The four nights of Winter term sorority rush ended with 69 women receiving bids from the seven sororities on campus on Sunday afternoon. In contrast to Fall term's sorority rush, 100 percent of participating women accepted bids from one of the houses that they had visited on preference night and 90 percent of the rushees were invited to join their preferred house. During fall rush, 10 women received bids from houses that they had not visited during the final round.
Alpha Phi extended 11 bids; Kappa Delta Epsilon, 11; Alpha Xi Delta, 10; Delta Delta Delta, 10; Kappa Kappa Gamma, 10; Epsilon Kappa Theta, nine; and Sigma Delta, eight, according to Sarah Shaw '08, the Panhellenic Council vice-president of recruitment and a former staff member of The Dartmouth.
Eighty-nine women registered for rush this term, the same number of women who took part in last winter's rush. This year saw a decrease in retention rate, as 15 rushees withdrew from the process and five were released before preference night because they were not invited back to any of the houses. In the winter of 2007, only two women dropped out and two were released.
Shaw was uncertain of the reasons behind this change but said that the higher number of drop-outs during winter rush could be linked to the increased number of drop-outs in Fall term's rush.
"The expectation sometimes is that winter rush is easier, when in fact the houses must make the same cuts proportional to the number of women rushing," Shaw said.
According to Shaw, the new ranking system introduced by Panhell this term greatly facilitated the rush process. Potential new members indicated their preferred sororities immediately after recruitment parties instead of first finding out which houses had invited them to return. Panhell's computer system then automatically generated individual schedules for round two and preference night for each of the rushees.
"It made it a lot shorter, a lot more efficient and it gave the potential new members a chance to voice their opinions, which they hadn't been able to do previously," Shaw said. "I think it made them feel a little bit more connected to the process."
Many potential new members also responded positively to the system, which Shaw hopes Panhell will use again in the future.
"I thought it was definitely a step in the right direction as far as letting the rushees have a say," Meagan Herzog '10, a new member of Tri-Delt, said. "I felt less like I was being put where the sororities wanted to put me."
Jennifer Gaudette '10, a new member of Alpha Phi and a former member of The Dartmouth staff, said that she doubted how much more control the system gave her over the process, since women could still only attend round two and preference night parties at sororities that had also indicated an interest in them.
The recent announcement of Beta Theta Pi fraternity's plans to reclaim its house from AZD did not decrease the number of girls interested in joining the house, as indicated by the size of the sorority's pledge class, Jennifer Croteau '08, a rush chair at AZD, said.
"If anything, it helped to see that the sisters all came together in the situation and showed their leadership," Cindy Guo '10, a new member of AZD, said. "It's a bad situation but they're determined to get over it and look at the bright side of things."
According to Croteau, AZD sisters were concerned about the effect that the loss of their Webster Avenue house would have on the size of their pledge class but were "pleasantly surprised" by the outcome of rush. The members of the house made a formal announcement about the situation during round one.
"We emphasized that our friendships with each other and our bonds of sisterhood are not contingent on our physical plant at all," Croteau said.
Herzog said that although the members of AZD succeeded in acknowledging the positive aspects of their sisterhood, she thought that the loss of their house did lead to a reduced interest in AZD.
"I think more people would have wanted to go [back to AZD] if they stayed in that house, because it's a great house," Herzog said.
New members cited the time commitment required by rush and the pressure caused by waiting for their schedules as the biggest challenges of rush. Holding conversations with sorority members during the recruitment parties was also a source of anxiety.
"These girls are meeting you, they don't know you, and they're judging you in your entirety and putting you in a numerical system," Herzog said. "It's like if I didn't get into a sorority, I'm not that good of a person."
Rush participants said that, overall, more girls were satisfied about their final placement than they had been in the fall and praised the more relaxed nature of the winter process. Rush chairs were equally excited to receive new members.
"Results were great, we're so happy with the girls that we got," Laura Richardson '09, rush chair of Sigma Delta, said. "The results reflect the effort that we put in."
Saturday will mark the first night of men's fraternity rush, which will end Sunday.
