No Frills Rush?

[lyrelyre]

I was just wondering how many campuses have gone to a no frills rush. My campus began the transition while I was there. The PNMs all wear the same t-shirt on the first day and all members in each chapter have to wear a letter t-shirt. They also did away with one of our skit days. Philanthropy day was added. Has the response to this been positive?

[shadokat]

We have no frills rush, and to be honest, it's really good. You don't have to spend BUTTLOADS of money on recruitment, and it keeps things sort of uniform. It hasn't necessarily changed the numbers of PNMs going through recruitment, nor do the PNMs have to "wear" anything special.

[PenguinTrax]

I think No-Frills Recruitment is a great idea. It puts the emphasis on conversation and personality exploration, not on who has the best house decorations or who has members that are opera stars. It also is a more pro-Greek event than just a pro-individual chapter event.

You do need to work harder in some ways - coming up with unique and interesting philanthropy events and making sure each and every sister is a good conversationalist, for example. But I think the rewards are better - less stress for everyone involved and the PNMs have a better opportunity to really see what each chapter is like, w/o all the trappings of traditional recruitment.

[lyrelyre]

Those of you who do have NFR: do your chapters still do a skit?

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Ours is medium-frills, I would say. The PNM's all wear the same t-shirt, but the chapters can wear whatever. We wear fitted tees and khaki shorts or casual skirts, but some chapters wear dresses the first round. We are allowed to have skits/songs at every party, but there are time limits. Every chapter does a video for at least one round.

[Siobhan]

The University of British Columbia has had a no frills rush since 1997, and I think it's great. Recruitment is stressful enough as it is and with a no frills rush you don't have to worry about theme parties and the like. We still decorate our rooms, but it makes for a very even playing field.

[shadokat]

We still have skits, but they are very short and can't involve elaborate costumes or props. It takes a lot of imagination to be inventive, but it's still pretty fun.

Originally posted by lyrelyre
Those of you who do have NFR: do your chapters still do a skit?

[ErikaXO]

Personally, I hate no frills rush. We went to it my senior year and I think it really ruined things. First of all, it makes the experience a lot less "magical" (for lack of a better word) for the rushees. I realize not all chapters have the same kind of money to spend on rush, but I also don't think it is fair to give the rushees the impression that all the chapters are the same. It was really neat to see the individual personalities of the chapters shine through with their rush outfits and party themes.

Our rushees never had to wear uniform t- shirts or anything....basically it was fairly casual 1st party, slightly dressier 2nd, definitely dresses or skirts for 3rd, and very dressy for 4th. I also liked getting a better idea of the rushees' style and personality.

Just my opinion, but I feel pretty strongly about it.

[Heather]

My biggest complaint about NFR is that we CAN'T do skits. I think it has been no frills for several years at my school but the year I went through rush we had skits and they were awesome. One of my favorite parts of rush! Unfortunately, that was the last year for them. The only other thing I didn't like was that in my chapter we wore tshirts for the first two nights. Nothing wrong with that but I just felt SO casual, I would have been more comfortable in something more like what the wore the third night of rush (solid sort of fitted shirts). I think they changed that this past year and only wore tshirts on night. But this was just what my chapter decided on, not the campus. The rushies never had anything specific they had to wear, the last night they wore sundresses or something equivilant (TN is too hot in august to be to formal).

[AGDLynn]

Phil. Day was kinda neat! The AGDs wore AGD scrubs while the other sororities wore their letters or other kinds of T-shirts.. It was kinda funny b/c alumnae are not supposed to wear the same thing as the collegiates. When the alums went to sign-in, the Rho Chi's were freaking out b/c they thought the alums were wearing the same thing. They didn't believe it until they came on the hall and saw what the collegiates were wearing. Heard that the other sororites were somewhat jealous. It will be interesting to see what the other sororites wear next year.

Skit Day, the collegiates did Wizard of Oz. Of course, the characters were dressed up. The hall was reallllly neat. I didn't see the other halls so I don't know how elaborate they were, but AGD got lots of compliments.

[33girl]

OUr chapter personally never had that many "frills" so I had to laugh when no-frills was put into place, after years of being told we weren't being theatrical enough, or whatever. The way I look at it is skits are fine, but there HAD to be something done to put a cap on some of the spending I've heard of. I mean, for a group to spend the equivalent of a new car on decorations, costumes and food is obscene, in my opinion.

[AlphaSigLana]

Our rush chair went $1000 over the rush budget! Our skit was cool and girls loved it,but we still didn't make quota

[aephi alum]

We had what would probably be described as "medium frills". The rush budget was about $2400, about enough to allow each sorority to provide refreshments at all the parties, print some T-shirts (either enough for the newer members, to match shirts the older sisters already had, or one entirely new set for all the sisters - plus bid day shirts for the new members) and buy some decorations - the idea being that you would buy some new decorations and combine it with things you'd bought for previous years.

My chapter was much smaller than the other chapters on campus, so we never had enough money to even come close to spending what we were allowed to spend. (Of course, fewer sisters does mean fewer T-shirts, but the fixed costs of setting up screens, etc, don't change.) And we were newer, so we didn't have an arsenal of rush supplies built up from previous years like the other sororities did. I remember doing pop-ins as a rho chi, and thinking how fabulous the other 4 rush rooms looked compared to AEPhi's.

On the other hand, though, it meant that the women who came back to AEPhi, came back because they liked the sisters and felt they might fit in with the chapter, not because they were dazzled by the decorations and cute T-shirts. We didn't have throngs of women at pref, but the women who were there had already decided that AEPhi could be home, not based on glitz and glamor, but based on the sisters in the room.

Frankly, I would have preferred - not a totally no-frills, icewater-only rush with all sisters in identical T-shirts - but fewer frills, where PNM's can focus on the conversations rather than who has the cutest skits and the best petits fours.

I must say that I don't understand the idea of PNM's being required to wear identical outfits. At my school, PNM's wore whatever they wanted (with some guidelines from the rho chi's) - the only thing they had in common was Panhel-issued name tags.

[lyrelyre]

At my campus they all wear the same t-shirt the first day during the open rounds. The idea was to alleviate some of the first day stress: the rushees not having to decide what to wear. That has actually been pretty positive, the chapters also have to wear t-shirts so the rushees don't feel under dressed. It was a big deal when panhellenic voted on it. Some chapters thought that t-shirts were too casual for rush. Now that it is in place people like it.

Another thing that caused a big stink (even though I thought it was a little silly) was a rule that all rushees must enter through the main entrance every day. There were a couple of houses that would line up the girls and march them around the house to the back and bring them in that way. These houses had courtyards and they would decorate them. It also didn't hurt to remind the rushees how pretty and large the house is, right? Also there was a surprise in the foyer and they wanted the rushees to see it on the way out so it would have a lasting impression...ie they wanted them to remember it when filling out their preference card. The debate before this vote was hilarious!!! I wish you all could have been flies on the wall. Of course only two chapters voted against the measure...hm, makes you think.

[greek girlie]

I never would have even thought to take girls in through the back door.

As for no frills rush: I don't like it. I understand that spending got way out of hand but I heard stories from my older sisters about how fun rush was. They told me about elaborate decorations and skits every day. When I went through there was one skit and I didn't even get to pick out my own clothes every day. My mom told me that when she went through there was one day that they wore formals. How fun!