For those of you who do not know, recruitment week is a recruitment period (week) were you basically try to convince the fraternities at your school that you are worth the membership. In the InterFraternity Council you do not just go up to a fraternity and say you want to join and that’s it. You have to get a bid. This is when the fraternity that gives you one basically says that they want you to become a brother. So throughout the week you are trying to present yourself to the best of your ability so they will offer you a bid to join their fraternity.
Recruitment week actually was not very hard if you acted as yourself, not pretending to be someone you are not just to get a bid. I started off rush week thinking that fraternities were only for preppy guys with good intentions, so I dressed myself accordingly. Very quickly, I learned that the small minded way of thinking I was going at was completely wrong. Only one fraternity was like the stereotypical ones you see on tv, the rest were all very diverse and full of guys from many different “cliques” you could say. I learned I could fully be myself, and in the end it got me bids from every place I had interest in. So you should know to just be yourself.
That week everything consisted of going to one event a week, so I will just go through the process to give you a clear idea of what it is like. Especially if any of you readers are UNCG students.
Monday
Monday was a very quick and simple day. Monday was an interest meeting I guess you could say. Everyone with an interest in joining a fraternity at UNCG went to this meeting where there was a 20-minute presentation to give you a feel of how the week would go. They also introduced every fraternity, what they’re for, and their philanthropy. Philanthropy being what community service events they focus on the most. After this first meeting, you should have a slight feel about what fraternity you want to join.
Once the presentation was over, we were told that on either on Tuesday or Thursday we have to come back to meet all the fraternities individually where they will give their own presentation to convince us to joining them.
Tuesday/Wednesday
I myself went on Wednesday, but that day all the pledges to be were divided into groups of 8 to talk to all of the fraternities and listen to a 10-minute presentation by all the frat guys. Wednesday was a quick, short and simple day. If you impressed the guys enough you would get invited back to their house.
Thursday
Thursday was the day when the stress piles on. Thursday is the day where all the fraternity guys have their room and you basically go in there to talk to them and show off your best self to convince them to invite you back to their house the next day. House invites are the second most important thing in the Recruitment week process, because when you get invited back you already have your foot into the door to get a bid from them.
Friday
Invite Night. Friday night is the final night of recruitment. You just go to the house of the fraternities you’ve been invited back to and try to impress them one final time because the next morning you are to go to the designated area to get your bids. The designated place for me was the Bryan Business building at 10 am on Saturday.
Saturday – BID DAY
Saturday is a simple and fun filled day! It starts off stressful because there is a possibility that you do not get a bid from the fraternity you want, but in all honesty, if you are just yourself you should get a bid from the place that fits you best. It is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that you will not get a bid so don’t stress! Once everyone gets their bid they just spend the day getting to know their brothers and most likely celebrate with them after.
All in all, it is a lot less stressful than you make it. Just enjoy your time and be yourself.
