When I was a freshman in college, I knew that I wanted to go through sorority recruitment. I didn’t know the specifics of it, but I understood that over a few days I would meet a multitude of people from each of my campus’s sororities and would have the opportunity to learn more about the sororities and their members.
The idea of a sorority was appealing to me. I liked how joining a sorority allows you to have a network of sisters who you can always rely on and who can always rely on you. Additionally, I appreciated that each sorority has its own traditions and philanthropic causes.
In my opinion, joining a sorority would give me many ways in which I could grow as an individual. I would get opportunities to work as a team member with people who share similar values/interests to mine, I would have the chance to potentially take on leadership roles, and it would help me become better at trusting other people through allowing me to make new, lifelong friendships.
What I’ve listed is just the beginning of why I wanted to join a sorority, so I eagerly went through recruitment. From my personal experience, I learned that even if people try to go through recruitment open-minded, they still tend to gravitate toward specific sororities. Personally, I don’t think that this is a bad thing since the point of recruitment is to find the sorority that best fits you and that you fit best.
So why do people end up biased in favor of a specific sorority? Well, part of it is the sorority’s unique philanthropy or its values. However, I don’t think that any sorority has bad philanthropy or subpar values. Consequently, I don’t feel like someone should completely rule out a sorority just because she doesn’t connect with its philanthropy or values quite as much as she may connect with those of another sorority.
For this reason, I think that the main biases people get during recruitment are from their conversations. One girl may have amazing conversations with one sorority and okay conversations with another sorority. The difference doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with the second sorority in this hypothetical situation; it just means that maybe there were some extra nerves or that the people conversing had different personalities.
This was kind of the situation I was in as a freshman. I finished recruitment by receiving a bid (an invitation to join the sorority), but I didn’t end up accepting it. It wasn’t that I necessarily disliked the sorority that gave me the bid; it was just that my conversations with its members didn’t make me feel confident that this sorority was the best fit for me.
When I decided to not accept the bid, some people (who were not affiliated with the sorority) tried pressuring me into accepting it. However, I look at joining a sorority as a lifelong commitment that I want to feel comfortable with from the start. I don’t want my potential sisters to think that I’m choosing them because they’re my only option. Instead, I want them to know that I would be accepting their invitation because I feel it’s the best decision for me and for them.
Over the past year, I have grown to appreciate my decision to go through recruitment again. When I almost accepted the bid last year, I think I would have been accepting it for the wrong reasons because I would have been accepting it for the sake of joining a sorority. As much as I admire the Panhellenic Community and know that I would have learned to love the sorority had I chosen it, I know that this important decision doesn’t need to be rushed.
As a sophomore, I am much more familiar with my campus’s sororities and their members. I’ve gotten to see how they make themselves present on our campus and how they contribute to our school’s Greek Community. Overall, waiting a year has made me more comfortable with going through the recruitment process again and has made me even more excited about potentially joining a sorority.
Now that I know more about each sorority and I know people from each one, I am even more open-minded about which sorority I could potentially join. Do I feel like I could be a better fit for some sororities than others? Of course, I do. However, it will be interesting to see which sororities will feel that I’m also a good fit for them.
