Sorority Recruitment

As you already know, I decided to go through sorority recruitment last fall as a freshman and ended up joining Alpha Xi Delta. Since I am a sophomore now, I had the opportunity to be on the other side of recruitment this year, which was not what I expected. There is more planning and organization that goes into it than what I imagined last year. It also took more out of me than I thought it would; I was exhausted after the weekend and slept well Sunday night. Although I can’t tell everything sorority recruitment entails, I can share a rough outline of what the weekend held for me.

After all the informal events we held, it was time for the formal rounds: philanthropy, sisterhood and preference. Each night had a different presentation and theme to the night, which was helpful since it wasn’t the same thing every night. Since philanthropy was the first night, it was more of an introduction to all the girls rushing. We had a small rush class of 63 girls go through this year, so there was pressure to get the girls we wanted back for the next night. I didn’t actually talk to many girls this night because I was acting as photographer, which I was fine with because I was nervous. The round went better than we were imagining because almost everyone we invited back picked us as well. This meant sisterhood night would be filled with plenty of girls to watch the video I made for this round, something I wasn’t expecting.

As photography chair for Alpha Xi, I hold the responsibility to help create the videos we show at the last two rounds. I had a vision for both videos, so I decided to take both of them on by myself. I put my roommate, Felicia, on the job for finding the perfect songs while I put together all the clips I wanted to show. The sisterhood video is supposed to be a fun representation of our sisterhood and all the events we do throughout the year. When I showed it at the rounds, I received great feedback, which made me proud to have made something everyone appreciated. Besides the video that night, I met girls who I liked and wanted to come back for preference the next night. This night was especially nerve-racking because whoever we invited back had the chance to get a bid from us on Bid Day.  We ran into the issue of having to compete with the other sororities for girls to come back because they only choose two to go back to for the next night.

The day of preference was the most nervous I have ever been because I was waiting to hear if the girls I wanted were coming back. When we heard the list, we lost some of our favorites, but we had a solid list we believed would fit well in our chapter. This night was a bit more serious because of the decision the girls going through have to make after they visit their last two chapters. I had to show the other video I created this night, which like I said, was more on the serious side. I was as equally proud of this one because I actually made a few girls cry with the video I made to represent our chapter. By the end of the night, we were all excited with the girls we had and ready to hear who accepted our bids the next morning.

I slept horribly Saturday night because I was so nervous with the results of recruitment weekend, but excited to see who was joining our chapter at the same time. I hold another position in Alpha Xi, Assistant New Member Orientation Director, which means I help the new members transition into the sorority and teach them what they need to know. This meant I was up early Sunday setting things up for Bid Day and getting ready for the new members to come home to us. By the end of Bid Day, we had 12 girls accept our bid, which was better than we thought we would do, based on the number of girls who rushed. I was completely drained by the end of the day, but all the stress of the weekend was worth every minute. In the end, we received a great class who I know will fit in well in Alpha Xi Delta and a few I’m looking at to become my little. :-)