Mutual Selection in Formal Recruitment: Not So Mutual? For PNMs and Parents.
 

Hey, good topic. Stickied!

I feel like it would help a lot if schools did a better job at explaining the sororities' role in creating their invite list long before they rank for the first time. They need an honest tough talk about how they probably won't get everything they want back rather than the rah-rah mutual selection PC stuff many schools give them. This could be one way to soften those horrible horrible first and second round cuts most PNMs will experience. I truly feel that in the name of political correctness that we set their expectations too high.

Hear hear!

I agree. The PNMs need to understand that based on meeting them and any recs (if they do those) and their basic resume/rush app the chapters will issue a predetermined number of invites....that not all can be invited back to all groups. And that the way the PNMs rank those chapters will determine which ones they will go to if they get more invites than party slots. period, end of story...

snap snap snap

Can we please address the topic of making cuts? You are NOT cutting sororities each day. You are simply ranking them according to your preference. This helps Panhellenic match your invitations so they can discard any extra invitations you may receive if you have more than allowed for the number of parties the next day. I'd you are invited to a group that you RANKED low (not cut), it is not because they some how superseded one of the groups you liked better, it is because you did NOT receive an invitation to that group. Go to all your parties with a smile on your face, a good attitude and an intent to make a new friend. Good luck.

For whatever reason, this is the major point I think is lost on PNMs: at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much you love a house; if they don't love you back, you aren't getting a bid. I understand that they don't want the PNMs to be terrified or feel totally out of control, but the reality is that the chapters are ultimately the ones really doing most of the decision making. Yes, the PNMs get to decide which bid they'll accept and certainly have a say in the process, but if a chapter doesn't want a particular PNM for whatever reason, that PNM isn't getting a bid there.

And to add onto this, something I always tell my rec girls:

If they don't want you, you don't want them. So if a house cuts you, don't waste your time crying over it.

You want a house that wants you. You deserve a house that wants you. Focus on the houses that invited you back, not the ones that released you.

I think we should make a series of YouTube videos: Prepping for Recruitment with the Ladies of Greek Chat!

Mutual selection means that both the chapter and the PNM approve of the relationship. It's as simple as that. It doesn't mean that every PNM gets her dream chapter or that the chapters get every PNM they want. No one can force the chapters to take PNMs they don't want, and no one can force PNMs to join chapters they don't want to join. Sometimes the chapters or PNMs aren't overly enthused with who they end up with, but it usually works out. When it doesn't, there is always the option to end the relationship before initiation (which is honestly easier for the NM to do than the chapter in my experience.)

Good advice, but I think it's important to let them know that "they may have wanted you, there was just someone else they wanted more."There's a world of difference between that and the sorority not wanting you AT ALL.

The thing is...I'd hate to encourage girls to think "those snobby bitches didn't like me so forget them!" but on the other hand, to be TOO positive could make a rushee think "I just have to try extra hard, and they will bid me next semester/year." It's a hard line to walk, and I don't know how people do it.

I guess it's easier to think this in the early rounds of SEC recruitment. If a house cuts half of 1200 rushees after round one, and you were cut by them, that means you weren't even in their top 600. No one wants to be in a group where she didn't cut it for the top 600 (much less the smaller groups for rounds two, three, and prefs).

That's where it's helpful to think in terms of "fit". It's a lot like trying on shoes. They can be the cutest, most amazing shoes you've ever seen in your life but if it hurts like hell to stand up in them and they're too sizes too big, it doesn't matter how wonderful they are. Some people won't fit into certain chapters, and that's fine. But are you going to cut off your big toe to wedge your foot into those special shoes? No. And a PNM shouldn't want to be a part of a chapter that doesn't fit her right. Encouraging PNMs to find a chapter that they can see themselves living with and growing with usually works a lot better than trying to squeeze into something all wrong just because it's supposedly "better".

Yup. You just didn't make an impression on them they way other women did.

A million times this! I honestly believe that if you had put all the sororities on my campus in a hat and pulled one at random, I could have joined and been completely fine.

What I loved about my sorority experience is that we had every kind of sister in the house, so if you wanted to party, or study, or worship, or watch movies - there was always someone there who was up for that.

Obligatory: What if I end up in Slytherin?

Perhaps you should consult your Rho Chi.

Or, you know - drop out and start your own sorority.

Y'all know the Pottermore game site? You would not believe how many people there get sorted into Slytherin and ask if they can be re-sorted. Therefore, the site has an information page that says that no one will be re-sorted, that the Hat's decision is final. As you can guess, many people re-register on the site under a different name and provide different answers to the questions.

It would be kind of a shock to do that and be put into Slytherin again.

At USC, my impression of FR is that unless you're one of a few select "hot ticket" PNMs (in which case all the power is in your hands), the balance of power lies overwhelmingly with the sororities. Few women have a full schedule, much less one with all the houses they wanted, for every round of recruitment.

I think your perception is skewed since I highly doubt you've seen every PNMs invite list. This stuff functions like a bell curve. The chapters and PNMs both fall on that curve in relation to recruiting power. The chapters rarely get every PNM they want for every party, either. It's recruitment. You pick up and move on with what you have.

This. a million times this.

And with a large recruitment, I would love to tell PNMs not to take the cuts personally (which I know is really hard - if not impossible - to do). But honestly, sometimes it is just a numbers game- we HAVE to get from 1600 women down to 50.

true, but among most of my friends to whom I've spoken in other houses, it seems like they would get maybe 5/6 houses for house tours, 3/4 for slideshow, and two/two for pref—and usually at least one of their ranked houses (i.e. the ones they would want to drop if they were invited back to all their top choice, unranked houses) for house tours, and possibly for slideshow and/or pref. Obviously there's variation from PNM to PNM, no one has the same experience, and I've only talked to some of my friends, but that's been my impression for the most part.

That's anecdotal. Realize that SOMEONE is getting into the "good" chapters.

no, this is even among my friends in the "top" houses. I can think of only two or three girls tops out of everyone I know who rushed who got a full schedule of the houses they wanted every day.

I'm not speaking out of bitterness at my own experience with FR. I now realize I was at the bottom of the bell curve (though I, self-inflating as PNMs are wont to do, would have put myself in the middle, but the results indicate otherwise), and I'm very happy with where I am now—just ask literally any of my sisters. I'm just stating my observations of our formal recruitment. As an outsider (for now).

I agree with KSUViolet, every girl whose self-confidence is strong enough to get her into and through formal recruitment at USC is going to have a pretty high opinion of herself, and think she has more power than she actually does in the selection process (except for in the case of the few "hot ticket" PNMs).

To illustrate the general point I'm trying to make, here's an example.
For convo days, PNM visits houses Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, and Iota. A-D are "top" houses, and interchangeable, depending on the PNM's personality and the girls she talks to at the house. Epsilon, Zeta, and Eta are "middle" houses (again, interchangeable, like with A-D), and Theta and Iota are also more or less interchangeable with each other. She loves Alpha-Zeta, and says those are the houses she wants to go back to for house tours, and she'd prefer to drop Eta, Theta, and Iota. The next day, she receives her schedule: Beta, Delta, Epsilon, Theta, and Iota. Five out a possible six. She's been dropped by four houses, three of which she wanted to keep (so she's been dropped by half the houses she wanted to go back to). Again, she tries to drop Theta and Iota. She gets asked back to Delta, Epsilon, and Iota (three out of a possible four), eventually pledging Delta or Epsilon, after getting invited to pref with could be any two of the above three.

That seems like a pretty normal recruitment at SC to me (nothing like my own, fwiw, but like what my friends experienced), and one that is in the houses' favor over the PNMs'. But maybe I'll reevaluate after I participate in formal on the sister side.

I'm sure everyone else will disagree with me and prove me wrong because I don't know as much as they do, but these are just my observations, with my opinion tacked on.

You should keep an open mind and give it a shot.

Despite the tent talk, I've known some perfectly wonderful people who were Slytherins.

<3

Great fame and glory might be yours if you join Slytherin

( course they only take legacies...)

<3 was for the quoting of Dumbledore

I couldn't remember the quote from the sorting hat

That is the middle to bottom of the curve example. You're only seeing a part of the picture. Some girls will obviously have better returns, some will have worse. You are getting a cross section that is skewed to the right, but as much as you argue, it is skewed. No matter what you may think, each chapter cuts X number as determined by release methods. USC is no different than any other school. They don't release more than other schools, and it's not a different algorithm. It may seem severe due to the large numbers going through recruitment, but it's no different than the numbers at any other school.

This is all great preparation for entering the job market. Even those I know who kept full or nearly full cards through rush didn't get brought back to exact choices. And I know of at least one who found that her first runner-up was where she belonged and she knew it when she went back to that round. The women already in the sorority are probably better judges of fit - they have more information to make the decision. And, from sitting around in meetings where decisions were made, it's almost always the case of the sorority wanting someone more (or not having enough room for everyone they want) than not wanting a particular PNM.

It's been said here before but I hear it EVERY recruitment where a woman says "I'm so pissed ABC invited me back because I cut them. And if they hadn't invited me back, I would have had a spot open to go to my favorite chapter XYZ but since ABC wanted me more I got them".

No.

If you are going to a chapter you didn't like (ranked lowest), the ones you ranked higher didn't want you as much as the other women they invited back. None of the other chapter prevented you from getting in.

This is such a great post! I really wish I had known about this. At my school, chapters have a majority of the power and it would have been great to hear about this!

Agreed completely!! I really hate how Panhellenic sugar coats things to the PNMs about the whole mutual selection thing. The phrase "mutual selection" is also very VERY misleading! I would know from experience. I know if I was a Rho Gamma/Pi Chi/Rho Chi/whatever you want to call it, I would straight up be honest with my group of girls and fully explain the term. I also feel like recruitment counselors don't give advice to PNMs on do's and don'ts of recruitment. It would be so beneficial to the girls! After going through formal recruitment twice, mine never gave the real truth about recruitment nor did they give tips for everyone in the group to hear. Don't get me wrong...I love love loved my rho gammas!! They did give good advice one on one, but I wish they had given tips for everyone.