GreekChat.com Forums  

Go Back   GreekChat.com Forums > Recruitment > Sorority Recruitment

Sorority Recruitment Recruitment event and bid day ideas, membership retention, publicity, recruitment policies, etc.


Register Now for FREE!
Join GreekChat.com, The Fraternity & Sorority Greek Chat Network. To sign up for your FREE account INSTANTLY fill out the form below!

Username: Password: Confirm Password: E-Mail: Confirm E-Mail:
 
Image Verification
Please enter the six letters or digits that appear in the image opposite.

  I agree to forum rules 

» GC Stats
Members: 325,122
Threads: 115,503
Posts: 2,196,037
Welcome to our newest member, haledarkz870
» Online Users: 1,381
2 members and 1,379 guests
LaneSig, TLLK
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #16  
Old 10-02-2017, 04:00 PM
carnation carnation is offline
Super Moderator
 
Join Date: Aug 2000
Posts: 13,797
Quote:
Originally Posted by NerdyGreek View Post
Then you have situations like one of D's friends who was dropped by all the houses except ABC because her sister was an ABC at the school. No one asked her if she liked her sister and wanted to be in the same sorority with her. (The answer would have been "no.") It's only the second year of using this combo and I've got to question whether it's the right thing to be doing. I feel like the effort to even house sizes and maximize the number of bids given out is creating artificial groupings of girls who have surviving the process as the sole thing they have in common.
This was happening far before RFM came out. Some sororities thought, "Why waste our time on a girl whom we figure is pledging her sister's group?"
Reply With Quote
  #17  
Old 10-02-2017, 04:05 PM
TXDG TXDG is offline
GreekChat Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 146
Quote:
Originally Posted by carnation View Post
On the other hand, my main memory of rush back in the day is that quota was set early, which meant that the stronger groups had huge quotas and pledge classes and the others often folded, one by one. I would never want that again.
Me neither. I graduated right before RFM was put in place. From rushing my freshman year until graduation, my campus lost 3 chapters and almost a 4th due to low numbers. My pledge class had 70ish girls and the chapter that folded that year plesdged something like 5. A pretty large percentage of pnms were left bidless at the end of the week. The disparity was tremendous and it weakened the entire Greek system.

The campus' solution was to give up on the dying chapters and start fresh with new colonies. One chapter colonized my junior year. The campus has now brought on 3 more chapters over the last 18 years. Under RFM, every chapter is healthy and even that 4th chapter that has struggled for 18 years has seen its membership grow significantly. They still rarely make quota but they're missing it by 5-10 not by 40-50, and they have the support of Panhellenic.
Reply With Quote
  #18  
Old 10-02-2017, 04:38 PM
irishpipes irishpipes is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Reddest of the red
Posts: 4,509
Quote:
Originally Posted by 33girl View Post
First off: if you can't afford the most expensive chapter, you shouldn't rush. Also know that different chapters handle financial matters differently. Some have one big fee that covers everything, some have individual fees for formal and such.

As far as RFM being the bad guy...say girls could drop whoever they want. Eventually sororities would close because of low numbers. There would be fewer and fewer groups until there were 3 chapters of 1000 or something ridiculous.

And you know what? A lot of those girls would have probably ended up in the same place even WITHOUT RFM. The difference is, they would have been strung along until pref night by a sorority that in reality they had zero chance of being asked to join. If you find that preferable, we can get rid of RFM tomorrow.
I think the bolded is ridiculous. If a PNM could afford, say, 9 of the 10 chapters, why not rush? Odds are she won't end up in the expensive one. If she does, she can cross that bridge when she gets there.
__________________
Adding 's does not make a word, not even an acronym, plural
Reply With Quote
  #19  
Old 10-02-2017, 05:24 PM
Titchou Titchou is offline
GreekChat Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Sweet Home Alabama
Posts: 4,574
Another issue is that PNMs tend to think they have control during recruitment.The bottom line is that your choices are limited by the chapters themselves. They invite the PNM; The PNM does not select the chapters they want to visit. Seriously, PNMs really need to understand this. You cannot drop a group. They drop you. So be happy to receive whatever invitations you receive and go to the party with a smile on your face. I don't mean to be harsh, but it's reality. If you'd rather not be Greek than join any of the choices you have, drop out.
Reply With Quote
  #20  
Old 10-02-2017, 05:34 PM
thetalady thetalady is offline
GreekChat Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Big D
Posts: 3,008
Quote:
Originally Posted by NerdyGreek View Post
When recruitment ends and the advice freely being given out is, "Nobody likes their house at first; you'll learn to like it" I feel like something has to change.

My daughter is contemplating de-pledging. So are many of her friends. She's talked to about a dozen girls she was friends with going into rush. Two got into sororities they actually wanted. The other ~10 got bids for houses they didn't like. We're not talking 2nd choices; we're talking houses that were low on the pref lists after the first two rounds. One of her friends has to de-pledge because she got a bid for one of the most expensive sororities - and she can't afford it. (It's over $1000/year more than the one my daughter is in.)

I blame variable quota and RFM. Girls are dropped left and right early on, and are forbidden from dropping houses (they can only rank) which is how you end up with girls in houses they can't afford. Then you have situations like one of D's friends who was dropped by all the houses except ABC because her sister was an ABC at the school. No one asked her if she liked her sister and wanted to be in the same sorority with her. (The answer would have been "no.") It's only the second year of using this combo and I've got to question whether it's the right thing to be doing. I feel like the effort to even house sizes and maximize the number of bids given out is creating artificial groupings of girls who have surviving the process as the sole thing they have in common.

I'm wondering if anyone else involved with a school that uses variable quota and RFM has seen problems with retention?
Nerdy Greek, I know exactly what campus you are talking about. Bid day was 1 short week ago. ONE FRIGGING WEEK.

If you, your daughter or her friends are already questioning the chapter that she pledged, I don't even know what to say. It takes longer than that to get to know people in a chapter of 400 girls. It takes longer than that to develop friendships and bonds. She doesn't even know their names yet and she doesn't like them or thinks they have nothing in common with her? Did these girls think closeness just happened magically?

Your daughter had choices to make. In the end after Pref, she had the choice to accept a bid and sign the MRABA, knowing the chapters that wanted her or not sign it. Now her choice is this:

1. quit and remain without a sorority experience at her current University. She can always transfer to another University and try again, right?

2. work to make friends in her chapter and enjoy the experience.

Don't even start asking about rushing again next year as a sophomore who quit her sorority. Ain't gonna happen on this campus. If she is pining for a chapter that she did not get a bid from, that is a real shame because she is turning her back on the chapter that wanted her.

Last edited by thetalady; 10-02-2017 at 10:55 PM. Reason: ETA... I lost track of time. It is only Oct 2. Bid Day was ONE week ago.
Reply With Quote
  #21  
Old 10-02-2017, 05:43 PM
TriDeltaSallie TriDeltaSallie is offline
GreekChat Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Beautiful West Michigan
Posts: 777
I think what surprises me the most about this thread is that young women are going through recruitment without understanding the costs on that particular campus. How is that not public knowledge? If money is a potential issue and the desire to be Greek is strong, I would think that would be part of the decision-making process in choosing a college/university.
__________________
"Let us found a society that shall be kind alike to all and think more of a girl's inner self and character than of her personal appearance." Sarah Ida Shaw

My recruitment story: My sorority membership changed my life.
Reply With Quote
  #22  
Old 10-02-2017, 05:47 PM
KSUViolet06 KSUViolet06 is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,142
Quote:
Originally Posted by Titchou View Post
Another issue is that PNMs tend to think they have control during recruitment.The bottom line is that your choices are limited by the chapters themselves. They invite the PNM; The PNM does not select the chapters they want to visit. Seriously, PNMs really need to understand this. You cannot drop a group. They drop you. So be happy to receive whatever invitations you receive and go to the party with a smile on your face. I don't mean to be harsh, but it's reality. If you'd rather not be Greek than join any of the choices you have, drop out.
I made a thread about this awhile back.

Selection is not as mutual as we all claim it to be.

It is more mutual in the bid matching phase, but for the majority of recruitment, the balance of power is tilted mostly in the chapter's favor.

They're the ones doing 90% of the choosing here.

The PNM gets what she gets, for the most part.

We should probably stop calling it that.
__________________
"Remember that apathy has no place in our Sorority." - Kelly Jo Karnes, Pi

Lakers Nation.
Reply With Quote
  #23  
Old 10-02-2017, 05:51 PM
Titchou Titchou is offline
GreekChat Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Sweet Home Alabama
Posts: 4,574
Yes,KSU,you started a great thread about this a while back. Too bad most PNMs don't read it or think it doesn't apply to them.
Reply With Quote
  #24  
Old 10-02-2017, 06:28 PM
FSUZeta FSUZeta is offline
Super Moderator
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: naples, florida
Posts: 18,410
Many of us have said in other threads that we really didn't "feel it" until we lived in the house-for me it was my sophomore year.

I apologize if I sound harsh ( I am trying to be realistic), but it is the rare freshman PNM who de-pledges and re-rushes to a "higher" tier sorority the next year.
__________________
I live in Fantasyland and I have waterfront property.
Reply With Quote
  #25  
Old 10-02-2017, 06:37 PM
Sororitysock Sororitysock is offline
GreekChat Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Glorious and free
Posts: 170
Quote:
Originally Posted by TriDeltaSallie View Post
I think what surprises me the most about this thread is that young women are going through recruitment without understanding the costs on that particular campus. How is that not public knowledge? If money is a potential issue and the desire to be Greek is strong, I would think that would be part of the decision-making process in choosing a college/university.
It is public. Like with GPA requirements, Ole Miss details not only the cost range of sorority membership, but also the meal plan situation in the FAQs on their recruitment site. It was up there long before the semester began: http://panhellenic.olemiss.edu/faq-b-2/

Perhaps if these young women would stop wasting their time complaining and actually try to get to know some of the 400 or so other members of their chapter, they would realize that they actually do have things in common with them.

*Why do I get the feeling mom hasn't had any sorority involvement since her college years?
Reply With Quote
  #26  
Old 10-02-2017, 06:41 PM
NYCMS NYCMS is offline
GreekChat Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 320
Quote:
Originally Posted by NerdyGreek View Post
Bid Day should be more joyful than it is. (I watched a video of one of the other houses on her campus on Bid Day where the recruitment chair is reading the list of bids to actives and there aren't a lot of smiles and cheers. It's a lot of stone faces, questioning looks and a few "who?" are visible. Dissatisfaction is on both sides.)
If it's the video I saw, it was at a school that just finished rushing while going to classes every day. Talk about exhausting and stressful! What I saw were girls listening closely and likely trying to figure out who the new pledges are. This sorority has 400 members so it's not like every member would know every pledge. I remember when I was an active and heard the list called out that I was trying to remember faces and such. So no, I would not have looked perky the entire time. And yes, girls will have looks of disappointment. They work very hard to win girls over and it is very disappointing when they pledge elsewhere. I was just going through a college yearbook and saw four girls that my chapter "lost" (they preffed us and one other) and I well remembered how bummed several of us were. That's natural!

I do support RFM because I saw girls held onto untiL pref and then get released. With RFM girls get released early enough to seriously consider another house. I had friends go through pre-RFM scenario and their pain and shock was awful.

And I echo giving the house more than a few weeks. There are 400 girls in houses at Ole Miss (I'm pretty sure this is where your daughter is) and one can't possibly have a sense this soon. Some girls do, but not all. And don't even think about re-rushing as a sophomore. Rarely ever successful plus many chapters have a "once cut, always cut" policy which means she would be cut again.

Last edited by NYCMS; 10-02-2017 at 10:00 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #27  
Old 10-02-2017, 09:52 PM
tcsparky tcsparky is offline
GreekChat Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: near charlotte, nc, usa
Posts: 441
Send a message via AIM to tcsparky
RFM

I remember on my campus, which had 4 chapters, women could get invited back to all 4 during the first invite round for Philanthropy, then 3 to Sisterhood/Skits, then 2 for Pref. Chapters invited however many they wanted for Pref. Getting cut from both was a real thing. I knew MANY women who were so excited to get invited back to the "popular" chapters, had stars in their eyes, were already mentally picking out dorm decor and dating a handsome fraternity guy (still mentally)- because a bid to one of these two chapters opened up doors for the members. Only to get "the call" on Bid Day morning to not come to the Student Union. Or getting a late night call about a "snap bid" to the chapter they had been glad to see off their list. So, while 2 of the chapters stayed at 90 members, and one of them hovered around 75-80, the 4th chapter struggled with 50 or so members. Until it closed.

I think that with RFM, more women would have gone back to the chapter, more women would have ended up joining it, and gradually their reputation could have evolved. Instead........

If a woman has joined a chapter of 400 and can't find any friends, the issue is her- her perception, her desires, what she is looking for....there is no way a woman honestly cannot find a core group of like-minded women in a pool of 400 unless she is deliberately closing herself off from opportunity. That's just crazy.

And, OP, no one here is saying that NO ONE likes their chapter at first. We're just saying that the magical moments that happened in Recruitment now give way to tired girls who just want to sleep, catch up on school work so they don't end up on Probation, and maybe try to get to know the new women in their "free time." We're saying that once the reality of sorority membership arrives, it's not all squeals, and chants and glitter. It's real women getting to know one another, hopefully in a meaningful way. To feel truly a part of the organization (notice I didn't say apart!!!) takes time. Time to assimilate, to learn, to bond, to get used to seeing yourself in letters and incorporating what they mean into your own persona. It takes TIME. And 2 weeks is NOT enough time. I think that even the New Member period is too short for many women to have "that feeling." That's why many women say that they didn't feel truly bonded to the sorority until they lived in the house, and being immersed in the sorority was part of their day to day lives.
__________________
ΑΞΔ - - - Alpha Xi Delta
It's not what you've just become, but what you've always been.
You.... have chosen to act as a snarky asshat- KATMANDU

Last edited by tcsparky; 10-02-2017 at 09:54 PM. Reason: crumbs under the keyboard causing strange spellings
Reply With Quote
  #28  
Old 10-02-2017, 10:02 PM
33girl 33girl is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Hotel Oceanview
Posts: 34,489
Quote:
Originally Posted by irishpipes View Post
I think the bolded is ridiculous. If a PNM could afford, say, 9 of the 10 chapters, why not rush? Odds are she won't end up in the expensive one. If she does, she can cross that bridge when she gets there.
You can say up and down that you won't fall in love with the costliest chapter, but what if you do, and it's mutual, and you get a bid only to have to drop out because you can't afford it?

And too, it's not always the most popular/oldest-most established/biggest house chapter that ends up being the costliest.

IMO this is the kind of "it'll never happen to me" that does happen. If that makes me overly cautious, so be it.

Eta: And if for some reason the costs are not on the website or somewhere easily accessible, get on the horn to the Greek life office and ask. BEFORE rush week.
__________________
It is all 33girl's fault. ~DrPhil

Last edited by 33girl; 10-02-2017 at 10:07 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #29  
Old 10-02-2017, 11:03 PM
thetalady thetalady is offline
GreekChat Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Big D
Posts: 3,008
Quote:
Originally Posted by 33girl View Post
Eta: And if for some reason the costs are not on the website or somewhere easily accessible, get on the horn to the Greek life office and ask. BEFORE rush week.
The costs are published on the Ole Miss web site well in advance. It is given as a range, and no costs are listed specifically per chapter. Why? Because some chapters choose to report only the bare minimum, without disclosing additional costs that are required during the year. Some costs, like formals, event T shirts, and pictures are all considered optional in some chapters, not in others.

From the Ole Miss Panhellenic FAQ:

Why is it so expensive to join a sorority? Where is the money going?

Sororities have provided their financial obligations in ranges. Please note the following: These are only ranges and may not include all associated costs for each sorority. Dues are subject to change. As prospective members, students need to talk with active members during recruitment events to learn more, especially when payments are due following Bid Day.

In House Member Dues Per Semester $2,900-$4,300
Out of House Member Dues Per Semester $1,550-$2,200
New Member Dues: Fall Semester $1,240-$2,500
New Member Dues: Spring Semester $1,530-$2,200
Reply With Quote
  #30  
Old 10-02-2017, 11:30 PM
NerdyGreek NerdyGreek is offline
GreekChat Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2017
Posts: 7
Quote:
Originally Posted by thetalady View Post
Sororities have provided their financial obligations in ranges. Please note the following: These are only ranges and may not include all associated costs for each sorority. Dues are subject to change. As prospective members, students need to talk with active members during recruitment events to learn more, especially when payments are due following Bid Day.
One of the issues is that they don't fully disclose costs during recruitment. PNMs are prohibited from talking to members outside of rush, and they're not getting the information during the parties either.

I felt a connection to my sorority when I pledged. While I wasn't best friends with all of my sisters (and downright despised one of them), I was close with many, many of them. These are women that I still see and consider my friends. My daughter doesn't see those same bonds of sisterhood among even the upperclassmen. One of the sisters told her she loves hanging out at the house because she's always meeting new sisters she hasn't met before, which she didn't think sounded like such a good thing. How can you consider it a sisterhood when you haven't even met everyone?!

Maybe the issue is mega chapters that are bigger than a lot of high school graduating classes. I found "my people" in my graduating class, but despite sharing a lot of common experiences, I feel absolutely no connection to all the other graduates of my high school the same year. It starts to feel like random groups of people put together.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Change Colonist Greek Life 8 01-05-2004 09:22 AM
Should WE Pay for this Man's SEX CHANGE CrimsonTide4 Delta Sigma Theta 7 07-18-2003 11:31 AM
Spending Habits to change or not to change? PositivelyAKA Alpha Kappa Alpha 6 11-15-2001 01:12 PM
Change Caramelattsu Greek Life 8 06-08-2000 05:29 PM



All times are GMT -4. The time now is 08:39 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.