is xo really that selective?

so kinda what you're saying is that most OOR girls only have a chance in XO (or other old row) if the houses' top picks choose a different house?
I'm assuming most of their first list would be in-state or at least southern oos.

Think about it this way: Every year, there is roughly the same number of "top PNMs" from Alabama and nearby Southern states. Some years they go Kappa, some years they go KD, sometimes Phi Mu, or DDD.

And then there are legacies and almost "guarantee" regions like Mountain Brook-KD, Mobile-Kappa. Old Row legacies - especially in-house ones - are also almost a guarantee. So when they flip and go to another Old Row house, then this is a big deal. My guess would be that many of XO's first list went somewhere else (DDD I would assume) so they dug down into their other list for good quality girls but who didn't have the typical Southern connections.

A OOR (good term btw) girl will almost never be chosen over a strongly connected legacy from the South who meets all grade requirements at Old Row houses. Except for maybe AXO and Phi Mu.

And it's not that the OOR PNMs aren't great, awesome girls who are totally desirable, but just think about the amount of practice and workshops and planning that goes into recruitment. The class of freshmen each house takes already can have a list of girls they know in the grade behind them getting ready to go through recruitment the next year, and chapters can work on assigning the perfect actives to talk to each of those PNMs they know well. But when an OOR PNM without connections comes through, the houses just aren't as prepared for her, because the sisters haven't grown up with her for the past 12+ years. So if she gets a bid, that's a combination of her being a super awesome girl (as so many OOR PNMs are) and the other girls they knew were going through recruitment choosing other houses (as they often do). It's not a knock on the chapter to have an OOR member, it means that that new member can add something different to the chapter and can let the chapter know of other cool OOR pnms coming in the following year.

"It's not a knock on the chapter to have an OOR member, it means that that new member can add something different to the chapter and can let the chapter know of other cool OOR pnms coming in the following year." Quoted from a post above--this is an awesome point. This helps show why some of the old row have been increasing their OOR bids for the last several years--mostly pmu, axo, and kappa. This was a big OOR year for DDD and so I would expect to see them build on that trend for next recruitment. The more OOR in a house, the more they will see future OOR pnms as top girls.

I wouldn't say that DDD had a big OOR year, rather they had a very good Southern PNM year. They didn't have a good year because they found good and unknown Northern/Western girls but because they "stole" a lot of in-state and Southern PNMs away from KD/Kappa/XO/AGD. The girls they took were definitely known and not "risks."

Tri delt has a GREAT rush this year but not because they had lots of steals. They appealed to a huge pool of girls and moved outside of their southern OOS bubble. They attracted great girls from all over— in state, southern oos, and out of region. Because of this they certainly picked up great girls that chi o, kd and Kappa look over due to lack of connections.

But I wouldn’t say they got any steals from either of those 3 houses... I mean their president’s little sister went kd. If anything they pulled a couple Phi Mu steals.