One of the more exciting things about coming to college your freshmen year is meeting new people who hopefully will one day be friends for life. What better way to do so than joining Greek life? One might ask, how do you get involved with Greek life? The short but complex answer to that, recruitment. Recruitment is one of the main pillars of building a strong foundation within your Greek organization. However, recruitment with fraternities and sororities is quite different.
Compared to sororities, fraternity recruitment is not as complex and costly. However, it is still really important. For a fraternity, recruiting potential new members for your organization is pretty straightforward. You just go up to a group of freshmen in the dining halls, the library, class, etc., and just start typical guy talk conversations. For freshmen guys, it will be quite common for you to be approached by a member or two of a fraternity wearing a hoodie, crewneck, or t-shirt with their organization letters on it. As for other forms of recruitment for fraternities, there is something known as formal recruitment. Formal recruitment is an event most likely run by the university, where freshmen sign up to meet every organization on campus in a formal matter. While this is obviously a really important event for fraternities, the more important and emphasized way of recruitment is by inviting freshmen to hang out with the brothers, and getting to know them better. Organizations will have an idea of which potential new members they will target more than others.
Compared to fraternities, sororities follow a more structured and strict model of recruitment, and this can seem quite intimidating to freshmen girls. While sorority members will somewhat follow a fraternity recruitment footsteps in inviting girls to come to hang out with them and get to know them, the process of recruitment for sororities is much more complex. Depending on the university and the Panhellenic council at the university, the first process of recruitment for sororities is a questionnaire. This is a simple process to just get information on who you are. Sororities will use this to determine whether you are a good fit with their organization or not. Compared to fraternities, where you can pick where you want to go, you have to make a list of preferred organizations you want to join, and you will be selected most likely to your top few choices. Sorority recruitment also involves you having a recruitment counselor, to make sure you make it to the right organization that fits who you are, and to make the process as stressless as possible. After weeks of work from these sororities, it is time for bid day! This is where you will be welcomed with open arms to your new family. Most sororities like to have a specific theme on clothing they wear for bid day like custom shirts, pants, hats, and much more.
