trouble getting girls to sign up for formal rush

[DaffodilDarling]

When my school held Formal Recruitment, 20 women signed up. Quota was 4. We only got 3 women. It was disappointing. Nobody seememd interested in greek life this year. :-(

[James]

I don't know that deferred Rush has ever helped a campus improve numbers lol . . .

I believe Moxiegirl has the right of it, girls are more likely to find a niche before Spring semester.

[nauadpi]

I know on my campus we have problems getting women to sign up for recruitment, mainly because many of the people that go to our school are first in their families to go to college....IN turn many of them know little to nothing about greek life. In addition to that, the other two state schools have much larger greek life systems, so people do not come to NAU looking for greek life. The big things we try to do to get women to sign up are: Booths at Orientation weekends, Greek Life as a whole puts on an info session during the Orientation weekends also, Flyers about greek life are in all the information that new students get at Orientation, and to try to get returning students to go through formal recruitment we also have done flyers to the on campus residents and lowered the registration price for returning students. The big thing that makes it difficult in some ways for our campus to get women to go through recruitment is the fact that we do it the week before classes start.

Ok...I think I blathered about this too much.

[kateshort]

Here's a silly question. Or maybe another way to look at it.

For schools with fall formal recruitment, how many of your NMs end up depledging/disaffiliating/whatever because they thought it was right for them, but ended up not being a good match or what they expected in terms of costs or responsibility?

For schools with spring formal recruitment, do you have lots of members depledge?

Or is that more of an effect of big vs. small chapter size?

Just curious...

[nauadpi]

Most of the women we have that depledge at my school (Fall recruitment)...is not because they dont feel that it was the right choice or what not, but because they realize they dont want to stay at the university...So in turn a lot of women will realize how unhappy they are here (people either love this school or hate it)...and will depledge...or some will make it through initiation then still leave at the semester or at the end of the year...

[honeychile]

I think fall recruitment helps bring up the numbers, as does dorm storming and other Panhel activities. I'm against having mentors or movers wear their own letters, but for heaven's sake, why can't they wear a "Go Greek" or another Panhellenic/IFC slogan on a t-shirt during Orientation or moving-in days?

What I'm worried about is the impact of MTV's Sorority Life. As an alumna, I've heard way too many parents say that they'd never okay their daughter going greek if that's what it's really about. Somehow, Panhel needs to address the negative aspects of this show ASAP before it does further damage to the Greek image!

I also agree with White Chocolate - decorating for 10 people seems a little absurd. FWIW, one of the best rushes we had was when we decided to buck the trend and go low key all the way. The other sororities were serving cheesecake? We served salads. They put up mega-decorations? We put the money into furnishings & shined up all the silver.

Another idea that I saw work well was when one sorority used the same basic theme (they used South of the Border) for the entire week of recruitment. That way, there wasn't the nightly stress of tearing down the old decorations & putting up the new. They capitalized on the time they spent doing sisterhood projects and grades - plus, saved a small fortune on rush supplies!

Just my 2¢

honeychile

[ZetaMelOU]

I go to a school in the South, and here Greek life is the "thing to do". I think that 1 out of every 4 girls here are in a NPC GLO. Our rush is huge! We have over 900 girls rushing, and last year I believe that quota was in the 80's. It's a very hectic time for both the rushers and the rushees. Sometimes I wish that the formal recruitment here was smaller so that girls could get more one-on-one time with each house. For us, the first day consists of spending 15 minutes at each of the 12 houses, and you have to cut at least 5 that day. It's hard cause they all run together the first day, and it's so impersonal. They say it all works out in the end, which I think is true, but it takes so much pressure off with less chaos