why did tri delt and sdt do so bad??

It honestly happens--most houses on campus have had off years over the course of time where they don't perform as well as they usually do during rush. All of the posts right after rush make it seem like 1 pledge class "changes things" but it really doesn't. It would take years of bad/off pledge classes to have tridelt be "removed" from top tier and have SDT go down that much. It's sort of dramatic. I'm not in either house and wouldn't want to be, but throughout my time here there's always been one top house/middle house that does poorly (Kappa has had a bad year while I've been here, as has Theta). What it does is give a reality check to Tridelt and SDT to just put on a better rush next year more than anything else.