Increasing Admissions Effects on Panhellenic

 

Taken from Bid Day 2013 as girls run to there new houses.

Over the years, The University of Mississippi has been accepting more and more students resulting in an increase in everything from housing to rush. Many changes are being made to the Greek system as a way to cope with the large amount of students going through Panhellenic recruitment in the fall of 2014.

In order for Ole Miss to keep up with this growing population of students, two new sororities are coming on campus. The newest one that was put in place last Fall is Alpha Delta Pi.  This year Alpha Phi will also be brought into the sorority circle. Although they do not have houses, this is a great way to increase the number of sororities offering more membership spaces for freshman girls to participate in Greek life.

In addition, girls will not have the security blanket of being guaranteed a spot in the house like they used to. There are currently 10  sororities on campus as listed here http://dos.orgsync.com/org/umgreeks/npc. They must maximize their options to the fullest during ranking to increase their chances to the fullest to earn a placement.  Due to the large amount of freshman that will be attending the University next Fall, the Sorority dorm Crosby will now be turned back into a freshman dorm in order to accommodate the increased attendance.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Ali Corbin, Tri Deltas Vice President of Membership. She shared her insight on the increasing amount of people going through Rush with me. Ali states that many of the sororities on campus would like to make their pledge classes smaller since they are at an all time high right now with a pledge class of about 120 people. It is very hard to shrink the size of these pledge classes with so many people continuing to go through.  One big change this year is that Water parties, the very first event of rush, will no longer exist. In fact a whole new round of rush will be added to this years Panhellenic recruitment.

           Greek life provides dynamic organizations to be a part of that everyone should have the chance to participate in if they chose so.  With Ole Miss’s increasing Greek community, it must be able to sustain the amount of people willing to join.

http://youtu.be/NTEF3ldJYqA