Sorority fall recruitment officially concluded Tuesday night with Bid Night, when sorority members welcomed their new pledge classes. The Class of 2007 showed a strong preference for national houses, with the three local houses garnering fewer pledges overall.
Alpha Xi, Kappa Kappa Gamma and Delta Delta Delta had 42, 48 and 48 rushees pledging their houses, respectively. Sigma Delta had 38 pledges, Kappa Delta Epsilon, 43 and Epsilon Kappa Theta, 35.
Pledges do not officially sink their bids until the end of the term, so exact numbers will not be known until then. And pledge class numbers may change further as houses give out open bids to women in the Class of 2007 who did not rush, did not receive a bid or dropped out before completing the process.
While pledge class numbers often fluctuate from year to year for each house, the rush process itself can contribute to discrepancies. Based on a matching process between the houses and the girls, rush involves the houses estimating how many girls will accept their bid, said Sigma Delta rush chair Lindsey Pryor '05.
"Giving out too few bids could potentially limit our numbers, but that doesn't seem to have any horribly devastating effects," she said.
Still, some members and rushees expressed concerns about Panhellenic Council errors in the matching rushees and houses. Though the process is far from foolproof, the fluctuation among pledge class numbers coupled with miscommunication between rushees and Panhell have raised some suspicions.
"There were definitely a lot of girls who were confused whether or not they were invited back to a house, whom I'm sure would have wanted to just know if the 'results' they got from their Rho Chi were final and accurate," said KDE pledge Melissa Machaj '07.
The computer on which the rush program was loaded did crash before the second round of rush, but Panhell stressed that the program had been backed up previously and had no effect on invite outcomes.
Additionally, numbers may have been skewed by the '07s themselves, many of whom showed an inclination towards block rushing houses with their friends. Held in 28 Silsby Hall, Pref Night was a chaotic scene of rushees conferring with fellow '07s about their plans, even though formal recruitment rules forbid rushees to discuss their preference plans with anyone but a Rho Chi.
"It was supposed to be a silent process," said Rho Chi Tracy Shechtman '05. "But by setting it up in a giant classroom Panhell was basically asking the girls to discuss where they were going before they signed their cards."
Discussion about where one is preferencing a house can have serious implications for the rush system because the number of Pref Night invites a house extends is based on past acceptances that are fairly consistent over the years.
"It makes sense to assume that an organized decision made to go one way or another by enough people could throw off the pre-determined ratios and then set an imbalance throughout the entire system," said Tri-Delt rush chair Kate Strayer-Benton '05.
