University of Texas Recruitment August 21-28, 2012
 

As the weather starts to warm up we all know that the threads about fall recruitment will start to spring eternal. I have read on these boards for a fairly long while and they can be mixed with helpful advise, pure stupidity and whole bunch of craziness but the majority of PNMs come here looking for basic information. Recruitment at the University of Texas seems to be an annual topic of conversation so I thought I would compile some this basic information regarding UT’s recruitment in hopes to lasso it all in one place. (longshot I know) So lets go for the basics:

Make sure you register for recruitment. Online recruitment registration begins Monday, May 21, 2012 and concludes at 5 p.m. on Monday, August 13, 2012. Paper applications will not be accepted. This is very generous window. Don’t come here on August 5 and ask about letters of recommendation, etc, because it will be too late. The time to do that is now.

Letters of Recommendation & Registration

YES you need them. So this does not turn into a three page post, if you don’t know a soul who was ever in a sorority (not likely, but there is always someone that comes here and claims that) register with your local panhellenic organization and they will help you get a letter for each house. Greek Chat is NOT the place to hunt and gather letters. In Texas, the UT Office of Greek Life lists these local organizations here…

http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/gli...pc_alumnae.php

(see how easy this is)

Now go register with them and again…THEY will help you. Please do not confuse registering with them and registering with UT as the same thing. They are different. You should register with your local alumnae first, UT second. Why? Because your LOR should be written before UT registration even opens.

Even more about LOR

Please make sure you take the resume you used to apply to UT and fancy it up and have it ready for your local panhellenic. You will need at least 14 copies of it. They are here to help you but they are not your administrative assistants. You need your transcript too. Grades matter and to UT sororities they matter even more. If your GPA is below 3.5, you will already be on the short list before recruitment even starts. You will also need two photos of yourself. A close up. A full body shot. If you are sending hard copies to someone who is writing your LOR, they will need your resume, transcript and both pictures. You will probably not get them back so do yourself a favor and upload good photos of yourself to Costco and have plenty on hand. (This should be less tan $20 and if that kills your budget, you may want to rethink sorority life) Put your name and contact information on the back of each and every one. (Note: some ladies will have you email your photos, transcript and resume. If you don’t know how to attach things to an email, you need to learn this skill A.S.A.P.)

One last note about LOR.

Please take the time to thank each and every lady that writes a letter for you. The letters take time and the good ones take research. Not thanking them is bad form. Also, make sure you drop a note after recruitment to the person who you now share a sisterhood with. She should find out from you. And if you really want to be like Emily Post, a quick email to every lady that wrote for you telling them where you pledge is always welcome.

The When and Where:

Formal recruitment always occurs the week before classes start in the fall semester. For 2012, recruitment will be held August 21-August 28, 2012 and the schedule will be as follows:

Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Opening Convocation @ Hogg Auditorium
8:00 PM-9:30 PM

(If you are living in SRD or Hardin, this will be your move in day also. Get to your dorm early..if they say move in starts at 9:00, get there at 8 or earlier, get your stuff done and find time to chill before convocation. Look nice, but you don’t have to get dressed up. Girls will be in everything from Nike shorts to sundresses but make sure your hair looks nice and you have make up on if you normally wear it.)

Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Open House Day 1
10:00 AM-7:00 PM

(For both Open House days, you will be given a T-shirt to pair up with khaki shorts. They recommend tennis shoes, but many, many girls will wear sperry’s or sandals, and wear a belt. It just looks more finished)

Thursday, August 23, 2012
Open House Day 2
8:30 AM-2:30 PM

First Round of selections this afternoon

Friday, August 24, 2012
Pick Up schedules from counselors @ 11:00 AM (Your counselor and your group will have pre-determined meeting locations….typically in or around Hogg)

Philanthropy Day 1
12:20 PM-9:35 PM

(Sundresses)

Saturday, August 25, 2012
8:30 AM-4:15 PM

Second round of selections this afternoon. This selection narrows the houses down to a maximum of 6.

Sunday, August 26, 2012
Pick Up schedules from counselors @ 12:30 PM (again, max schedule of 6 houses)

Skit Night
1:45PM-10:15PM

(Dress like you would wear to a graduation or early evening wedding)

Third round of selections this evening. PNMs are deciding which houses they would like to preference. This of course does not mean this is what they get.

Monday, August 27, 2012
Pick up schedules from counselors @ 3:30 PM (max schedule of 3….but remember…it only takes one)

Preference Night
4:45PM-9:45PM
(Black Dresses….think “Little Black Dress” think classy)

PNMs make their final selections after the parties. Rank houses 1-2-3 if applicable.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Bid Day @ 5:00 PM Hogg Auditorium-
Recruitment counselor’s house affiliations will be revealed and girls will join their new member classes and walk as a group to their respective houses. (A note about Moms. UT has not branched into family bid day as of yet, but more and more moms have been attending as of late. Mainly for a quick house visit and a few pictures and then the NMs attend bid day activities with their new sisters.)


Cost

How much does it cost to be in a sorority at UT?

For the first year the cost range in dues is from $2600-$3900 in the new member year (Fall & Spring) For the following year, dues will fall to $2200-$2600. If you live in the sorority house, the cost to live in most houses, plus meals, plus dues will cost just a tad more than room and board at SRD or Hardin. So the first year is really where the majority of the costs are. There are also other costs for merchandise and t-shirts. It is easy to spend $500-$1000 your first year on this stuff alone. Of course that is optional, but the fact is most girls buy the stuff.

What are the best Sororities at UT?

No one on Greek Chat will answer that question, because no one here, or at UT, or in Austin, or Dallas, or Houston, would ever agree. The best sorority at UT is the one that you feel like you can grow as a person and have a great time. DO NOT GO INTO RECRUITMENT HAVING TO BE AN ‘ABC’. If you do that, it will end in failure. It does not matter if your best friend is an ABC and all of her sisters “love” you. She has 200 sisters (and you can't know them all) and the process is so more complex than that, so don’t drink that turnip juice. Also don’t go into recruitment just knowing you have to be ‘AB’ because your mom was an ‘AB’ at Northwestern in 1985. Being a legacy can matter, but the reality is there are more legacies going through UT recruitment than there are spaces for all the PNMs. All that legacy status will do is keep you in the game an extra round but the reality is if you aren’t a match for ‘AB’ then you just aren’t a match, you just get to carry the hope stick around an extra day. Now if your momma and your grandmother were involved Texas ‘ABCs’ then your legacy status probably holds a bit more water. And that is just the truth. Not all legacies are created equal.

The Elephant in the Room

There is not one conversation about UT recruitment where the term “Big 6” does not come up. Full disclosure. I don’t like the term. It was created by a lady named Prudence Mackintosh who at the time was writing for Texas Monthly. She named names and called out 6 sororities at UT (it was the 1970s people) and what made them special or not so special. Each of these houses is still special today and so are the 8 others that form the University Panhellenic Council.

There have been many young PNMs who have come and gone pledging their faithfulness to only accept a bid from a “Big 6” to only be disappointed by what they got. The same can be said about the other 8 too. On the other hand, there have been girls that have been disappointed in the moment, that all of the “Big 6” released them, only to pull their head out of the sand long enough to realize that an amazing sisterhood wanted them to be part of their group and her experience was life changing. Reputation is a tricky thing. A good one can cover a flawed sisterhood and a bad one can cover a good one. Step wisely. Trust your heart.

Round Up

Round up is the weekend after Spring Break this year (March 23-25) and it can be a great opportunity to see Greek Life in all its glory. But again, step wisely. If you are a Senior and go to Round Up. BEHAVE. Everyone is watching. Recruiting is happening. It just is.

Facebook

For goodness sake. Clean it up. If you pretended to be a pregnant teen mom on Halloween, you might want to take that photo down. Out of context…well…awkward.

Best of Luck to all the Texas PNM and Hook'em!

I must say WOW! and WOW! again. Everything you need to know about Texas recruitment has been spelled out for you. I can't think of anything that has been left out. Good Luck!!

All of this is good advice. Here is one thing that can't be stressed enough:

I would just add to this:

Almost every chapter will drop you after the open house set if they do not have at least one LOR for you. While an LOR will in no way insure you will be invited back to the second set of parties, not having one will insure you won't be invited back to most houses. This applies to all PNMs, even you.

Get an LOR for every single chapter, even the ones you are sure you would never think of joining. Recruitment is hard and often does not end up the way you expect it will. Those chapters might be the only ones who keep inviting you back, and your only choices left .... and you wouldn't even have those options if they'd dropped you after the first set because you didn't bother to get an LOR.

Wow...I guess when recruitment is that competitive you need to find other criteria besides grade risks to help whittle down the PNM pool to a manageable number.

. . .

Well said, and should be said often. Amazingly enough, in virtually all cases, whoever you are, you and your situation aren't nearly as unique as you may think. :D

No, you're completely wrong. I am completely different than the 1200 girls a year times, what, 75 years of Greek life at UT. And none of those girls has been as awesome as me, so I can bypass the rules and common protocol.

/sorry, I just had a snark I had to let out.:eek:

Pinapple this is so well written! Thank you, I hope this will get sticky'd so I can refer girls I know going thru to this thread.

pinapple - AMAZING. Your dedication is astounding, and your insights are amazingly well written.

THIS is particularly good, and deserves repeating a thousand times.

Brilliant Post!! Everything you said was absolutley true...I wish this could be printed in the Panhellenic Guide!

Am I the only one who finds it incredibly random that Cleveland and Dayton, of all places, are listed here? LOL The other OOS groups make sense, but this is just out of nowhere. Maybe someone in the Greek life office has a soft spot for Ohio, the way there are always Pennsylvania references in Law & Order.

I think it is more along the lines that those OOS Panhellenics actually reached out to UT and not vice versa.

Definitely with so many great PNMs with stellar resumes attending college, its become more competitive than ever.

Pinapple well done on an amazing and put-together post. Between this and the general Sorority Recruitment post by adpiucf, PNMs at UT who read GC should have no excuses for not being prepared for Recruitment!

This makes me so excited for Fall! (Even more so than the start of Football!)

Would it be inappropriate of me to wish for a 2012 version of Barbie's_Rush thread on ultra competitive recruitments. Since a lot of PNM started threads are bound to be on one of those schools.

Each school could have a similar write up like this one?

Sorry to hijack your thread Pinapple, I shall now return y'all to the regular schedule UT Recruitment programming ;-)

Panhellenic Love,
28StGreek

over 100 years of greek life at UT... 110 years for the oldest panhellenic chapter. so they really mean business!

Centennial for Tri Delta at UT
 

OT

Delta Delta Delta celebrates 100 years at Univ. of Texas in 2012.:)