What Sorority Recruitment is Really Like
Standing with a group of women in the Faculty House on Columbia's campus, we were welcomed in by the President of each of the six Panhellenic sorority for the first round of recruitment. We were led to a seat where we talked with current members mainly about personal reasons for joining and philanthropy.
The first day was a whirlwind of speaking with incredible, diverse women; many conversations felt too short, leaving me wishing for more than twenty-five total minutes to get to know this person sitting next to me. These were the conversations, the sisters, and ultimately the sororities I wanted to come back to. It is true that you get an indescribable “vibe” from each group of women, each organization, and that vibe is enough to gauge which group of girls you'd be interested in calling your “sisters”. I walked home to my dorm drained, yet hopeful!
At my first event the next day, I learned the values of the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority and spoke with one sister. I was in awe of the woman I spoke with, who held a leadership position in the chapter and interned for amazing companies like NBC Universal. Internships and academic support where my top priorities in selecting a sorority, and with a network of women and alumnae in AOII, and weekly study hours, tutoring sessions, and GPA minimums, I began to feel like the chapter could help me grow. My second event was with Gamma Phi Beta, and I fell in love with their message of labor and love, in conjunction with their philanthropy, Girls on the Run and Building Strong Girls. They focused strongly on academics, as did AOII, yet they truly wanted to build their sisters and the women and girls in NYC.
The next morning, I was luck to be invited back to both sororities final ceremonies of recruitment. Once inside the room, there were testimonies from the graduating seniors, and plenty of time to speak with sisters before ranking final choices. One sorority made the hour long conversation feel like minutes, one room I didn’t want to leave, one room had seniors filled with emotion for their last recruitment season and one room held my future sisters. Knowing what to do, I filled out my contract, stating I would accept a bid from either of the two possible sororities, and waited until the next day.
All the new members on Bid Day 2017! Spot me under the second tree from the left.
I woke up on “Bid Day” hopeful and excited!I stepped into the quiet room in Lerner Hall to get my envelope and sprawled in cursive on the dotted line was the sorotiy I was most excited for: Alpha Omicron Pi.
If you have any questions about sorority recruitment, please email me!
-Sydney