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Show U. Sorority Rush Mechanics Puzzle Freshman Girls Editor's note: What is rush like, anyway? The following explains the mechanics of sorority rush. By CHARLES PERRIN CLAUSEN During last week 350 girls went through the Panhellenic rush with 203 accepting bids to join the nine campus sororities. For those who did not participate In formal rush what rush consists of, particularly from the sorority's point of view, is often quite a mystery. To sign up for rush a girl must have a 2.5 GPA in 4basic" high school or transfer in with a 2.0 and be accepted for 12 hours of university work. After paying" their $6 fee they are divided up and started around to the various houses. The week starts on Saturday with a special presentation for out-of-town girls showing the house's living accomodations and explaining explain-ing the costs of meals, etc. The sororities are designed to shoulder part of the U's housing load go out of their way to show prospective roomers what house life is like. Elaborate Rotation Sunday and Tuesday are consumed con-sumed by 20 minute parties organized organ-ized so each girl must visit every house twice. After Tuesday, . . all parties 'are by invitation, only .and t since the sororities must decide . who to ask back on the basis of only 40 minutes of conversation an . elaborate rotation system is used to have the rushee meet as many members as , possible hopefully without the rushee noticing any system and thinking the girls are merely wandering around. After the last party Tuesday the . sorority goes into an all night' to select the 50 per cent they will . invite back , for the next ay's par- , ties. Much of the criticism of the system is based on the selection procedures used in the. first 'night , as it is said that the judgments are superficial at best. The sororities counter by complaining that they have no choice and must cut on something. Tinal Night' The rest of the week is consumed con-sumed by a steadily diminishing number of parties each night until un-til 'Tinal Night" on Saturday night. The rushees are shown an endless variety of skits which vary from the Wizard of Oz in one house to having a girl swing in on a rope in another until the last night where the girls are told, in what is usually an involved ceremony, that they are really wanted by their two last houses. The last night is also where the invitation procedure makes a big change. Up until that time the rushee selects those invitations from a packet of invitations she is given every morning but after final night girls fill out a preference card with lists, one of their first choices equal to the number they are allowed al-lowed to take and a second of girls that they are willing to accept , which may 'be as long as they want. Nutral representtatives of Panhel- -lenic then match the girl's prefer-ence prefer-ence . with the ' sororities' ' until all ' the first lists are filled as much as possible. Unfortunately every year 12 to 18 girls have lists that do not match and are not pledged unless one of the houses that did not fill their quota asks them to join and they accept. This year they all decided de-cided not to and were thus carried to the last day and the not pledged. Sunday, the sororities and the rushees are suprised . , to find out who pledged where when they receive re-ceive their bids and lists and participate par-ticipate in the traditional Pi Kap Caravan and afterwards all most anyone involved could care about is sleep and recovering., |