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  #16  
Old 09-06-2015, 08:14 PM
Katmandu Katmandu is offline
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I know that many of the groups at OSU use far above their nationals minimum gpa for pledging, but I agree, a 3.5 seems high. Even in this era of incredible grade inflation that would eliminate many good girls. I just never have heard of the kind of mass hysteria typical of Texas, Bama, LSU et al in Stillwater.

Eta..sounds like some Rho Chis were a bit much.

Last edited by Katmandu; 09-06-2015 at 08:55 PM.
  #17  
Old 09-06-2015, 10:16 PM
jgsmc3 jgsmc3 is offline
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I'm not sure I would call it "mass hysteria". It was stressful for many of the girls though, according to Libby and other moms who had daughters going through this year. The Round 1 cuts seemed to be what everyone was making a big deal about. And exactly as Irishpipes said, it seems that there were lots of rumors circulating. Perhaps the Rho Gammas were trying to prepare girls for the worst. Who knows? I do know that there were girls who were stressed (my daughter included), several girls in her group had a rough time, and several (in her group) were released or dropped. A personal friend of mine who's daughter also rushed this fall at OSU experienced heavy cuts and was very upset. She made it through the process, and landed in a great house, but it wasn't an easy or non competitive rush for her either.

I guess the point is that 18 year olds experience things very differently and have a different perspective than we do as adults. I wasn't there, and I'm not an alum of OSU. But, I don't necessarily think that this process was easy for a majority of the girls who rushed. If I want to tell an honest story, from my daughter's point of view, and what she conveyed to me, I'm not going to minimize her observations of the process whether it sounds like OSU or not. I mean no disrespect in any way, but these feelings were very real to her and to many of the girls who participated in recruitment this fall.
  #18  
Old 09-06-2015, 10:28 PM
1964Alum 1964Alum is offline
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Every year when rush would roll around when I was an active, my unspoken thought was "There HAS to be a better way!" Now, many years later, it is much, much harder on these young girls.
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  #19  
Old 09-06-2015, 10:43 PM
Katmandu Katmandu is offline
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I am not criticizing you...sorry if it sounds like I am. Just trying to understand what was going on. Sounds like grades and Rho Chis.
  #20  
Old 09-06-2015, 10:46 PM
jgsmc3 jgsmc3 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Katmandu View Post
I am not criticizing you...sorry if it sounds like I am. Just trying to understand what was going on. Sounds like grades and Rho Chis.
No offense taken! I was very surprised that she was as nervous as she was. I was even more surprised when I heard about the cuts from friends! I think they were very strict on grades this year.

I apologize if my post was snippy! I reread it and did not mean to come off that way!
  #21  
Old 09-07-2015, 12:12 AM
ADPi&Theta_Mom ADPi&Theta_Mom is offline
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A New Bedlam Recruitment

Quote:
Originally Posted by 1964Alum View Post
Every year when rush would roll around when I was an active, my unspoken thought was "There HAS to be a better way!" Now, many years later, it is much, much harder on these young girls.

1964Alum, I agree with you. I went through rush in the mid-to-late 70's, a time that I think was an order of magnitude easier than it is for the young woman today...and the women that preceded me (as was evidenced by your wonderful story). After watching my 2 DD's and PN (precious niece), hearing the stories of the girls for which I have written recs/rifs, as well as the stories that I would hear as the pres of an alumnae chapter that I was involved in for many years, I KNOW that what rush much easier "back in the day".

Last edited by ADPi&Theta_Mom; 09-07-2015 at 12:13 AM. Reason: typo
  #22  
Old 09-07-2015, 09:06 AM
FSUZeta FSUZeta is offline
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But I wonder if it really was easier or if our memories become clouded with nostalgia for the good old days. Back in the day Chapters had the ability to string girls along right up to the pref party round, and string them they did. Girls would continue to accept those top invitations and drop viable options, only to find they had been dropped at pref round. I feel that with RFM PNMs stand a much better chance of receiving a bid because chapters must release X number of PNMs per round based on stastical data.
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  #23  
Old 09-07-2015, 09:23 AM
k2hh k2hh is offline
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RFM has been one of the best things to happen with sorority recruitment! So many more women are placed in chapters!
  #24  
Old 09-07-2015, 09:41 AM
DubaiSis DubaiSis is offline
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I really think it's the entitlement problem. For good or bad these girls have had incredibly easy lives. They got great grades due to grade inflation, made the teams they wanted to be on, and they're parents could afford to buy them whatever they wanted through their whole childhood. So rush is really the first time they're on their own. And it is STRESSFUL. Yes, placement rates are higher than they've ever been. But the snowflake has to deal with rejection for the first time in her life and may have to accept normal, ordinary, good enough. And that's a pretty tough pill to swallow.

I can't blame her for her feelings. My biggest advice to parents with a high schooler is to start managing expectations now. And maybe have her work on something she sucks at to give her experience in failure and recovery. Not just failure. That would be mean. Learning to get over it and succeed anyway is the goal. Then maybe getting a less than full invitation list wouldn't be so devastating.
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  #25  
Old 09-07-2015, 09:51 AM
carnation carnation is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FSUZeta View Post
But I wonder if it really was easier or if our memories become clouded with nostalgia for the good old days. Back in the day Chapters had the ability to string girls along right up to the pref party round, and string them they did. Girls would continue to accept those top invitations and drop viable options, only to find they had been dropped at pref round. I feel that with RFM PNMs stand a much better chance of receiving a bid because chapters must release X number of PNMs per round based on stastical data.
That and it was also a lot harder on the chapters because quota was set so earlier. This caused huge chapters to stay huge and smaller ones to die. Tons less chapters are dying now!

I think that one thing that's hard on the PNMs is that so many go in and make earnest attempts to have good conversations with the members and dutifully write out their feelings about each chapter when they get back. Then they take a very long time to rank the chapters. And then they get heavily cut anyway (at really huge schools, it may have been done before they set foot on campus).
  #26  
Old 09-07-2015, 10:06 AM
sassafrass11 sassafrass11 is offline
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Seaside! Yay!
  #27  
Old 09-07-2015, 10:24 AM
cebrain cebrain is offline
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Thank you for posting about your rec gathering as well as the recruitment. As a mom who is starting to make our contact lists and coordinate them with the different Greek systems of the schools dd is narrowing it down to, it is helpful to see how others went about it. I also like the idea of the Starbucks card as a part of thanking them for their time.

Can't wait to read the rest of your daughter's adventure!
  #28  
Old 09-07-2015, 11:36 AM
DaffyKD DaffyKD is offline
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My memory of rush (back in the days of dinosaurs) may be clouded now, or may be that I was in the situation that I only went through rush to move away from my mother a week early and did not care about the results. I had no plans to join ANY sorority, I had not one rec (only to find that in those days rec requests were sent to local Alumnae Chapters by the houses during work week), there were far less woman going through rush as it was during the civil rights movement and the Viet Nam war, I had not the slightest idea about tiers and of course, I did not attend a Southern campus unless you consider Southern California to be "south". There were only between 200-250 women who went through rush and there were 10 houses (one was on the verge of closing and did close and the end of the school year). Cap was in the 50's thus no more than 500 women were Greek on a campus of 35,000. "Helicopter moms" were unheard of, not everyone won a trophy in those days, and calling home was a major expense so you HAD to figure things out on your own. I often cringe as I read the recruitment stories today and can't imagine having that much stress JUST to be a member of the Greek system.

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  #29  
Old 09-07-2015, 12:57 PM
ChioLu ChioLu is offline
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More please!
No need to wait -- the dates of Oklahoma State's Recruitment are the 1st big university for the year. Can they call it Fall Recruitment when it starts the 1st week of August?
  #30  
Old 09-07-2015, 01:03 PM
jgsmc3 jgsmc3 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DubaiSis View Post
I really think it's the entitlement problem. For good or bad these girls have had incredibly easy lives. They got great grades due to grade inflation, made the teams they wanted to be on, and they're parents could afford to buy them whatever they wanted through their whole childhood. So rush is really the first time they're on their own. And it is STRESSFUL. Yes, placement rates are higher than they've ever been. But the snowflake has to deal with rejection for the first time in her life and may have to accept normal, ordinary, good enough. And that's a pretty tough pill to swallow.

I can't blame her for her feelings. My biggest advice to parents with a high schooler is to start managing expectations now. And maybe have her work on something she sucks at to give her experience in failure and recovery. Not just failure. That would be mean. Learning to get over it and succeed anyway is the goal. Then maybe getting a less than full invitation list wouldn't be so devastating.
Dubai Sis - I agree with you 100%. Libby had really never faced any kind of rejection at all, and I had VERY serious discussions with her about the fact that she would possibly be cut by sororities, and that even if she didn't really "like" the chapters that cut her, the rejection would still sting. The point of recruitment was to find a home away from home, if that is what was meant to be for her.

I like to think that she was prepared for the reality of recruitment, which is why I shared her feelings about the stress involved. It really didn't go away until Bid Day for her. She took the process seriously and ignored the "tiers" that are so openly discussed on Greekrank and among the PNMs. She was invited back to "top" houses and "middle to bottom tier" houses. She could have cared less about any of that, while several girls in her Rho Gamma group were focused only on the "Big 5" (whatever that is). None of that clouded Libby's judgement, and she was able to choose a place for herself. She found herself defending houses a couple of times when girls were saying really mean and ugly things. The tent talk made her uncomfortable, and she realized that lots of the girls who were complaining had been released from chapters that they wanted. They weren't willing to look any closer at some of the houses, so they either made the best of the situation or trash talked.

Not that it matters, but Libby told me that at every single house she visited, she asked her rushers how they were doing. She said that she could not imagine how exhausted they must have been, because she was exhausted herself. She tried to imagine staying up until 3 am blowing up balloons or choosing who to invite back, and then having to be totally "on" at 8 am for a group of PNMs who may or may not want to be at your house.

For some reason, she felt that showing interest in the girls as people really helped break the ice in a lot of houses. And for Libby, it isn't fake. It is just how she is. She is very outgoing, social, and makes friends easily. Recruitment for my oldest daughter probably would not have been as energizing for her (she is not Greek and doesn't want to be) as it was for Libby. The process would have completely overwhelmed her, which I think is the case for many girls who are outside the bubble of their hometowns for the first time.
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