<p>OK, I have nada knowledge of the Greek system, so this is all Greek to me (pun not intended)</p>
<p>Doubleplay and Seiclan-</p>
<p>I actually think the sorority process is way less brutal than frats. That stiff process is much more forgiving to awkwardness and nerves. Every visit to a suite or house is structured, and people talk to you no matter what. It may be totally superficial, but it isnât cruel. Iâll take superficial over cruel any day. If you go to a frat party, it is quite possible that you will be completely ignored. They may invite everyone, but they wonât necessarily make you feel welcome. They may not send out lists and invitations, but you will quite often know fast if you are not wanted back. Also, there is pressure to drink (at least there was at my school).</p>
<p>Since sorority rush happens so early, it isnât a popularlty contest (as the hierarchy hasnât yet been established). It is a brutal looks, clothes, charm, and small talk contest, though. I have to admit that. But charm trumps everything. If you are funny, witty, and charming, you will disarm even a room full of Morgan Fairchilds (YIKES!) and they just might invite you in (even if you look like Roseanne Barr). </p>
<p>I donât think a redesign will help. Getting thrown into a âpartyâ where no one has a preconceived notion about you can be a liberating thing. You get a fresh start, and a somewhat unnerving but relatively fair âauditionâ. How else could you do it? The cattle call aspect of it is actually a pretty democratic system.</p>
<p>Doubleplay: âHaving a bunch of people treat you kindly- all smiles and gushing friendliness- and then find out the next day they donât want to see you again. No thanks.â</p>
<p>I totally can see why someone would want to run - FAST - in the opposite direction. But for those of us for whom it clicked, it was a heck of a lot of fun. Please note though that (especially as you get closer to prefs) you can very easily not be invited back to a place where lots of people really liked you. It is a numbers game (especially for the most desirable sororities). The vast majority of people are not invited back purely because of vote totals, and sorority sisters suffer when a favorite rushee doesnât make the next cut. A lot of luck is involved. I have seen girls stand out because of a certain sweater (something which helped poeple remember her when it was time to vote). Girls are very rarely blackballed unless they have done something particularly mean to a sister in the room (like go after her boyfriend - thatâs a no no).</p>
<p>I did see girls get very hurt. You open your envelope privately, but everyone on your hall (and usually your dorm) knows how you did. It is especially bad at a school where there is a high percentage of Greek participation (and your school is out in the middle of nowhere like mine was, so the campus social life takes on an added importance). It can be a tough game. But you have to know that going in and submit yourself to it as a matter of choice. I really do think that frats are worse in some ways, and guys get rejected and hurt from them as well.</p>
<p>The rush process is fantastic preparation for real life. Also, while I would go back and do it again tomorrow (because I had more fun than anyone should be allowed to have), I am discouraging my children (strongly) from going to predominantly Greek schools. I am not advertising it at all to them (they are quite different from me anyway). I think there is less partying on non-Greek campuses. Also, I am hoping that my kids will be more serious and intellectual than I was. Hoping.</p>
<p>So why is it that the more âexclusiveâ a group seems to be (for no apparent reason other than years of carefully cultivated persona), the more that otherwise level-headed girls want to try to get into it?</p>
<p>Iâm saying this with regard to the upper-tier sororities that the rushees inevitably get all atitter aboutâŠIâm sure everyone here who is at all familiar with the sororities can name that chosen few. The ones that are the most difficult to get into, have a reputation for being the prettiest, the snobbiest, the most âall thatâ⊠The other poor sororities that for no apparent reason have not been able to develop this mystique get to feed off the lower end of the food chain. They get the girls who have been cut by the top tiers after the second or third round (in essense, they benefit from being the bottom dwellers). Sounds harsh, doesnât it? But isnât this really the way it works? Really, how many girls actually go out for rush saying, "Hey I really want/hope to get into Zeta Beta Meta (the nice girl-next-door sorority), not Tri-Alpha (the popular âhotâ girls)?</p>
<p>Itâs strange that the type of sororities that the girls all aspire to (the pretty, sparkling, jet-setter types), are the ones that most guys stay away from in the frat arena (at least my kids doâŠ)- those being the oiled and buffed hunky hair-flicking mousse wearing, work-out-at-the-gym-instead-of-actually-playing-a-sport quasi-jocks. My sons just want a bunch of decent good likeable guys and a house that has all the right amenities to hang out in. Oh, and popular enough with the young women to attract girls to parties. Very simple. </p>
<p>Maybe if they just let the girls visit the houses they wanted to from the get-go, many would opt out of trying out for the âolympic teamâ of sororities, and the bottom feeders would become more popular. Just a thought.</p>
<p>seclan,
Congrats to your daughter; Iâm sure sheâll be happy! She goes to UF, no? That was some game yesterday.</p>
<p>Yes, and UF won the game! D is really very happy with her new sorority and loves her new sisters. She really didnât buy into the popular vs. unpopular sorority houses during recruitment. Her issue was wanting a sorority with some more girls in it who had more in common with her. If she had gotten into one of those, than she would not have to deal with some other issues (like having to miss her sororities retreat which is scheduled to take place during our holiest religious holiday).</p>
<p>Yikes seiclan, that kind of stinks. My son is worried about upcoming retreats for a different reason (commitments concerning gf!). Pretty trivial. Hope it all works out.
We were fortunate to get out of that game right before it was called. I had a funny feeling the heavens were about to open up, and I told H I wanted to beat the rush out of town. We walked our 20 minutes to the car and as we pulled out, we learned about the lightening on the radio.<br>
Gotta love gator football. We have extended family who do the tailgating thing, so we always know where to go pre-game (they have an assigned parking spot). Itâs a fun Saturday thing to do.</p>
<p>PNMs and their parents have to remember that Greek recruitment is a process of mutual selection. The sororities have to make cuts every round as do the rushees. The NPC wants there to be less discrepancy in chapter sizes at schools and has changed recruitment procedure to help the smaller chapters.</p>
<p>BTW, I think the term âbottom-feedersâ is a nasty way to refer to the less-popular chapters.</p>
<p>doubleplay, at some campuses, fraternity rush is held during the summer before freshman year, and it is really hard to even get into a fraternity unless you are âknownâ by members and get invited to the events. The pledge classes are decided before school even starts and are full of guys from memberâs hometowns, high schools etc. So, what happens to the guys who donât know anyone!</p>
<p>My son rushed and was lucky to know quite a few guys in different fraternities on campus, so he had choices, had a good rush and joined an organization. His roommate is from OOS and if it werenât for my son introducing him to the members, he may have never pledged, only because noone knew him coming in. So there are definitely drawbacks to the fraternity rush system and Iâm sure alot of really great guys get left out only because noone knew about them.</p>
<p>With sororities, the houses have alot of information about the girls from their rush applications and resumes, and then they get to go to every house. At least with formal rush, they get a shot in every house, what they do with it is up to them.</p>
<p>and motherdear - I agree, âbottom-feedersâ is really NOT a nice thing to say!</p>
<p>One thing to consider: it seems that most people holding leadership positions in greek organizations have been involved for a long time, oftentimes since freshman year. Itâs never too early to get some leadership experience, and if you end up disliking the organization that you joined, you can just drop out of the pledge class and rush again the next semester/year.</p>
<p>Well, my D is in a sorority and she definitely did not want to be with the âplasticsâ- she wanted nice & sporty & fun girls. D actually waited until spring rush to get a better idea what the people are really like and joined one where she already knew a girl- it sounded very easy to me, you know some one, you like those girl, you join. Now that D has gone through a Rush or two or three on the other side, even those nice, fun, ârealâ girls can be a royal pain at rush. Many wonderful girls were cut simply because they were not remembered as well as some other girls- it did feel very arbitrary to my D, though the sorority would be up all night deciding those seemingly arbitrary results.</p>
<p>Dâs college doesnât hold rush until second semester. Makes sense to me. Allow students to get to know their dorm-mates, class-mates, join other clubs and get adjusted before joining. Frats/Sororities have a way of monopolizing social time and limits the relationships and experiences that COULD develop.</p>
<p>The bottomfeeders term- was for lack of a better word. Iâm sure how to refer to those sororities. All I know (because I wasnât in a sorority after all) is that the girls my sons know, and the daughters of friends, that have rushed sororities, all referred to the âtopâ sororities as well as the sororities that some of them settled on after they got cut from the popular sororities. And they had some pretty derogatory names, MUCH worse than bottom-feeder (actually bottom feeder was a relatively benign term compared to the others). Thatâs not my observation; thatâs what Iâve heard from othersâŠthat there is a âpopularityâ among sororities. My term was crass. But whatever you call them, they are the houses that arenât at the top of the pecking order. </p>
<p>Hope that didnât get me into trouble either. Maybe Iâll just keep stepping in it.</p>
<p>I donât know about the summer fraternity thing. Both my sons did receive some paperwork for various fraternities (they called it an âapplication for scholarshipâ) over the summer but didnât fill them out. Neither of them actually had any intention of joining a fraternity before coming to college. It wasnât until they started that they changed their minds.</p>
<p>The stuff about the pledge classes being decided ahead of timeâŠLOL thatâs what I always heard about sororities! A friendâs daughter just went through spring rush for that reason- she didnât want to have to compete with the thousands of girls during fall rush, and she got into a house because she âknewâ girls there already who sort of pulled her in.</p>
<p>There are fraternities that are fairly superficial as well. My kids stayed away from those. They just want to hang out with decent, nice, âcoolâ (as they put it) people.</p>
<p>Doubleplay- about the pledge classes being decided ahead of timeâŠthat is what we heard had happened during my Dâs rush. Many, many of the girls had friends (from high school and summer B) that were already in sororities and âpulled them inâ so to speak. There were also a record number of legacies this year. There were very few spots in certain sororities for an unknown (to them, since my D went to a small private high school) who had no prior knowledge of the system (getting letters of reference, asking friends to pull for you etcâŠ). I have no idea of the reputation (where in it is the desirability order) of my Dâs sorority at her school but I havenât heard any negative sayings about it (you know, like Tri DeltâŠeveryone else has etcâŠ) All I know and care is that she is now very happy in her new âhouseâ and loves the girls and the whole greek scene. She is a sophomore (who told everyone last year that she was totally not into the greek thing).</p>
<p>If I had my druthers, if I was to go back again, if I was interested in joining a sorority (a lot of ifâs there)- I would opt to âcompeteâ in a big fall rush cattle-call type thing- where everyone is basically an unknown- rather than a spring rush where most of the girls already know who everyone is (and therefore know who they are going to pick). Sure, in a cattle call rush, you are more of a number, but for a girl who doesnât already have an âinâ, thatâs got to be more fair than trying to compete in a closed society. Although the insider tracking still goes on; to some extent the whole rush system is somewhat of a facade.</p>
<p>From what Iâve seen, the spring rush allows sororities to pick up the girls that are friends with insiders already- and the fall rush is just overwhelming!</p>
<p>Another difference between fraternities and sororities is that fraternities, in general, have a larger relative supply than demand (the fraternities want larger pledge classes than they generally get), whereas the sororities have greater demand (more girls get cut). My sonâs fraternity is somewhat selective. They want good students who will bump up their GPA, they want someone who is socially functional, guys who will work hard, participate, come to meetings, volunteer to âworkâ, keep the place going- after all, most of the house maintenance is done by the members, and it isnât all fun and games every weekend. However, theyâre not selective from a superficial standpoint- theyâre not looking at what people wear (unless they dress like slobs, smell, are repulsiveâŠ), whether they are handsome, whether they âsay the right thingsâ. The biggest criticism Iâve heard from my son about potentials is that they donât work hard enough (donât show up for meetings, work parties, or complain too much) or show any commitment.</p>
<p>If there is formal recruitment in the fall, only the chapters that did not make quota (total number of girls still in recruitment after round 3 divided by number of sororoties) or who are not at ceiling (total membership allowed on campus) can do informal rush in the spring. The top-tier houses usually arenât doing informal recruitment because they already are at maximum capacity. So the full gamut of houses is not available for PNMs of an informal rush.</p>
<p>Getting recs from an alumna of each GLO represented on campus can go a long way in helping a young woman get matched to a house even if she isnât from the same hometown as active sisters.</p>
<p>For what itâs worth, I knew guys at my school who pledged a fraternity as freshman, decided they didnât like it, depledged, and pledged a different fraternity, or an ILG (independent living group, an entity that I donât think exists at most schools) that fit them better. It wasnât impossible. And some depledged and never went back. But most were quite happy with the fraternities that they pledged initially. We had a LOT of fraternities (around two dozen), so the people who at least did some research before they arrived, looking up fraternity websites and such, were less overwhelmed - they already had some idea which fraternities they wanted to visit.</p>
<p>As an outside observer I found the sororitiesâ process to be bizarre, but thatâs just me.</p>
<p>The entire Greek system is incomprehensible to me. Why would anyone go through all of that, just to have âfriends.â I simply will never get it.</p>
<p>As for the opening of envelopes in public, I remember reading a long article in the Dallas Morning News about how itâs done at SMU and that is what they describedâŠsome girls leaving in tears, others squealing with joy, etc. Why would anyone go through that voluntarily?</p>
<p>missypie, that was exactly my thoughts when I was in college! I had no patience for that stuff. Imagine my surprise when my sons both pledged a fraternity. Me- a laid back, beach girl, with two âgreeksâ. Itâs pretty incomprehensible to me, I have to admit. :)</p>
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<p>I think you are simplifying things a bit. At most schools (but not all, grant you), going greek is the equivalent of finding a place to live. It is a housing option, where you get meet, albeit superficially, all of your housemates in advance and mutually decide if you will feel comfortable together.</p>
<p>Aside from that, âhaving friendsâ is a pretty important need for most people on this planet. I wouldnât minimize the value to your life of finding compatible and long-lasting friendships.</p>
<p>Also, you are gaining âsibilings,â not just âfriends.â What that means of course will vary from greek to greek, but in can be a very powerful thing.</p>