zipcodes

I agree completely and this is why the "top tier" sororities here are not attractive whatsoever. If we moved the Greek system to any other school other than maybe ole miss, your "tops" would be mid-lower and the top tier would be Phi Mu, Zeta and Alpha Phi. The houses that end up having the best oos girls end up higher quality in the end because zip code does absolutely nothing and a lot of oos are much more wealthy (and attractive and intelligent) than the girls around here...

I'm NOT defending this practice, but the zip code thing is really only an issue for a handful of Old Row houses who have (well..up until recently) been traditional tops at Bama because they DO target the Mountain Brook girls, and girls from prominent suburbs of Tuscaloosa, Mobile, Huntsville etc. To them, getting wealthy instate girls=success. As I'm sure you know, MB is the wealthiest city in the state, and one of the wealthiest in the nation. So those few houses pride themselves on getting those girls because so many sisters in those houses are from the same area and went to HS, church, country clubs etc with them. It's basically like HS all over again. On the other hand, some Old Row and pretty much all of New Row are now getting better PCs than the "traditional" top houses, because they've taken advantage of the fact that there are SO many quality OOS girls attending Bama now, and they look at things like grades, personality, recs, involvement, appearance, and fit within the chapter when they're choosing their NMs instead of just looking at their zip code. In other words, the zip code houses are slipping, and the others are rising. BUT-you sound just as petty as they do when you say things like "cities in my home state would swallow cities here"-if your state is so much better, why not go to college there instead of coming to UA? I agree with you that judging someone based on their zip code is ridiculous, but so is saying that your state is superior to Bama.

it has a lot to do with Alums. With such a large greek system, sororities need a lot of money to stay competitive, meaning alum support. The alums that are most likely to extend that support for years after graduation are the ones that are going to still be living in Alabama after graduation, and the girls most likely to do that are the girls who are from Alabama in the first place. If you're OOS, you don't have as many ties here, so you have less of a reason to stay in state, and will be less likely to support the Alabama chapter you came from, so these sororities may be thinking long term. Also, these girls may be really strong in-house chapter legacies for the same reason.

Ho hum

I think the old row houses look for girls from wealthy zip codes OOS, too. They are not limiting to just Alabama anymore.

What else is there to look for?

Silly children.
It's not zip code.
It's who knows who.