Fraternity/Sorority Selection

[Anonymous]

Well I certainly don’t know this specific situation but I’m sitting here thinking these girls could literally join the new house and make it their own, but they decided it was not good enough for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well I certainly don’t know this specific situation but I’m sitting here thinking these girls could literally join the new house and make it their own, but they decided it was not good enough for them.

So when the other girls made decisions about fit and didn’t choose that house as top 3, it was ok but when these 100 girls made the same decision they’re ungrateful snobs?

[Anonymous]

Well I just don’t see how it’s the schools “fault”. They lowered quotas so that They could populate a new house and the girls did not want that. Well that happens everywhere. There’s a bottom house at every school and no one is guaranteed a bid from anything higher.

[Anonymous]

Oh and yeah I wish my DD Could’ve decided between a bunch of sororities like some of her friends did but alas that is not what happened. Her story is not unique and neither is your kids.

Sure you can say that is what’s wrong with the Greek system but I would argue there are great girls and a ton of fun even in the less popular houses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I had not realized was at least at our DS’s school, after rushing and selecting a frat, there is a pledge period (I think 4-8 weeks) where they do challenges and get to know everyone before becoming full members. It’s a big time commitment.

You mean hazing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who never participated in Greek Life (my college did not have sororities/fraternities) I am curious how students choose which ones to rush or how it works in general. Let's say a kid goes to school in the south and decides to rush for a fraternity, has no family who has ever done it and no idea which one is which, how does one select? Or do you rush and hope one selects you?

Guys just rush and hope someone you like picks you. Go to some events in the summer and meet some guys with similar interests if it’s really important to him. They have different personalities and some are “dry”, so he wants to get to know them too.

Girls get emotionally abused for 5 sleepless, gut-wrenching days in a row then “omg, love it!!” for a year then want nothing to do with the rush process again unless they like judging people and being in control. Fun stuff. The nice girls pay a fine to avoid it. An “adult” is in charge but she never matured past her junior year in college and DGAF about the emotional trauma the poorly designed process inflicts.

Kind of.

Most schools don’t have any dry frats, so there’s that. But guys can get multiple bids and choose which one to accept.

And I’d like to add that after the rollercoaster of rejection and lasting emotional trauma that they call rush, if your daughter is lucky enough to end up in a sorority, no, the girls aren’t all friends. There’s a base level of niceties, and an expected facade to maintain that is upheld to woo the next pledge class, but cliques run deep, and the sorting hat isn’t left at the door. A social pecking order exists within each sorority itself, and it’s a constant competition to get a big to choose you, to run for exec positions, to get a little to chose you, it goes on and on and on. Some girls drop by junior year. A lot are over it by senior year and more drop. Some hang in there but just stop going to a lot of stuff.

NP. My God, this all sounds exhausting and traumatizing. Do these kids ever study?? What an awful process.

[Anonymous]

I so admire the kids who choose not to rush at all and make their friends the old-fashioned way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For large Southern universities, your daughter will need a letter of recommendation from a member of each sorority. These she can get by talking to friends and colleagues of you and your family. There are also regional groups for sorority members who have graduated so she can reach out to them for a rec if she doesn’t have any connection with that particular sorority.

The location of the school doesn't determine where recommendations are needed. That is decided by the "governing" board of the national sorority. Fortunately, that policy is changing, as sororities recognize that not everyone knows someone who was in every (if any) sorority. Mine now asks for a recommendation from someone who knows the individual personally. Could be a coach, a teacher, etc. That policy applies to every chapter across the country.

Recs are a joke. Legacy matters a lot but lots of triple legacies still don’t get a bid from their mom’s house.

That's going away in a lot of sororities, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I so admire the kids who choose not to rush at all and make their friends the old-fashioned way.

drinking in the dorm?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well I just don’t see how it’s the schools “fault”. They lowered quotas so that They could populate a new house and the girls did not want that. Well that happens everywhere. There’s a bottom house at every school and no one is guaranteed a bid from anything higher.

No one “lowered the quotas.” That doesn’t happen. Nationals would shut the whole thing down if that was the case.
Trust me. That is just a rumor perpetuated by girls who felt slighted. Quotas are not even set until after preference round, so if a girl
only had their least desired sorority left before preference and dropped, they were never impacted by the quotas. Quota is the number of girls that each sorority gets and it is evenly distributed across all sororities based on the number of girls that remain in recruitment until bid day. So if “favorite” sorority got to pick a list of 30 girls, so did every other one, including “least favorite” sorority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who never participated in Greek Life (my college did not have sororities/fraternities) I am curious how students choose which ones to rush or how it works in general. Let's say a kid goes to school in the south and decides to rush for a fraternity, has no family who has ever done it and no idea which one is which, how does one select? Or do you rush and hope one selects you?

Guys just rush and hope someone you like picks you. Go to some events in the summer and meet some guys with similar interests if it’s really important to him. They have different personalities and some are “dry”, so he wants to get to know them too.

Girls get emotionally abused for 5 sleepless, gut-wrenching days in a row then “omg, love it!!” for a year then want nothing to do with the rush process again unless they like judging people and being in control. Fun stuff. The nice girls pay a fine to avoid it. An “adult” is in charge but she never matured past her junior year in college and DGAF about the emotional trauma the poorly designed process inflicts.

Kind of.

Most schools don’t have any dry frats, so there’s that. But guys can get multiple bids and choose which one to accept.

And I’d like to add that after the rollercoaster of rejection and lasting emotional trauma that they call rush, if your daughter is lucky enough to end up in a sorority, no, the girls aren’t all friends. There’s a base level of niceties, and an expected facade to maintain that is upheld to woo the next pledge class, but cliques run deep, and the sorting hat isn’t left at the door. A social pecking order exists within each sorority itself, and it’s a constant competition to get a big to choose you, to run for exec positions, to get a little to chose you, it goes on and on and on. Some girls drop by junior year. A lot are over it by senior year and more drop. Some hang in there but just stop going to a lot of stuff.

NP. My God, this all sounds exhausting and traumatizing. Do these kids ever study?? What an awful process.

Yes, they do, because they’re expected to keep a high gpa. Anything less than a 3.0 will get an eye roll, because they publish chapter gpa averages, and a 2.5 will get you put on academic probation for one semester and dropped from the sorority after two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
NP. My God, this all sounds exhausting and traumatizing. Do these kids ever study?? What an awful process.

They keep a "file" of old exams. What they don't tell you is those exams are all "F"s with the occasional "D". Plus you get fined if you have to study a miss a party. They also don't tell you the girl selling you her high GPA is an Art History major (and they hide the huge percentage of these) trying to land a rich guy like it is the 80s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The boys have it easy. Very laid back recruitment. Girls are a whole different world.

I wouldn’t call death from alcohol poisoning “easy.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
NP. My God, this all sounds exhausting and traumatizing. Do these kids ever study?? What an awful process.

They keep a "file" of old exams. What they don't tell you is those exams are all "F"s with the occasional "D". Plus you get fined if you have to study a miss a party. They also don't tell you the girl selling you her high GPA is an Art History major (and they hide the huge percentage of these) trying to land a rich guy like it is the 80s.

Good lord, your sour grapes are showing. I was in a sorority myself and was never fined for missing a party, never given old tests to study, none of this. And i was on the executive board so i'd know if this was going on.

My DD is in a sorority now and has never been fined for missing a mixer or event, heck she even goes to other sororities mixers with her friends in those houses. Not sure what crazy sorority you were in or experienced, but this is the exception not the rule. My DD is pre-med and having NO trouble balancing the sorority and studying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The boys have it easy. Very laid back recruitment. Girls are a whole different world.

I wouldn’t call death from alcohol poisoning “easy.”

I believe i described it earlier. Fraternity rush is fun, pledging sucks and sorority rush is soul crushing, pledging is fun. Boys need to be VERY careful about their choice and once they have a bid, keep their eyes open and be willing to drop if they experience something they are not comfortable with. My DS has thoroughly enjoyed pledging but I do know kids who are having a very tough time.