Recruitment as a Recruitee

Its almost recruitment season, which is more exciting than the fact that you are starting college or are onto another year. It is so great because you have no idea that this small step you are about to take is going to lead to a lifetime of memories, friends, and opportunities. You may either be so excited that you check the panhellenic instagram daily and stock each of the houses, or you may be unsure if recruitment is actually for you and you are a little nervous. Luckily for you, I am here to tell you what to expect on your side of recruitment. I would like to tell you that it is all so much fun and you will enjoy every second of it, but that would be a lie. I will tell you however that if you make it through this week, you will be rewarded generously for it.

Yes, it is a lot of bs conversations with facey girls. Yeah it sounds fake, but eventually you will find a girl that you can connect with about something more than having the same major. You need to endure lots of the wrong houses before you come across the right one. You will repeat where you are from, where you are living, and what clubs you did in highschool more times than you could ever imagine. But good news, all you have to do is talk about yourself. It's like a test that you know all of the answers to. If you are not the outgoing person that can have a conversation with a wall, this week will get you much closer to this point. Having the recruitment conversations will improve your ability to sell yourself at an interview or talk to people you don’t know. If you join a sorority and stay with it, you will improve more every year being on the other side of it as well. It may not be something you want to do, but it will most certainly translate into a life skill down the road. If you can get past the typical conversation and find a connection, you will be one step closer to finding a home.

Girls are facey during recruitment because panhellenic makes them be. We are required to wear specific colors, short lengths, and jewelery. We are off limits from talking about certain things with potential new members (PNMs aka the adoring nickname you will have all week). We will not discuss partying, fraternities, or anything that does not reflect our values. Its not that we don’t go to the bar with our fraternity friends, its just that a sorority is about sisterhood. Recruitment is about finding a home, and I know you don’t talk about your drunken adventures with fraternity guys with your parents. We do not advertise what we do in our free time when talking about our organization. If you bring it up, we need to change the subject, and you may be red carded for not joining for the right reasons. If you want a social life that revolves around underage drinking and meeting boys, you are not a prime candidate to join a sorority because you will be a risk (we don’t want our charter pulled because we let a drug addict into our sorority). Once you are in, you need to monitor what you are posting to instagram and how you represent your letters. If you are worried about meeting boys or drinking, you will most likely have a favorite fraternity by the end of your first semester, and you will have the opportunity to drink as long as you are not doing it in a way that is hazardous to your sorority’s reputation. These should not be why you join because you can do either of those things at a bar with your GDI friends, so stay focused on joining an organization that you can see being part of for your entire life, not just to have a social life in college.

You will have predispositions about which house you want to join. It is best to ditch these and go into every house with an open mind. Chances are, the top tier sorority is the one you had the worst conversations at, so don’t let their status be the reason they are your number one choice. Honestly, I had my eyes on a upper-middle tier sorority with a beautiful house. I thought they were great, but then I was dropped. I joined a bottom tier sorority (at the time..now we are a little higher in the ranks) that is only a few years old on campus. I was not crazy about the idea at first because they weren’t established, but I ended up being more at home than I could ever imagine me being anywhere else. Its almost better that I joined an organization without a campus reputation because there is so much potential for me to be part of creating a good one. There is more opportunity for me to make a difference, which is pretty cool. Even though a sorority might have a reputation on a specific campus, does not mean they are like that nationally. Sorority nationals are your homebase to be connected for life, so your specific chapter is not the be all and end all. You are here for four years, but you can move anywhere in the country and still be part of another chapter. If you feel comfortable with the people in the organization, don’t worry about the reputation because it’s a lot more work to keep up a facade than it is to be yourself. The tier system is just a way to bring highschool clique type drama to college, but you don’t need to be part of it if you don’t give a fuck.

If you do have the reputations of sororities in your head or you have a bad experience in a house, don’t trash talk the house. First of all, rho gammas and rho chis are disaffiliated because they want you to find your home, so you don’t know which house they are from. Imagine having bratty incoming freshman talk about your bestfriends and the organization you helped build in a negative way right in front of your face, and you can’t say a thing. It would suck, so don’t put people that are only there to help you feel like shit. Also, that house you hated may be another girl’s first choice. If she belongs in that house, why degrade that? It may not be your home, but that doesn’t mean it will still be an awesome one for someone else.

Here is something you should know before you waste money on two months of dues before dropping. No sorority will be your home if you don’t put the effort in once you get a bid. It is work to be in a sorority the same way it is work to take class or work to be in an honors society or club of any sort. There will be things you have to do, time you have to spend, and money invested into it. You may think that this piece of paper is your in, but you won’t get anything out of this experience if you do not put in the time and effort. You will not make the lifetime friends if you do not go to events or ask people to hang out, you will not understand the feeling of helping others if you don’t get out of bed to go to philanthropy events, and you will not learn a thing if you aren’t present. Before you accept a bid, know that your letters will mean nothing to you if you are not ready for the responsibility that they are, and you are always representing them from the second you accept a bid.