words - the sororities make the decisions and as it stands they have better options than you (her wording was much nicer, of course).

At the time, daughter thought the woman was one of many big meanie witches who was conspiring to keep her out of a sorority. Two weeks later, after she had dropped out of recruitment, she had a different opinion. Getting cut by chpaters she loved and where she had friends, hurt, but having someone honestly prepare her for what could happen and why helped her accept it and move on fairly quickly. Now, she is grateful to that woman. Her honesty was a kindness - it saved daughter a world of hurt.

Fast forward to the next recruitment (current school). Daughter understood it was up to sororities -not her. Roomate, who was also going through recruitment, was a bright eyed freshman who had drunk the "recruitment isn't very competitive here and everyone finds a chapter they love" kool-aide. She couldn't understand why daughter was stressed - after all - they were guaranteed bids (as she understood it) and at orientation they told them it was mutual selection and you'd find a home you loved. What could possibly go wrong?

Next day, roommate was upset to find out the chapter she absolutely loved had cut her. The next day, same thing. Then, she got her second choice on bid day (she liked the chapter - it just wasn't her first choice).

It took her a while to get past it and I think a lot of that had to do with drinking that kool-aide. She loves her chapter now - couldn't be happier, and I'm fairly certain she is one who now couldn't see herself anywhere else, but I believe if Greek life had been a little blunter in explaining things at that orientation - she would have been happier quicker.

Oh, I don't know of any, I was saying that SORUSH wouldn't work with RFM. I went through with SORUSH, and we got the wrong lists one round. Whoops.

Well thank y'all for the discussion!

Just a thought are the opinions of "Blunt, Rational, Transparent recruitment" vs "inclusive, every PNM has an equal chance recruitment" philosophies vary depending on whether a campus' Panhellenic recruitment is considered competitive?

Does the Panhellenic community at very competitive schools feel that PNMs should know how competitive it is and that they really are being chosen from a very similar field with many PNMs having stellar resumes?

This might go in the same box as "All PNMs need recs to every house or they will be cut, but Panhellenic can't explicitly state this"?

Or is this feeling present throughout Panhellenics across the majority of campuses big or small; and its just the PC police that makes the situation misrepresented to the PNMs?

Am I making sense?

It's competitive if you're the one getting cut. If the school uses RFM, then it's competitive. Period. We've discussed here quite a bit that competitive generally means that you will likely find A home (presuming you have all the required credentials for your campus) but you may not find THE home.

And it IS a mutual selection process if you go all the way through rush as the superstar rushee who doesn't get cut by any chapters. Then the rushee gets to participate in the deciding. It does happen, even at the mega schools, just not very often, like I'd bet it goes that way for a handful of girls per school per year. Out of 1000+. If a girl can do SOME deciding, then that's great, but she shouldn't expect (although they do every year!) to get her top list for every round without having to go to any ranked chapters through the process.

KUDOS to the Greek adviser AXOMom mentioned. More of that and less of unicorns pooping rainbows would be extremely helpful to a lot of girls.

I think people are misunderstanding the process. The "chapters" don't get to make the decisions first. The lists of chapters and PNMs are matched together every day. Top performing chapters and top performing PNMs get what they want first which leaves both weaker performing chapters and PNMs to take what is left over on their lists that makes them think it's not mutual selection. The "chapters" as a group aren't getting any choices before the PNMs. The lists must be matched. If chapter XYZ wants the top PNMs and they don't list XYZ, there is nothing they can do about it. PNMs want to whine when they get XYZ on their list, but XYZ also whines when they get PNMs they don't want every single day. It works both ways. In the end, this is the point of RFM...to make these women think about what is in front of them instead of what they can't have (from the PNM side and the chapter side.)

Exactly - It IS a mutual selection process. Every chapter on a campus (except, MAYBE, for ultra-unusual superstar chapters at a few campuses) will lose PNMs they love at some point in recruitment. It might be on Bid Day instead of Round 1, but that's evidence of selection on the PNM side.

Conversely, how many PNMs truly get a bid to the chapter they ranked last every single day? I would say that's pretty unusual. The great majority of PNMs will have some say throughout their recruitment as far as which chapters they return to.

I think the reason why we have this idea that chapters are the ones deciding is only because we have a track record for how well chapters do in recruitment, and therefore we give them target numbers of women to return for each round of recruitment. The chapters know ahead of time about how many of their favorite PNMs to expect back, and will invite accordingly - but sometimes this means that a chapter is inviting back women they're fairly uncertain about for the next round. PNMs have no idea about their relative recruitable strength, so its an emotional shock when they aren't invited back to their favorite house.

Maybe it would be beneficial for NPC to create a video to be used at recruitment orientations around the country, explaining a little bit better what to expect during the process, and how the mutual selection process works. It'd ensure some consistency in what's being told PNMs year to year and from campus to campus.

Maybe it would be beneficial for NPC to create a video to be used at recruitment orientations around the country, explaining a little bit better what to expect during the process, and how the mutual selection process works. It'd ensure some consistency in what's being told PNMs year to year and from campus to campus.

What a wonderful idea LABlondeGPhi__________________

. . . Then if a PNM chooses to misunderstand the video, she only has herself to blame.

Aw shucks. Thank you!

Sadly, I think that would be 95% of PNM's. It's an intriguing idea, though...at the recruitment orientation, there are always women who speak about how great their sorority experience has been. How would things change if at least one of them spoke about having a tough recruitment? Would anyone even be willing to do that?

Panhellenic (the entity) does not know the membership selection procedures of the individual groups so honestly, it is in their best interests (regardless of what I said below) to NOT say "you have to have recs or you'll get cut from all chapters." They don't know what criteria those chapters are using to release women unless they're in the room when it's happening. For all they know, they're using the Animal House method.

However, there's nothing to stop THE CHAPTERS from putting that information on their web page.

And to the bolded, I would say yes. That's the old girl network I referred to.

On another note, I think that NPC doesn't want to make the process sound harder than it really is at schools where Greek life is struggling already.

Yes. Regardless of everything else, ultimately the chapters are the ones who want to put a PNM on their bid list. While not strictly true to the definition, the chapters would be see as an oligopoly, since they're the only ones which can provide the product (i.e. a bid), and as such they definitely hold the power in the relationship between a chapter and a PNM.

It becomes mutual when a chapter's bidlist and PNM preference list match up. And I suppose in a way more and more mutual towards the end of recruitment.

But in the early days of the process the chapters definitely are choosing.

Mutual selection doesn't mean that the PNM gets to choose a chapter and join even if she doesn't fit. RFM has made the process more mutual than it was before when PNMs were strung along thinking they had a chance with that dream chapter and being cut before prefs when they have no choices left. True "mutual selection" can only occur when there are no quotas, but there are so complaining is futile. At the top end of the stratum, the chapters have more power, and at the lower end, the PNMs have more power. At all points, each party can say "No" which is their right. There really is no way around OT except to make PNMs take stock of their situation.

I disagree. This only holds true for the strongest chapters - but it also holds true for the strongest PNMs. I think DubaiSis mentioned it before, that if you're a weaker PNM or a weaker chapter (comparatively), then you won't have quite the pick of your favorites, but you definitely have some choice. If you are the weakest chapter or weakest PNM, you'll have the least amount of choice.

Again, I'm betting that the vast majority of PNMs are able to regret at least ONE chapter in the first round, if not more. And I'd bet that almost every PNM is able to regret at least one chapter by the end of the recruitment, if not more.

We hear much more about PNMs being upset about being released from a chapter because there are hundreds of PNM stories for every handful of sorority stories. Besides, sororities don't air their laundry about how upset they are that they lost Suzy Perfect Legacy after Round 2 - but it happens ALL THE TIME. I think the sororities are just better about not getting hung up on the lost PNMs, and instead focus on the PNMs they still have.

Again, someone mentioned flex lists on the part of the chapters. Those invitation lists aren't set in stone- additional PNMs can be released or added to the invitation list if a chapter does better or worse than expected.