"Informal" rush
 

I keep reading rush stories on here where people are going through informal rush, and they talk about "rounds" and "invites" and all sororities having parties on the same nights. Is this common? This sounds more like formal rush to me, just with not every group participating.

The way informal worked on my campus, any sorority eligible to give out bids could have informal rush any old time they wanted (except summer of course) ... anyone who wanted to could come ... there were no invites or cutting. The only "quota" was ceiling. I assumed it was that way everywhere. So what's more common?

Well, here at my school this is how we do it:

We have an informal recruitment period in the fall. (We have delayed rush, formal recruitment in the spring.) During informal recruitment, those sororities that are not at ceiling are assigned one evening in the informal recruitment week to have an open house. After that, the sorority can invite you to COB's if they would like to get to know you better. Bids are given out whenever, really. It is NOTHING like formal recruitment. It is totally different. The present weekend is our formal recruitment. Tomorrow is pref and Monday is Bid Day! :D Hope this info. on informal recruitment is what you were looking for!

Our informal rush was very laid back, not a clone of formal rush at all.

My sorority held informal rush every spring, and since we've always been pretty far below total, we'd just advertise parties, anyone who wants to shows up, we meet them, vote, and extend bids to the girls we want.

The other sororities on campus sometimes held informal spring rush, but usually they'd be only 2 or 3 below total and already have a good idea whom they wanted. So they would invite 4 or 5 girls to an event, then vote on them, and bid the 2 or 3 they liked most... if one of those girls turned down her bid, they'd bid the next girl on their list. They never advertised their informal rush events, though.

Ok. This leads me to another question. I like the idea of informal really being informal, but do you think all the chapters on campus should have it at the same time?

Here's what happened at my campus this year: After fall formal rush, two chapters were at or over ceiling. Sorority #3 held COB rght after formal rush and got a few girls. Right before winter break, S#4 started having COB, and finished it right after winter break. After S#4 finished rush, S#3 started COB again. I believe #5 is rushing now as well.

Come spring reading days (between classes and exams), chapters #1, #2 and #4 will give out bids to replace graduating seniors.

This makes it completely complicated for rushees, who can never look at more than one sorority at a time, even though three are below ceiling. Shouldn't there be an easier way to do this???

This week my chapter is starting informal rush. At UNLV we we call it recruitment though. I am soo excited. At our last meeting we extended a bid to 3 new girls! It turned out that I have one girl in my english class and I never knew! She's soo cool, I'm soo excited! Have fun everyone! =) BYE!

our COB
 

I'm not entirely sure, but it appears as if informal recruitment at Cal State University Long Beach is just that, informal. Usually the chapters that are under total hold their COB events at the beginning of the spring semester. Though, one chapter last year did informal recruitment almost immediately after formal recruitment in the fall.

The eligible sororities advertise their own events. So, yes, PNMs have their choice of events to go to during any given week or night. No rounds of parties, no cutting. You just go and you're offered a bid or not.

Usually it's only 1-3 houses that want to have informal recruitment. Now, every once in a while, all of the seven sororities end up wanting to (or are eligible to) participate in informal recruitment. In that instance, Panhellenic sets up an "Information Night" where all of the houses have a table set up. This way, the PNMs have an opportunity to hear about all of them. Otherwise, they'd just go to events based on which flyers they happened to see! Then, from info night PNMs can attend whatever events they want in whatever order they want.

I like this because it's totally no pressure. You don't have to sit through a party for a group you feel uncomfortable with. On the other hand, I remember having difficulty deciding how to go about visiting all of the various groups. The trouble was that one sorority wanted me to attend ALL of their events...and so did another! I didn't know how to say "Uhm...thanks...but I *did* want to go to other houses as well." :)

......Kelly :)

When I pledged I went through what would be called structured informal rush. We had Meet the Greeks night, theme party, and pref party. The only time you had to see all the groups was MTG - after that, if you didn't want to go to a group for theme you didn't have to. After theme, you had to be asked back to pref. We still had bid day, quota, etc. Really the only diff between it and formal was that theme round. In formal you had to go to all of them. Oh, and during informal the sororities could have things at their (off campus) houses if they wanted to - during formal everyone's parties were in classrooms to make it more "even" (not all the sororities had houses, and the ones that did, varied in aesthetics).

I much prefer this to a week of COB free-for-all with no schedule coordinated by Panhel. Especially when first semester freshmen are rushing....grr. :mad:

Informal recruitment at many places is just a free for all of COB, and in my opinion, this is great for those chapters who might not do so well at formal recruitment because it's so different.

Unfortunately at my school, during the fall we do informal recruitment, but it's done exactly like formal recruitment, without quota. It's really the most unfair system I've ever seen. During this, the smaller sororities are normally done by the end of the first round, because nobody has to go back and get to know them after a short 20 minute party. After this period, COB starts, and that's when many smaller groups get their girls.

At my school all three sororities have formal and informal rush together so it is somewhat structured. In the fall is when we have formal rush. We usually have information night, four nights of events, Preference Night and Bid Day.

In the winter is when we have informal rush. We have information night and Round #1 at school so all of the rushee's can meet the girls. During Round #2 two sororities hold events off campus and the rushee's get to choose which event they want to go to. Round #3 and #4 is the same as #2 but there are two different sororities matched up. Then we have Pref Night and then Bid Day.

Have a nice day :)

This past year, Panhel changed things around in regards to recruitment. We had "formal" recruitment in the fall, usually its in the spring, and it started off with every chapter and PNM going to meet the greeks. In the two weeks following that, each sorority had 2 parties. Pref was the third party and you had to be invited back to that. It was more relaxed, but there was a lot of confusion between the chapters and the PNM's. A lot of people didn't know what was going on. This spring we have continuous open bids. Recruitment started with Meet the Greeks, and open bid parties started after that. It runs until sometime in April.

shadokat - sorry, I wrote that post after a long day and it was confusing! (I edited it to fix it.) Yes, we always had open bid parties to COB throughout the semester and that worked well to bring numbers up for the smaller groups. The last time I helped w/ rush at Clarion was in the fall a couple years ago. They had meet the greeks and then after that everything was COB, but it pretty much ended after a week. It was very disorganized. My point (and I do have one) is that if first semester freshmen are rushing, COB should not be the only method employed - there should be something more structured since it is all new to them.

jess - so formal is in the fall now and spring is all COB only? Wow, it sounds like you actually have a panhel advisor with a brain now ;). Did it help numbers? pm me if you want.