<p>My d’s roommates sister is president of a sorority on campus. I figured that roomie had no other choice but to pledge that one, and she did. I figured some dropped her to not waste space for someone they knew wouldn’t pledge, others seemingly really wanted her just to say they got the president’s sister. </p>
<p>Now let’s talk about what older women say doesn’t exist, but absolutely does…dirty rushing. Even moms were getting in on it! </p>
<p>“When people stay in the same place, in the same social groups, they may want their kids to stay put and join their group”</p>
<p>I think what I’m not understanding or fully comprehending is how the sorority I was in 30 years ago is “the same social group.” I mean, I can walk in there (and do, since my son’s dorm is close by) and they’re very nice to me, the middle-aged alum, and they’ll happily show me around, and listen to my stories of what’s changed (“we talked on pay phones, not cell phones!”) and laugh at our 80s style hairstyles, Fair Isle sweaters and pearls on the composites in the back hall. And if they need me to show up and hang up coats during rush, I’m there. But we aren’t the same social group. They are 18-22. I’m 50. For all I know, they became more of a jock house, or more of a theater house, or wilder partiers, or milder partiers, or whatever. That’s ok. They are there to do their own thing - not mingle with me. </p>
<p>In D2’ sorority, sisters of active members are automatically given a bid unless they walked in as a convicted felon or something along those lines. </p>
<p>As for Greek-letter organizations asking what parents do - the Greek system at my college was full of kids whose parents had hard, blue-collar jobs and truly sacrificed to send their children to college and give them a better life away from the railroad yards and coal mines. Many girls were sent to college to become teachers, the only female professionals with whom many parents were familiar, or frankly, to find a better class of husband. My mom did not go to college, but my dad was an educated professional, and I was among the minority. Going Greek was, for many, just another step in the road from working class to white collar. </p>
<p>PG: If you had stayed actively involved in your sorority chapter, the current members would have a different relationship with you. Imagine if your mother and all her sorority friends stayed involved with their local chapter and maybe even held national office. The local alums bring food at finals, help with parties, oversee house renovations and redecorating. There is a mother’s club for moms of current members and in some groups those moms will be sorority alumnae. The non-local alums show up at open houses for homecoming and whatever. They travel to help out with rush. You know them and, with any luck, respect and value their opinions. And if you stay in the same general geographic area, you will be running into these women the rest of your life, in one way or another.It can be a very strong relationship of networks. Some of my mother’s bridge group and tennis group were sorority sisters. Some of the widow ladies she traveled with after my dad died were sorority sisters. These women knew each other most of their lives and they knew each other’s children. My mother’s friends who weren’t in her sorority asked to write me recs for their sororities. In a social group where everyone goes to the same college, and most join a sorority or fraternity, brothers meet their sisters’ sorority sisters and sometimes they marry. And vice versa. This is another potential strengthening of the network. My sister-in-laws were sorority sisters. One is president of the alumnae association. Her daughter grew up visiting the house with her mom on sorority business. We all held our breathes when she went through rush. She got in. whew! </p>
<p>“Now let’s talk about what older women say doesn’t exist, but absolutely does…dirty rushing. Even moms were getting in on it!”</p>
<p>See, that’s where it gets insane - the involvement of women (other than the actual girls in the chapter) in the selection process. That’s what led to all that nonsense at Bama where the girls wanted to pledge a black girl they liked and some old biddies got worked up because THEIR reputations would be just shot to hell. The alums should have nothing to do with membership selection except from a procedural standpoint (forms and the like). </p>
<p>adding: I consider my social group to contain 18-22 yr olds (children of friends) and also 70-90 yr olds. I generally take the younger ones out to eat or shopping or whatever they need to do and ask the older group to my home for dinner parties. I entertain both groups at large gatherings.</p>
<p>ETA: at present my social group includes a 12 year old, the late-in-life daughter of very close friends. I have made a real effort to develop a relationship with this child and our interactions with her parents are necessarily impacted by including her. I also take her to do things, just the two of us. When she goes off to college in six years, we will have more adult “dates” with her parents and our relationship with her will be different as well. Right now, I plan around her interests and comfort level. She isn’t a really easy child, but it is clear she is going to be a fascinating adult. I can’t wait to see.</p>
<p>@Pizzagirl It doesn’t really matter, but yes your school did do it this way. They all do. It’s just behind the scenes with staff.</p>
<p>Yield is based on first bid list. Rushees may put three houses for preference, meaning the chapters also submit 3 lists ranked in order by rushee. Anyone who doesn’t match with a chapter’s first bid list (which in your case contained 30 girls) affects chapter “yield.”</p>
<p>EX: If PiPhi is your most popular chapter, they will match with most girls on their (PiPhi’s) first bid list. They thus have the highest yield of chapter first bid list to first choice rushee matches. They would rarely dip far into their second bid list because most of the rushees who attended their preference ranked them first, and vice versa. </p>
<p>Their yield is very high, the school and National thus knows they are the most desired sorority. </p>
<p>If Chi-O is your least “poplar” house, they will get very few girls from their first second and even third bid list. They may even be asked to take girls who did not match any of their 3 choices or who were previously cut from all houses. </p>
<p>They then have the lowest “Yield rate” from their first bid list, and the school and National know they are the least desirable chapter. </p>
<p>It works the same with college admissions. Take the top and bottom yields-Harvard and UOP. </p>
<p>Harvard’s yield is 80.2%, meaning most of the people they accept will enroll. They offer just 19.8% more admits to get to their enrollment goal. They get more students from their “first” list than any other university. </p>
<p>UOPs yield is just 9.8 percent, meaning 91.2% of students they offer admission to do not enroll. To meet their enrollment goal, like quota, they have to admit over 8,000 students to get just over 800. They have the lowest yield in the U.S.</p>
<p>Rush is not at all unlike the admissions process. Neither publish their ranked lists, but they have them, as do applicants. The main difference is colleges post their yield rate. </p>
<p>Make sense? </p>
<p>Osserpusser: Is it your impression that some very competitive groups will already have pretty much created an ideal bid list before rush and will pledge most of those girls?</p>
<p>I grew up in the south and raised my kids in the ivy covered NE. When I first started learning about competitive college admissions, my exact thought was: “just like rush”</p>
<p>@Nrdsb4 You’re absolutely right - they need more sororities at Arkansas and are adding 3 more by 2016. It’s just unwise to have 200 girls in a pledge class! </p>
<p>As far as guaranteed bids, that is not the school’s choice. They do an amazing job by getting 96% of rushees to preference- one of the highest retention rates around. That takes work on all sides! </p>
<p>But not all rushees who attend preference will get a bid, sadly. </p>
<p>It’s still one of the strongest and most well run Greek systems nationwide. </p>
<p>Dirty rushing is very real. When I was in college, we didn’t have any moms involved. Rush was in January so the dirty rushing was committed by current members during the Fall. My D has been dirty rushed at her college. I think moms are more likely to get involved in the scenario that alh describes - where there’s a strong alumnae group in proximity to the school who have daughters attending the same college and vying to join to same house as their mothers. SMU, Ole Miss, UA come to mind although I’m sure there are others. </p>
<p>@alh You make a great point. I don’t think I live in the past, but I did live in the same area of my sorority for years, and thus not only interacted regularly with my sisters, but advised at the house. My teen daughter by default is intimately aware of my sorority-my kid’s’ godmothers are all pledge sisters. This will make me sound bizarre, but prior to pledging, I had a thing for collecting the symbols of my sorority, so they are all around my home. So while I would never push, I can see how my daughter would automatically be attracted to my sorority if she chose to rush. (I, by the way, was also raised by a mom who was like yours- her sorority was her life. Her house was the only one that dropped me. She was devastated. It was a blessing in disguise).</p>
<p>On the other hand, I have two boys who are as different as night and day. They pledged the same fraternity at different schools, one southern, one northern. The houses and traditions are vastly different. Yet I’m positive that my younger son looked harder at the fraternity because his older brother was in it. </p>
<p>Experiencing rush on the selection side just about did me in. 1975. One reason I left the state and then the country was to leave that world behind. It would really have been impossible without putting some geographic distance between me and them. I have never joined another exclusionary social group.</p>
<p>And yet, at this age, I can see the positives and value them. Who knows? Some year I may show up at rush to help out the actives.</p>
<p>However, I still get all agitated and up in arms if someone criticizes my “sisters” - I can talk about them, but not you! 
sort of like “real” family</p>
<p>My son will be going through pledge at a Southern LAC this February and I’m concerned when I hear about things like ‘dirty rush’. We are an ethnic minority and I’m concerned that even though my son’s friends are pretty open-minded, the old Southern white guys from thirty to forty years ago will be less so. (This has certainly been our experience in living in the South.) SHould I be concerned that my son will be closed out due to racism/prejudice? Should I start preparing him now for the possibility that he won’t get into a frat?</p>
<p>It sounds like public school vs private school at the K-12 level. Private schools are not obligated to take kids with social problems and special needs and sororities are not obligated to offer bids to girls who are socially inept. Private schools require that the parents pay something (even if they are on scholarship) and there are many more extras to pay for in private school.For those who say that rent in the sorority house is cheaper than living in a dorm: I don’t foresee my daughter paying for any formal gowns or decorations or whatever. And as a sophomore there will be less expensive accommodations available to her than now when she’s a freshman.</p>
<p>What exactly is dirty rushing? I don’t know that term and have a horrible suspicion it is just normal goings on in my family of origin.</p>
<p>ETA: Okay. Did some research. Some of these concepts just don’t apply when actives already know potential pledges and have known them most of their lives. Rush is obviously going to be different at places with most actives and rushees from in state. That doesn’t mean it is necessarily BAD, but it will be very different. </p>
<p>And I already came up with the solution. I’m okay with pledging the socially inept. Life is a learning experience. The alums can come teach. :)</p>
<p>Osserpusser - I was a (disaffiliated) rush counselor junior year and assistant rush director senior year so I did see it from the inside. I see your yield calculation - we just never calculated such a thing. Maybe they so today. I don’t know. </p>
<p>Alh - my closest and lifelong friends were girls / sisters I met there. We all live in the same general geographic area and have shown up to pour drinks for rush, etc. I’ve been a big sister / mentor to girls in the house. We show up for open houses at homecoming and the like. I’ve gone on business trips and reconnected with sisters I hadn’t seen in years. In point of fact, I ran into someone at yoga last week who had gone to school with me! I totally get all of that. I’m spending NYEve with three sisters whom I’ve been friends with for 30 years. I get the friendships. </p>
<p>I think the difference is that we see ourselves as doing service for the girls in the house to have THEIR fun experience - not that it’s still our experience. So we are support staff, in a sense. So for us to opine that they should pick Betty Lou over Sally Jo doesn’t really fit. We picked one another way back when; they get to pick one another now. If they (collectively) want to assemble more jocks, or more theater, or more East Coast or whatever than in my day - it’s not my place to say or influence them otherwise. I think this is just a philosophical difference on how seriously to take it! </p>
<p>It’s more a national thing. My brother was a Deke, and there are presidents who were Dekes and many famous people. My brother is not famous. He has a pretty good job, probably makes over 100K per year. Also a Mason for that matter, and the same thing - famous people have been Masons, but not every Mason is famous.</p>
<p>Silly question - if every single person in a frat or other organization was an amazing person, they would have few members. More likely an organization that people join as adults, like a country club, would have a concentration of people with high-powered jobs and/or famous.</p>
<p>And a newsflash for folks - most fraternities and sororities are ONE HUNDRED PERCENT approval for each candidate. I remember one girl who everybody wanted to offer a spot to, and one of our sisters adamantly refused to admit her, without reason. Other sisters including our president and council tried to ask her why, so they could convince her to abstain (we were allowed to abstain from voting for a rushee), and she absolutely refused. So no matter what 49 sisters thought, one sister with no leadership role in the sorority voted “No” and the rushee did not get in.</p>
<p>In no way is rushing democratic. If Panhellenic councils are trying to do that, that is ridiculous. When I was at college, we had pledge classes between 4 and 30 pledges. We had cases where more than half of the rushees were not approved to become pledges. And we’ve had small classes where all four were approved (we were allowed to have two rushes per year).</p>
<p>Oh, and the only thing that mattered at all in terms of whether a pledge got in or not according to the sisters’ wishes, was if they were a sorority alum. The parents’ job did not matter, if their mother was in the sorority, we had to write up reasons why we didn’t accept the daughter as a pledge.</p>
<p>Of course, if you are talking about a state school or lower-tier school where a single rich kid in a frat means luxuries for the house, that could be different.</p>
<p>“And a newsflash for folks - most fraternities and sororities are ONE HUNDRED PERCENT approval for each candidate. I remember one girl who everybody wanted to offer a spot to, and one of our sisters adamantly refused to admit her, without reason.”</p>
<p>That doesn’t constitute proof that “most are 100%.” We voted according to parliamentary procedures and no one person had any blackball capabilities like you describe. Moreover, you had to be able to articulate a sound reason for voting against someone - and “she stole my boyfriend” or “her purse wasn’t designer” were not valid reasons.</p>
<p>Frankly I thought / think the process is far more like job interviewing than college admissions, but that’s me. </p>