Winter term sorority rush, altered by a new ranking system and a shortened four day process, began Tuesday evening. Eighty-nine women are registered to participate in rush, and each of the College's seven sororities is expected to accept between 10 and 15 new members.
This term rushees will indicate, but not rank, their preferred three or four favorite organizations before finding out which sororities have invited them to return for a second round. The computer program used by the Panhellenic Council will then compile the preferences of the rushees and the sororities to automatically produce the second-round schedule for each woman. Rushees will rank two sororities according to preference following the final night of rush.
Previous rush processes required that rushees meet with their recruitment counselors the day after each round to find out which houses had invited them to return. From the list of invitations, women then selected four sororities to return to for the second round and two for the final preference night. According to Sarah Shaw '08, Panhell vice-president of recruitment and former staff member of The Dartmouth, the new selection system will make the rush process fairer and more efficient.
"It really optimizes the system and reinforces the Panhellenic recruitment process of mutual selection," Shaw said. "It's not just the houses picking the girls. It allows everyone a chance to voice their opinion at the same time."
Shaw explained that although the system does not guarantee rushees will be asked back to their favorite organizations, it will give the women more of a say in the process.
The new ranking system also ensures that houses will fully meet their quotas for the number of rushees attending round two and preference night events, Shaw said. In the past, not all sororities have had the same number of women attending these parties because of the rushees' ability to accept or decline invitations.
Sorority members said they look forward to the impact the change will have on their houses.
"It ensures that we get girls in our house that really want to be there," said Laura Richardson '09, rush chair at Sigma Delta sorority. "Every house's dream outcome is to have 'x' number of new members who are as in love with the house as we are with them."
The new system will likely decrease some of the hysteria surrounding rush because potential new members will not know how many houses invited them back, Richardson said.
The number of female students rushing this winter is identical to last year's figure, which doubled the figure for 2005. The approximately 50 women who began but did not complete rush this fall are eligible to re-rush this term as long as they did not sign preference cards last term. Shaw was uncertain why the number of girls dropping out of rush has increased in the past two years.
"For some reason, the '09s and '10s come in with intentions," Shaw said. "The idea of Panhellenic rush is that women come into recruitment hoping to join the Panhellenic community and not an individual house. That's why you visit every house."
Additionally, restrictions on pledge class sizes make it impossible to accommodate every potential new member, Shaw said. Although the addition of Alpha Phi sorority in 2006 improved this problem, Shaw said women are still "released" from the process. She added that Dartmouth is in "desperate need of an eighth sorority."
"The sorority system is essentially full," Shaw said. "Hopefully one day we'll have a sorority system that rivals that of the fraternity system in that it has the space to accommodate everyone interested."
Last week's announcement that the Dartmouth chapter of Beta Theta Pi fraternity plans to reclaim its house on Webster Ave. -- forcing Alpha Xi Delta sorority, who currently occupies the house, to vacate June 30 -- may influence AZD's rush outcome. The Office of Residential Life has offered AZD a much smaller house on South Park Street, but AZD has not yet accepted the offer.
Alternatively, Alpha Phi can, for the first time, advertise concrete plans for a new house, a seven-member residence on South Park Street, to potential new members.
