greek balance
by: AccountingWith 60% of the student body coming from OOS, when will top houses (sorority and fraternity) learn to start having a better balance and take more OOS? As I look for an internship, I'm finding OOS students have tons of connections. They are coming from areas with good employment opportunities and a lot have parents in influential positions at Fortune 500 companies. I know some girls may just be looking for a husband here and not interested in corporate jobs, but of us want a career. Guys could definitely benefit too.
#1 by: Dean
As another OOS person I of course agree we have our own set of attributes that we bring to the table but there are 2
Important pieces to this...
First being (and if you’ve been a member of your fraternity or sorority long enough to be on the other side of rush you know this too) the members pick the new members. So if you went to X high school, and 50+ girls form X high school are going through rush, and your sorority is made up of 75 other girls who went to X high school....don’t you think you are going to want to take those girls you knew or your sisters knew as new members? Substitute high school with camp, church, whatever. The very Alabama sororities will keep picking mostly girls they know from high school with a few others sprinkled in....Greek communities have control over their memberships. They can let in whoever they want and drop whoever they want. They don’t “need” to start having a better balance.
The second piece is legacies. Of course we know some legacies get cut during rush, but the ones who don’t are usually in house or had a parent in house. Like if I’m a legacy to ABC because my mom was an ABC at some other school, and my roomie is a legacy to ABC but her mom, grandma, and older sister were all ABCs here at Bama and they have to make a cut on legacies at this point....they’re gonna cut me instead. When you cut a legacy (at least in my chapter) you have to call the legacy’s parent or whoever is the member making them the legacy and tell them...it sucks. Much easier to call someone who is a legacy with no connection locally here vs a legacy who is was and still is involved with the chapter at the local level.
Commentby: JJOct 3, 2018 4:00:41 PM
I'm a OOS finance major and agree there are good jobs locally and in surrounding states. Ill probably get people not agreeing but I'd put FL and TX in the not southern bucket.
Looking specifically at accounting, the Big 4 firms have one office in major cities. If you take away AL and surrounding states, that still leaves ~45 other states and their major cities with offices. Granted these offices recruit from local universities, but having connections in those offices and cities would benefit girls and guys here as well. I can agree with OP that there my be missed connections because some houses continue to focus on their high school friends. Yes I know there are tons of jobs at small accounting firms locally but there are only 4 Big firms nationally that most accountants want.
Just a fact.
Also, I think this really only impacts certain jobs. Teachers,nurses,etc are needed everywhere so I don't see those professions as needing a huge OOS network. Some of the business, engineering, pre-med majors could really benefit from a larger network.
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by: NoOct 3, 2018 5:15:30 PM
by: TOct 3, 2018 8:31:02 PM
Aren’t those numbers Fortune 500 companies headquartered in those states? Still important, but plenty of companies have offices outside of their home state. Also doesn’t take into account agencies like NASA which is obviously huge in Huntsville.
Anyway, the deep south may not have the most but we have more than some and you only need a job at one. Kinda like a sorority 🙂
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#3 by: Not for that!
Sororities are not a job networking service. They are first and foremost social organizations for women to have a sisterhood and social lives and a home away from home while they are in college. Best fit based on personality, a house's culture, and social profile is the goal. If you can get a job on your sorority connections that is a plus on the side, but should in no way be a consideration for membership selection.
by: NoOct 3, 2018 1:02:36 PM
Sorry, but that's a really outdated way to look at sorority membership.
A network is a network - you will connect across all social media channels, including professionally focused social media outlets like LinkedIn, with your sorority sisters, and why wouldn't you tap into that network professionally? And if that network includes an incredibly diverse group of people across the country, that's fantastic.
Should it be the reason to join a specific sorority? No, and I didn't think that's what the OP was saying either. But it is certainly another added benefit to further diversifying the more alabama focused sororities, if they want to.
People talk about connections plenty during recruitment. How the top houses are well connected and those families are well connected in Alabama, etc. Why not apply the same logic across the board?
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by: HmOct 3, 2018 2:35:13 PM
^Very true but I would argue the most valuable connections come more from local alumnae groups than people you actually knew in your chapter at college. Take chi o for example, very southern dominated at UA but you can’t throw a rock without hitting an alumnae chapter
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by: WellOct 3, 2018 9:37:18 AM
Also I would like to point out that there are many excellent jobs in places like Huntsville and Birmingham, and obviously cities like Atlanta and New Orleans since most people include the Deep South and they say “in state.” Not sure if this post was genuine or a poorly veiled attempt to insult the south but you’ll find that a lot of the local students have influential parents and friends in Fortune 500 and 100 positions.
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