When sorority rush goes wrong
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Anonymous
Is that unusual for northwestern for that many girls to not get bids? |
Anonymous
Yes very. These numbers seem more akin to UVA? Or an SEC school than NU. Rumor/theory from my kid is they have much more interest in Greek life (like everywhere) this year and they’re recruiting a “different” kind of applicant lately. More Vandy. Less Cornell? A lot of angry kids and parents. And a lot of demands on university to encourage more Greek chapters to come back. |
Anonymous
how many chapters are there? |
Anonymous
Only 8 |
Anonymous
| UVA rush was also really rough. My daughter knows at least 20 girls who did not get a bid or only got a bid to one of the lowest 2 houses. There are many hurting kids. Greek life is horrible. |
Anonymous
Does SIP mean suicide bid? Could these girls really only see themselves in one chapter? |
Anonymous
| My DD did U Mich rush. Going in to the process, she had a very strong sense of her top choice. Through the process, though, she connected a bit more with women from another house, and it changed her perspective. Ultimately, she got a bid from this other sorority. She's very happy, and several of her close friends are joining the same house. All to say that, at least in some cases, the process works out well. I personally am very happy that the girls are not required to rush first semester before they have a sense of the school and establish a community. As previous posters mentioned, in my view sororities can be additive to a social life and community. |
Anonymous
NP. Also, familiar with NU rush this year. By the time you get to philanthropy or pref, maybe yes given the other names on the list? The cuts were apparently really harsh at NU. Or maybe they are everywhere? Reports that pledge classes are around 40. Why wouldn't the school increase the pledge classes by 10-15 at least? |
Anonymous
Yes, SIP = suicide bid (single intentional preference?) |
Anonymous
Very harsh at UVA too. So many really sad girls. There are at least a half dozen on my daughter's hall and that is one hall in one dorm. 
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Anonymous
Pledge class numbers are set by a very simple formula. On pref day, quota is set at the number of women still enrolled in recruitment divided by the number of chapters. That’s it. It’s not a big mystery and it isn’t artificially restricted. And there are formulas given to each house at each round that tell them how many gilts they should aim to invite back in order to get the number of acceptances /attendees they need to return to each round. This number is based on the based three years of each chapter’s own statistical performance. (Think in terms of college acceptances…a more sought after college extends fewer acceptances and a less sought after college needs to extend 3-4 times as many to fill a freshman class if the same size as the most sought after college. And therefor the most sought after college is considered to be more selective. Because they can be…and then because they have to be.) Same is true in the hierarchical sorority system. The problem occurs when chapters start releasing the same girls across the board. The system can’t tell chapters WHO to invite. They can only tell them how many! Again-do the college analogy—if every college goes after the National merit scholar 4.0 kid plus a few others but no one takes the “average” kid, it’s a bloodbath for the average kid. What happens in sorority world is that 1600 girls start out rushing but if by the end only 600 are left because all groups tried to go after basically the same “type” of girl, the pledge classes are smaller and there’s a lot of girls who didn’t get a bid just by the fact that they weren’t invited early in or they dropped when they stopped being invited to the houses they wanted most. It’s a flawed system. The one they had before was maybe better to some degree but the sizes of the chapters varied widely. Some should have 300+ while others had 50 more popBut there is no mechanism to force any house to take |
Anonymous
. There must be some chapters that aren’t full, which makes it unlikely new chapters will be added. Pledge class size limits, or quota, is just the total number of girls who fill out bud cards on preference night divided by the number of sororities. If a lot of girls drop before pref night, that limits quota. |
Anonymous
Many schools have the girls “cut” a sorority or two each round as well. Helps with the problem you are describing but most girls drop early if they get cut from the house they want. |
Anonymous
There’s no way 50% of the girls left on pref night didn’t get bids if the quotas are allocated by dividing number of girls by chapters. The math just doesn’t work out. |
Anonymous
It’s horrible because they didn’t want to accept bids from what they deem “low” houses. Let’s be clear. We don’t feel sorry for them that they feel better than others. Yes, rush is tough. |