<p>deb: losing bites</p>
<p>chilling will only make it seem like things are OK if you can’t compete, but it only seems that way, it’s not really that way</p>
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<p>I’m sorry you lost. It sound like it was painful. Better luck next time!</p>
<p>deb, you missed the point, I meant being rejected must bite for you.</p>
<p>I think it went over your head, Pacheight. Take care.</p>
<p>look, in college and life, nothing replaces hard work and dna, nothing. saying you don’t need the college, or the sorority, or the job that you didn’t get into is just an excuse for your lack of hard work or talent (dna). </p>
<p>saying I don’t care about those “things” for most people is just their way of coping for their lack of effort or talent…aka those who like to say chill</p>
<p>signed: SAE married to a DG:)</p>
<p>Goodnight.</p>
<p>(let’s see if it takes this time)</p>
<p>I will not respond to individual comment that express a disagreement with my position on forming an opinion about the greek life. </p>
<p>Since you are all very logical parents, may I ask to consider that the experience of one of your children at ONE fraternity or sorority provides YOU with a small glimpse at what happens at ONE such place. Add your own experience, and you still have a limited experience.</p>
<p>Then, since someone said “source, please” would you kindly consider that your source is your own child. Do you truly believe that what your child tells you is actually a complete representation of what happens on most weekends on a college campus. Please note that this has NOTHING to do with how open one relationship is between students and parents … it’s just a fact that what happens on a campus usually stays on a campus. Please do not be too naive! </p>
<p>As far as source do you really believe that a parent with a child at one fraternity understands what happens on a particular campus better than the students who actually attend it, and this including the students who are NOT part of THAt fraternity or sorority?<br>
Do you think a parent would know better what happened at my sister’s sorority or at her boyfriend’s fraternity than I did when I was attending the same school? </p>
<p>All of us are guilty to believe our own sources of information are better than others’. The reality is that we all have access to “some” information and tend to generalize or speculate about the rest. Parents are absolutely correct to state they know certain things about their children Greek life better than total strangers, but then they probably do know a lot less than students on that campus. </p>
<p>This might explain why the perspectives can be so wide-ranging!</p>
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:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Newsflash, pacheight - there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.</p>
<p>I understand it’s upsetting for some of you when your kid fails, can only get into B schools or didn’t get in to a sorority. it doesn’t mean that your kid feels like a failure, they are not the ones participating in B student threads or failed rush threads. </p>
<p>but indicting the system (greek or college admissions) is a cop-out.</p>
<p>my recommendation, find out what your kid loves to do and get behind that, and not your failed dreams</p>
<p>xiggi, that might be true. It is probably also true that a Greek house on one campus resembles little to the same sorority or fraternity on another campus.</p>
<p>IMO, although based upon limited experience, MizzBee nailed it in post #60.</p>
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<p>This is so true. 4 of my son’s hs friends all got summer jobs soley due to their fraternity association. All of them were at different colleges and didn’t personally know the local business owner but since they were ‘brothers’ they were automatically hired. Am hoping son will be able to use his fraternity connection like that some day. :)</p>
<p>"
saying I don’t care about those “things” for most people is just their way of coping for their lack of effort or talent…aka those who like to say chill</p>
<p>signed: SAE married to a DG"</p>
<p>Oh, gag. Really, I enjoyed Greek life, but it’s ridiculous to say that people who weren’t in it or didn’t get in had a “lack of effort or talent.” And I certainly wouldn’t sign my posts with my Greek affiliation or spouse’s Greek affiliation. I’ve been out of college for 25 years, tyvm.</p>
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<p>Moreover, not everyone wants or is interested in joining a fraternity/sorority…a factor in why I and most Obies chose to apply and later, attend our LAC where such organizations or other “secret clubs” like Final/Eating clubs are banned on campus and joining one is prohibited by college rules dating to the 19th century. </p>
<p>In my case, I had some older cousins to thank for my lack of interest as they mostly fit the worst stereotypes of elitism, drunken excess, and extreme anti-intellectualism often bandied about and embodied in college themed films like the Alpha-Betas of the “Revenge of the Nerds” films. Add being academically suspended/coming to the brink of expulsion to round it all out*. Certainly not examples of who I wanted to emulate as an undergrad.</p>
<p>One older cousin was an exception in most of those things…but even she looked upon classmates/others who are actually enthusiastic about academics and learning instead of doing it solely for the sake of getting that BA credential as weird and even “immature”<em>. Something which really *</em>**ed me off.</p>
<ul>
<li>All of them attended college in the late '70s and early-mid '80s.</li>
</ul>
<p>OP</p>
<p>I’m sorry. I’m sure for a freshman when all that hype about it is going on, it is painful to be in the position your daughter is in, right now. It’s tough to watch that from the sidelines. I’m sorry.</p>
<p>Just for perspective, my daughter joined a sorrority her freshman year. She found the whole greek system to be rather unimaginative and repetetive and was ready to let it go by the middle of her sophomore year. Granted, she was too busy with other things to do it justice and could barely find the time to eat dinner at the house, but she said, “it just seems like something it’s not.”</p>
<p>She should try again next year if she wants, but in the meantime, if she were my daughter, I’d just recommend she get re-involved with the things she did for EC’s in high school. </p>
<p>good luck. this too shall pass.</p>
<p>((hugs)) It’s hard when our kids want something and don’t get it. I think we tend to hurt more than they do. "How could ANYONE be so blind that (s)he doesn’t see how wonderful my S or D is? " </p>
<p>In the scheme of things, though, not getting into the right sorority isn’t among the worst maladies that can befall a human being. So, try to help your D keep things in perspective.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, she may look back some day and think that this was a blessing.</p>
<p>I feel for your daughter…that is what stinks about Greek life. It hurts not to be accepted by peers. I do not think the rush process should ever take place freshman year. The kids are still too young and by soph year they would really have a better view about the kind of house they want to join. Your daughter could probably rush again and by then she will know what she is getting into instead of just trying to impress people that she does not know or even really care about.</p>
<p>By age 18 or so most girls have already been through around 6 years of peer infighting, in and out groups and general nastiness only young teen girls can muster.</p>
<p>Let us not forget that the OP’s daughter was accepted by two houses that SHE chose to reject.</p>
<p>I completely agree that rush should not take place until sophomore year. That gives students the opportunity to actually get to know different houses, and to establish connections outside the greek system, both of which seem like significant positives to me.</p>
<p>BTW, I haven’t heard from my S of his house doing any community service. I suppose they must do some, but it clearly isn’t the reason to be a member for him. That’s fine with me.</p>
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<p>…and no one has raised this, but the girls in those houses were probably hurt by her rejection of them, too. They know who they invited back, and either know or will likely find out that OP’s D preferred to pledge no house rather than pledge theirs.</p>
<p>From research I have seen as an advisor, deferred recruitment does not result in higher placements. In fact, it appears that from at least one Panhel study, that girls drop out of rush more quickly. Seems that by the time that they have been on campus a few months, girls are more likely to frop from recruitment when they are not asked back to a “top” house. Deferred recruitment generally also is coupled with “silence” meaning that sorority members are forbidden to speak to potential new members until rush, so rather than forming opinions by meeting the young women in the house, girls are relying on the reputation from the GUYS on campus. Of course, in order to meet the sorority women without bending the rules, freshmen would need to join clubs and attend parties where they would meet these women. Rather than forming their own opinion a girl will drop out of recruitment if she thinks she is “too good” for a house. This, of course happens at campuses with summer or early fall recruitment but it is compounded on a campus with deferred recruitment.
Waiting until sophomore year would only really work at a campus that does not have housing, since that would mean that members would only live in during junior year and seniors would be forced to live in just to pay the bills for the houses. On many campuses, the housing isn’t a big deal, but it is a big part of the experience for many. Dues would need to be considerably higher, making Greek Life impossible for lower/middle income women. Deferring only a semester would allow sophomores to live in the house, but at that point many people who want to rush would be forbidden to if they had a rough semester adjusting from a GPA standpoint.
I am not saying that schools should/shouldn’t defer recruitment. I went through a deferred recruitment, and waiting didn’t seem like a benefit to me personally. I have been an advisor at chapters that recruit in both August and January. Each has their own set of problems.</p>
<p>^Bay, I thought about pointing that out, but I didn’t want to kick the OP when she is down.</p>