With mid-August approaching, the best part of the year is also coming up: Recruitment Season! Whether you’re a first-time freshman or an upperclassman finally going for it, recruitment is an amazing way to find your best friends for life. Not everything will go the way you thought, and that is okay. Here are 10 things that happen during recruitment that are nothing to stress over.
- It’s okay to be nervous
- It’s okay to have silence in conversation
- It’s okay to ask the hard questions pretty early
- It’s okay to be indecisive
- It’s okay to not follow a legacy
- It’s okay to suicide bid
- It’s okay not to accept a bid
- It’s okay to tell how you feel on Preference Day
- It’s okay to not have questions
- It’s okay to not wear Lilly Pulitzer
You probably don’t know a lot of people going through recruitment, and there is nothing normal about opening a door to a house full of girls singing cheesy songs: it is totally okay to be nervous. Hours of work goes into planning for recruitment, so active members are nervous to. Do you best to take that adrenaline and turn it into excitement; you could be talking to your future maid of honor and don’t even know it!
Hard questions will be thrown your way, so take all the time you need to answer them truthfully and confidently. If you need to pause and think, do it. If you ask a question and an active replies with a lengthy answer, you can spend a few seconds of silence thinking about their response.
Think about what you want to learn about each chapter even before recruitment starts. Come prepared with questions, even tougher ones, on the second day. The more in-depth questions you ask, the more interested you’ll seem in a chapter. You’ll get some tough ones back, but this is good! Answer them as best as you can in order to find a perfect match.
Odds are, you’ll have it narrowed down to two chapters on Preference Day, and it is totally okay to be indecisive after talking to both groups. Your recruitment councilor is there for a reason. Go to her for any clarity or last minute questions. She is disaffiliated so it’s her job to help you find your home, not put you into hers.
If you’re coming into recruitment with a legacy, or a mom or sister that was in a certain chapter at your school, it’s okay to go your own path. The point of recruitment is to find your home, not continue a tradition. If you have a legacy, this also doesn’t automatically give you a bid.
After visiting your last two chapters on Preference day, you’ll have to make a choice: Which is your first choice, and which is your second: some people will get their second. Suicide Bidding however, is when a girl only puts her top pick down, aka she will not accept her second choice. If you do this, it doesn’t increase your chances of getting into your number one, but it also won’t put you into a chapter you wouldn’t be happy with.
If you do happen to get your second choice, it’s okay to not accept a bid. If you know in your heart a chapter isn’t for you, why would you join? Some people go through recruitment multiple times in order to find their home, and that is perfectly fine.
Some girls are indecisive, but other girls know exactly where they belong. It is okay to let the active you’re talking to know what direction you’re leaning. Maybe not so obviously, but hinting at it can actually help your chances of getting into a chapter.
By the time you’ve visited a chapter a couple times, you might be fresh out of questions, and this is fine. You don’t have to slam everyone with questions, but do make sure you know everything you want to know. After that, just relax and have casual conversation.
I’m partially joking but partially not, I go to a small university, like my pledge class is 10 people – small. It seems like at bigger universities, 80% of girls going through recruitment decide to wear some combination of Lilly shorts and Tory Burch sandals. If this accurately describes your style, then go for it! Just know that you can, and should wear what resembles your style, there is no need to try to fit in with a chapter that is not you at all.
Recruitment is a crazy experience, and honestly the whole thing will be the most fun blur of your life. Things might not go perfect or how you expected, but trust the system, get excited, and find your home!
