for other moms - the scoop on smu rush

Non-legacies have a "very legitimate beef" with panHELLenic for not disclosing their limited opportunity to join the top 4 sororities. The past few years legacy versus non-legacy Recruitment results should be disclosed to them months in advance. Leading-on non-legacy PNMs about joining Greek Life in the top 4 sororities is "cruel and deceitful".

Update - this year's zoom rush was really tough. On the good side, some top sororities dropped their legacy policy (mandated by national) so it made it more open for non-legacies. I don't have numbers but my daughter said that legacies were not a factor in bids at her house this year.

Spring 2020 New Shocked GDI Editorial:

As a newly shocked GDI, SMU has really changed this Spring semester. All of the sorority PCs have become harsh cliques. They eat together in the cafeteria, sit together in class, study together and go to pee together.

My roommate is in a PC, so most nights I am alone in my dorm room. We used to do things together, now she does not have the time. Between Chapter & PC meetings, mixers, parties and other PC activities, they are too busy to hang with GDIs.

We (GDIs) are a group of @300 who stay in dorms & watch TV streaming, the Bachelor & Shopping Network. Pretty depressing knowing our parents paid almost $50 grand for this semester. Most of us (GDIs) are now mostly concentrated on which university we will transfer to this Summer or Fall.

The university & Panhellenic have not committed Newly Shocked GDIs any time or a budget for social activities during this semester. There are a few basketball games to attend and Program Council may have movies or an event or two.

WE ARE THE FORGOTTEN.

We paid almost $50 grand for this semester and feel like the university is asking & waiting for us to leave. Clearly the university for the Spring semester relies on Greek Life almost exclusively for student's social life. GDIs time in the evening is spent deciding on which university to transfer next semester. We are concerned about "stranger danger" in such a big city, so most of us do not leave the campus at night.

We are all stunned the university risks losing almost 300 freshmen girls each calendar year to GDI shock. Looking back, Panhellenic is to blame for not being "more forthcoming" about the limited true openings for the top 6 legacy-saturated sororities to 750 PNMs. The university is to blame for scheduling recruitment to entrap 300 girls for 2 exorbitantly expensive semesters. Then both dropping us with limited social events or activities for the captured Spring semester.

48Vote review up 7Vote review down

All complete lies. It's really sad that this person has nothing else to do but try to promote the big lie about our greek system.

^ Obviously a Panhellenic Poser. "Pan Poser".

There are 285 New Shocked GDIs tonight.
Sororities 1 - 3 gave @5 non-legacy bids each.
Sororities 4 - 6 gave @15 non-legacy bids each.
60 truly non-legacy openings this recruitment.

There needs to be a GDI Crisis Office established.
If not, 250 freshmen may transfer from SMU.

Clearly a panHELLenic cover-up post.

Trying to cover-up their "cruel and deceitful" rigged predetermined recruitment farce.

Newly ShOcKeD GDI post from 2018:

panHELLenic did the same dirty tricks to us in 2021.

We see Panhellenic paid Greek Rank to REMOVE the GDI Terrible Week Post. The points made on that Post were read by over 400 viewers. Lets all hope there will be changes made to the manipulated recruiting process next year.

The major factual points were as follows:

The University in 2015 moved the full tuition refund date to the week BEFORE the final results were announced. Any freshman wanting out of the University after receiving her rush results would be subject to a 10% cut to her tuition and housing refund.

Keep in mind most freshmen do not have cars on campus so they would have to get their parents to drive to Dallas in their large SUV on snow / ice filled roads to pack and move her out. We just learned the University requires the student to be out of her dorm by Friday, January 26th at 5pm, a short 5 days after receiving her rush results, to prevent losing 50% of her housing refund. Extending the deadline through the weekend was Not Allowed to give parents time to drive to Dallas. A premeditated captive strategy to keep these 175+ newly GDIs at SMU for the Spring semester. EVIL.

Most of the newly GDIs were encouraged to proceed with COB to find a possible opening. Only sorority 7 & 8 were involved in COB this week. These were the sororities most were Not Interested In. Once realized of the GDI reality, it was Wednesday, far too late to transfer to another university or to ask your parents the short notice to make the dangerous wintery drive to Dallas.

It was pointed out that a vast majority of the top 6 sorority PCs were pre-determined. Only a few true openings were actually available to the non-connected. Fall Sophomore rush is very similar to COB. Only sorority 7 & 8 usually take pledges. Those Sophomores that go through recruitment a second time in the Spring are usually cut early and are given bids from sorority 7 & 8 again. Sorority 7 may cut you as a sophomore.

Pretty depressing. Tonight, my roommate and many of the newly pledged girls are out at sorority parties. The 10 -12 newly GDIs on our floor are studying or watching the Shopping Network.

We did nothing to deserve this social isolation. Just obeyed the recruitment rules and trusted the top 6 sororities with their verbal bid encouragement. We are stuck here as social outcasts by design of the University and Panhellenic.

Lies - fake post. SMU rush is a nightmare and anyone who has actually rushed knows this. Everything is decided before rush starts and the odds are completely stacked against OOs girls without connections or obvious wealth. You can post on here as a “mom” all you want but that’s the truth.

Because your daughter got a bid. Let’s see how you will react to the “wacky mom” if your daughter was singled out and cut on the first day after A very successful rush date all semester by the girls in her top house choice. Would comment on all her instagram pictures. Then cut her the 2nd day. Meaning Everyone was fake to her. My daughter rushed and is in a sorority. Her top choice. But I have seen enough to know that all it takes is 1 girl To have a personal issue with you, imagined or not, and you can get blackballed get cut on the first day. Whether you are oozing with wealth legacy or your daughter fits the “look”.

$ that could happen at any school, my daughter was prepared for that. There are always going to be disappointed girls in this process for many reasons. But the person who posts the same thing over and over made it seem as if if you weren't a legacy, super rich, had Texas connections or model looks the only options are sororities "7 and 8". This wasn't my daughter's experience at all, which is why I shared it. Also, she was open minded to all of the houses and has many nice friends in sorority 7, they are a great group. And if all the girls who dropped because they think they are too good for "7 or 8" actually joined these houses, couldn't they make them "better"?

So you think that she was lead-on in an elaborate mean-girl scheme designed to get her hopes up and then dash them for the entertainment of all the sorority members? I mean, what were you expecting, that they tell her ahead of recruitment week that they aren't going to give her a bid? Sororities are not allowed to do that, nor are they allowed to promise a bid to anyone. Both are considered dirty rushing and strictly prohibited. She has to find out during recruitment week what the official decision of the sorority is, just like everybody else. Or maybe they shouldn't have been welcoming to her in the first place, because that was actually fake of them? Is that what you're going to tell her when she applies for internships and jobs, and the hiring managers are welcoming and nice to her and seem interested in getting to know her, but then they decide that although she's one of the better candidates, they have identified someone else who fits the position best, and because they can't hire everyone they like, she doesn't get the position. Are you going to tell her that their hiring system is rigged and that they were all fake to her? What actually happened is that a sorority she liked expressed interest in her and gave her a chance in their membership selection process by trying to get to know her ahead of time with rush dates and by commenting on her insta. Then the sorority ultimately decided that others were a better fit and released her so she could focus on other houses. It doesn't mean they hate her, it doesn't mean that some members there wouldn't still want to be friends with her. It doesn't mean anything other than that the chapter, as a whole voting entity, decided that other girls were a better fit. None of us always get our way; none of us are entitled to always get our way. Being resilient is harder to learn when your mom isn't helping.

Non-legacies have a "very legitimate beef" with panHELLenic for not disclosing their limited opportunity to join the top 4 sororities. The past few years legacy versus non-legacy Recruitment results should be disclosed to them months in advance. Leading-on non-legacy PNMs about joining Greek Life in the top 4 sororities is "cruel and deceitful".

This crazy mom with the "legitimate beef" is a complete wack job. I just went through recruitment and got a top house. I'm from way out of state and had no recs because no one uses them in my home state. I seriously only know one legacy in my class. Crazy mom is a liar.

Actually I really am a mom of a freshman girl who went through rush. I am 54, and only bothering to post because of how concerned I was for my daughter going into this. I don't understand why some of these posters are so determined to make everyone think SMU rush is so bad? What is the purpose? Whatever you are trying to accomplish, it doesn't appear to be working because there were lots of very happy girls yesterday, and today they are hanging with both their old friends and their new sisters. When they expected rush to be terrible, but then it's not, they are actually much happier! The other moms I met during rush (at the mall, LOL) pretty much agree that the sororities treated the girls really well and that the experience, although imperfect, isn't as bad as we had all feared. It's pretty much the same as at other schools, but here the houses are nicer and the girls have better manners :-)

Already getting the paperwork in order for UT and elsewhere. Rush here is a political joke. How does SMU think any parent would be paying $75,000 a year for their legacy daughter to be cut and just stay at SMU?

#1 prize for the shallowest thought I've ever seen in writing.

Non-legacies have a "very legitimate beef" with panHELLenic for not disclosing their limited opportunity to join the top 4 sororities. The past few years legacy versus non-legacy Recruitment results should be disclosed to them months in advance. Leading-on non-legacy PNMs about joining Greek Life in the top 4 sororities is "cruel and deceitful".

considering 200 or so girls drop recruitment every year before preference day, I would say those girls are the ones not giving themselves a chance, not the houses

That.is.not.how.rush.works. !!!!!!!!!!

There are not a predetermined number of spots available in each house. The release figures methodology (RFM) used by 99.9% of campuses with Panhellenic sororities - including SMU - works. Quote isn’t set before rush starts, it’s set after Pref.

If 650 PNM’s start rush week and all 650 get at least 1 invitation to pref night (and fill out their pref card), the quota is 650/8 = 81.

RFM works because it forces the strong recruiting chapters to release PNM’s they aren’t interested in earlier in the week, allowing those PNM’s to get to know other chapters further.

If 200+ PNM’s didn’t drop out of SMU rush because PKT cut them, then there would actually be another 200 “spots” because pledge classes would be bigger all around. That’s 60+ more bids to PKT, 30+ more bids to XO & DDD, 15+ more bids to DG, etc. Each “tier” would be bigger and stronger if PNM’s would trust the system. And the weaker recruiting chapters would be a lot stronger too.

True. And they drop out because they're new and don't realize that the stuff they read on here is pure bs

^^^Please you are Bitter, party of one. Are you in middle school?

I think you misunderstood my post. Just to clarify, my daughter was not one of the "lucky" ones.She too was one of the 200 plus girls who dropped out of rush her freshman year. She ended up pledging a house her sophomore year however it was not one of her top choices. The point I was trying to make is that I think SMU needs to do a better job communicating the facts surrounding recruitment at SMU. There will always be a percentage of girls who will get their top choice of a house but most of the 650 girls will not. I think if that was clearly spelled out before recruitment started, girls could enter into the process not having unrealistic expectations.

Non-legacies have a "very legitimate beef" with panHELLenic for not disclosing their limited opportunity to join the top 4 sororities. The past few years legacy versus non-legacy Recruitment results should be disclosed to them months in advance. Leading-on non-legacy PNMs about joining Greek Life in the top 4 sororities is "cruel and deceitful".

What does "upper middle class" mean?

Just want to add that there are plenty of girls who actually cut the PKT’s because they feel more suited to the other houses.

You mean to say that they ranked other houses higher than PKT. PNM's do not cut houses, they rank them.

All the girls in GPB are really weird? Isn't it wonderful that there are some girls at SMU that have more interesting qualities than your daughter? The fact that you think that makes me wonder about your intelligence.

You can be as upper middle class upper crust or whatever rank in society you are. And anywhere USA, Dress well, polite, rushed hard, together with your other friends but if someone or anyone in those houses you pref’d has an issue with you, envy over guys, jealousy over frat boys, which your daughter is not aware of bec they pretend to love you as much as your friends, you can get blackballed and not get cut on the first day. Y’all have good things to say bec your daughters successfully rushed whether it’s their top choice or not. I wonder if you can say the same thing if your child gets cut on the first day while her friends all got a bid for the top house? And she’s better than all of them. My daughter went through the process last year. Is in a top sorority. But I saw so many girls last year who got cut and it was heartbreaking. Girls who fits a sorority girl to a T. But bec 1 girl had it out for her didn’t get a bid not even made it to the 2nd day. Transferred out immediately. Good for you moms that loved the process because your kids got in.

To $: That kind of thing can happen ANYWHERE. If someone in the house doesn't like a pnm and has enough clout in her sorority to influence voting then that's what happens. If your daughter is at another school and happy in her 'top' house it sounds like she has moved on. Why haven't you? Why are you on here? You must be that crazy mom who keeps posting. I feel sorry for your daughter that she has such an emotional, vengeful, train wreck of a mother. Get counseling for this and heal your spirit or this is going to eat at you until you get cancer.

You are correct...wrong verbiage ...plenty of PNM’s who rank other houses higher than the PKT’s....Not trying to throw shade...just saying that there are plenty of girls who don’t just look at PKT as the best option for them.

If you think recruitment at UT Austin is less competitive or “easier” than SMU you are delusional. It is extremely competitive and political. Makes SMU look like child’s play.

What an awful post, clearly by and awful person! Do you know all the girls in Gamma Phi? No? Then STFU. As far as your comments on recruitment at UT, that is a different ball game than SMU. In some ways more competitive, in some ways more relaxed (UT has many more social opportunities outside Greek life than SMU, so it is "easier" for girls to walk away, and there are more houses to choose from).

You are wrong. Quota( the maximum number of bids a sorority can extend) is not figured until after pref parties. RFM is much more complicated than this, but the simplistic explanation is that if 600 girls attend a pref party and there are a total of 6 sororities on campus, the number of girls attending pref is divided by the number of sororities, so 600 divided by 6 equals 100 girls that can be on each sorority's first bid list. Then the other girls that attended the pref parties are put on the sorority's 2nd bid list, which is made in case one of the girls on the first bid list lists another sorority as her number one choice (this is the only time that the computer will try to match the PNM's first choice). If the PNM chooses the sorority that also has her on their first bid list, then she gets a bid from them. If the PNM makes her first choice, but that sorority fills to quota before her name comes up, then the computer tries to match her with her 2nd choice. If her name comes up before they fill to quota, then she will get a bid from them. If that sorority fills to quota before she matches , then she most likely will become a quota addition to her first choice. So, in a nutshell, quota is the number of PNMs attending pref and signing a bid card (MRABA) divided by the number of sororities-if all PNMs make it to pref and designate their preferred choice(s) on the MRABA, the number of PNMs in that situation will be divided by the number of sororities and that will be quota.