<p>So, over a four year period about 175 women were rejected because no one wanted them. That means about 44 women a year, about 1 in 27 potential sisters, were deemed too undesirable for any sorority. One can say that’s a small number. It seems pretty big to me.</p>
<p>At Auburn we see that if a woman rushed and didn’t join a sorority, it’s likely that no sorority wanted her. Though Pizzagirl says that women who don’t get bids would have gotten at least one bid if they’d been more open-minded, that wasn’t true at Auburn. At Auburn, the most likely reason a woman got no bids was because no sorority wanted her.</p>
<p>My opinion is this: I can’t stand the idea of Greek life. I don’t like fraternal organizations. Never have, never will. When I was in college, I would’ve preferred contracting jungle rot to joining a fraternity. The thought of some snot-nosed upper classmen bossing me around, or having any level of power or control over my activities IN A VOLUNTARY ACTIVITY made me want to puke. I’m just not a follower. I always preferred going it alone to being a follower. I did play on sports teams because I was athletic and loved sports and competition. But on a sports team, the only one who could tell me what to do was the coach, not some snot-nosed college classmate.</p>
<p>Fortunately, my kids are like me in that respect and have no interest in Greek life. Both of my college age kids attend schools that do not have fraternities and sororities. I am so pleased.</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang - it is still entirely possible that there are legitimate reasons that the girls at Auburn were considered “undesirable” for sororities. Like it or not, ones actions in high school (or even the first week or two on campus) can follow someone around. Also, there are always a few girls that are forced to rush because of legacy parent pressure, etc. The attitude shows. On another website, one of the most illuminating posts highlight atrocious behavior of PNMs. No organization should have to put up with a member with a bad attitude or someone that would pose a risk to reputation or other members health and well-being.</p>
<p>Look, MizzBee, I realize you don’t like those women, but forty-four women every year at Auburn are crying because they didn’t get bids from anyone. You can see how undesirable they are, and what “legitimate” reasons the sororities had for rejecting them, but they don’t see that. All they see is rejection, and rejection sucks. I also wonder how many more women would have liked to join a sorority, but thought correctly that they would be rejected from all of them.</p>
<p>That seems big to me too. I feel like I must be speaking Swahili when I say that I was in a system where that happened extremely rarely, not at all with these kinds of numbers. (Granted, a smaller school. But when I say rarely, I mean maybe 1 girl a year, if that.) And the houses had different enough personalities and styles that most any girl could find a group that she clicked with. If not several. </p>
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<p>Plainsman, I am puzzled by this comment. No upperclassmen (women) ever “bossed me around” or “had any level of power or control over my activities.” What kinds of things are you envisioning happening? Are you under the impression that if you join a Greek house, you can’t join whatever other extracurricular floats your boat – whether it’s the swim team, the tennis team, the student newspaper, the young Democrats / Republicans / Catholics / Jewish / Muslim / atheist club? That you can’t befriend, sit next to, date or go out with whoever you want to? Hold whatever political or social views you like? That someone else in the house “tells you what to do”? What gives you this impression? Since it’s quite misguided. </p>
<p>I suppose they have “power over you” by requiring you to attend chapter meetings, but that seems like a problem the same way that the newspaper club “has power over you” by requiring you turn in your stories by the press deadline.</p>
<p>Seriously, what do you THINK happens that would make you say this? Because you are definitely laboring under some stereotypes that are inaccurate.</p>
<p>The kind of sorority system that Pizzagirl describes sounds fine to me-- with tiny exceptions, every woman who wants to be in a sorority ends up in one; women who are too picky might not end up in the sorority they want, but virtually everyone who wants a sorority experience can have one.</p>
<p>But the sorority system at Auburn, where quite a few women are kicked in the butt, sounds crummy, and the system at some large southern schools, where a substantial percentage of rushees get no bids, sounds worse. </p>
<p>Does anyone have information about the percentage of sorority sisters US-wide who are in sorority systems like Northwestern’s, where everyone who wants a bid gets one? Or a site with enough information so that could be computed?</p>
<p>Rejection works both ways. Here’s a link from a NU article (I’m deleting the names of the students and houses):</p>
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<p>Sometimes smaller houses work really hard to get new members and no one is attracted to them. There are certainly sororities that were at NU during my time that are no longer there, because they couldn’t attract as many new members. That didn’t mean that these weren’t nice girls; for whatever reason, not enough girls were attracted to their houses that they could sustain whatever level they needed to be viable (presumably at least filling the house itself – the physical houses at NU each sleep maybe 30 - 40 girls, the house memberships are in the 100 - 120 range). For all of the sadness and rejection of the individual girls who are going through, it probably feels pretty crappy to be in a sorority that is folding because all the houses around you can attract a full pledge class and you can’t. Just saying – it works both ways.</p>
<p>CardinalFang: Yes rejection sucks. But don’t assume that all 44 women don’t know why they received no bids. Just look at the pressure that some of the kids on CC experience from their parents insisting that they do certain activities. At a competitive school like Auburn, there are at least a few girls that didn’t really want to go through rush, but did it to appease a parent. Other girls could have made a mistake seen all too often of being disrespectful at houses that they didn’t want to join because they felt that they were “in” at their desired house. If a PNM act inappropriate at ANY house, word gets around. Feel free to check greek chat for thousands of examples.
For those girls that went through it and did not get bids that honestly tried, didn’t have skeletons in their closets, had great attitudes, etc. it feels horrible. In most cases, there are other opportunities to rush in spring, or the following year. Many will say it is not for them and find other ways to enjoy the college experience.
On a personal note - how could I “not like these girls”? I don’t know them. I am only speaking from my personal experiences. I love the idea of a house for every person, since the experience was so wonderful for me.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: At IU, one of the places that has huge rejection numbers, a few houses have folded for lack of members. The year that I rushed 1,000 girls rushed for 200 spots. Still, some houses did not meet their goals and the house that was colonized that year didn’t meet its quota. I found it hard to believe that the same girls that cried on Bid Night from rejection were quick to say that they wouldn’t have joined X house because it wasn’t a “good house”. I guess that many didn’t want ot be sorority girls, they wanted to be Kappa Chi’s only. It does go both ways. From being on CC it is easy to see that prestige often matters more than the experience.</p>
<p>Just from a quick google, it seems as though Indiana has a fairly unique system based on having everyone live in from the time of joining until graduation, so it’s all hampered by the physical size of the house, and indeed the physical size of the house therefore dictates the chapter size, which is completely goofy. Apparently they are rather notorious for the large number of disappointed girls that this brings. Sounds like a bad system, nothing to brag about.</p>
<p>Not bragging. Tht is just where my personal experience comes from. I counsel a different chapter that has guaranteed spots now and it does make for a much better experience. We still have disappointment, but it is much easier to be part of the greek system.</p>
<p>CF - I think you are mis-reading the Auburn statisitics. “Released” in the vast majority of cases (probably 100% most of the time) is because a potential new greek did not keep an open mind and keep all options open or simply decided that greek life wasn’t the thing for them and decided to stop attending the events. To give a quick example, if the decision process is going from 6 choices to 3 choices the best thing to do for a potential greek would be to list all 6 in order. Choices 4-6 may not be your favorites right now, but surely those houses have something to offer. Then the mutual match program can find the best fits. However, some potential new greeks list only 1 or 2 choices that don’t match with 3 or 4 houses that would like to have them join. They in essence have self-selected themselves out of the greek system because they only want to join a certain house. There are hundreds of thousands of people who have gone through this process with an open mind and have found ways to benefit their lives through friendship, service and leadership.</p>
<p>MizzBee - I would include your example of a potential new greek coming into house A and saying “I’m not interested in your house I’m only interested in house Z” as self-selecting themselves out of the process. The potential new greeks are expected to treat everyone with a proper level of respect and manners and if it doesn’t happen in any house it is communicated to the other houses. House Z wants to maintain good relationships with all the other houses and won’t tolerate inappropriate behavior from potential new members. So, part of the keep an open mind advice would include - if you can’t keep an open mind keep your mouth shut.</p>
<p>I’m confident that I raised my daughter to make good decisions. There’s really nothing one can do except ask them to do things in moderate. After all, who among us haven’t had too much to drink in college?</p>
<p>It states very clearly that of the women who initially being the process, </p>
<p>79.1% join sororities,
13.9% withdraw from recruitment (almost always because they didn’t get an invitation from a favorite sorority),
2.5% do not get bids because they eliminate from their lists some sororities which would have given them bids,<br> 3.7% at some point during recruitment do not get invited back for the next round by any sororities.</p>
<p>That 3.7% who are rejected by all sororities comes to about 44 women per year. I don’t envy the recruitment counselors who have to give their charges the bad news.</p>
<p>“For all of the sadness and rejection of the individual girls who are going through, it probably feels pretty crappy to be in a sorority that is folding because all the houses around you can attract a full pledge class and you can’t. Just saying – it works both ways.”</p>
<p>That is does … and I speak from experience.</p>
<p>CF - My mistake. I guess something the statistics can’t show is how many of the 3.7% could have continued forward if they had maximized their options early on. Going from 11 to 7 did they only write down 1 house, get invited to the round of 7 and then not invited to the round of 5? Or how many of the 3.7% made verbal statements which self-selected out as in MB’s example. Not to minimize anyone’s hurt, but anecdotally I would say the number of girls who enter with an open mind, maximize their options, act politely to all and still don’t get a bid is much smaller or non existent.</p>
<p>After reading all these posts, it seems to me: If you were/are a Greek - you’re Ok with the Greek system. If you are not/were not a Greek - you have problems with the Greek system. Maybe those outside of the Greek system just don’t have a complete understanding of it. Obviously all those thousands of Greek kids can’t be complete morons or snobs or drunken losers. Can’t we agree that all “systems” have pros and cons? (By the way, I was not a Greek, H was, D is considering rush)</p>
<p>If you read the Parents page carefully, you will notice that a woman must attend the maximum number of parties possible for that round. </p>
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<p>So at any point in the process, the potential new member either goes to all the parties she can, or withdraws. The unlucky 44 women did not withdraw, and they maximized their options because they were required to do so. And then they did not get invited back to any sorority.</p>
<p>Do not try to find a way to say that those 44 women didn’t want to join a sorority. The Panhellenic Council at Auburn clearly admits that those women did want to join a sorority, but no sorority would have them. </p>
<p>Let me put it another way: At Auburn, of the women who start the pledge process but do not end up joining a sorority, about 5 in 6 could have joined a sorority but decided not to, and 1 in 6 could not have joined any sorority because no sorority wanted them.</p>