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Sorority Recruitment Recruitment event and bid day ideas, membership retention, publicity, recruitment policies, etc.


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  #1  
Old 09-09-2010, 11:17 AM
AXOrushadvisor AXOrushadvisor is offline
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Recruitment Update from the other side of recruitment

I just got done doing recruitment at a large PAC 10 school. I think a lot of you know which one, but I won't point it out. I decided that I would pay attention to a lot of details this year especially on RFM and PNM clothing. I hope that no one minds that I'm going to post some numbers, but I think they are generic enough. They are not meant to upset any one, but to show the importance of being prepared for recruitment. The Chapters have no control over release figures and you can not deviate from them at all or the computer will not accept your list.

Round 1. We are required to wear Panhellenic Go Greek t-shirts. Every Chapter has their own color, but it must be a Chapter color. You can wear what you want on the bottom and our Chapter chose jeans- skinny dark ones. The only issue I have with that is a lot of Chapters colors over lap. Ours our red and green and I can think of several Chapters that have one of those colors. One of the new rules this year was that Chapters could not wear heels only flats during this round. PNM's wore shorts, jeans and skirts tops varied, but they were casual. Footwear was sandels or flip flops. RFM statistics. Round 1 is where we release most of our women. It should work like this and I'm surprised when people say going into pref is when they make the biggest release. This year we released 59% of the active women going through recruitment. Since this round is 15 minutes long there is not much time to get to know a PNM. I wish it was even just 5 minutes longer, but we have some major time restraints.

Round 2. We again wear a Chapter specific t-shirt in our chapter colors. The girls wore black shorts and heels. The PNM's wore a lot of sun dresses or skirts this day. They did take the cue from the book and dressed up a little from the day before. Still a lot of sandals and flip flops on the feet. RFM had us release another 43% of the women still invited to our parties.

Round 3. This was a free dress day and probably the last time they will do this. A lot of the Chapters decided to bulk order clothing which is a HUGE no no on our campus and has been for years. Not sure where the wires got crossed, but at the recruitment meeting 2 weeks before the start of recruitment houses were warned about this and they were still dealing with it the day of round 3. Our girls wore black rompers and heals. Not my favorite, but it wasn't run by me prior to recruitment another outfit was. The other recruitment advisor and I were not happy about the choice, but there was nothing we could do at that point in time. They looked fine, but some of them were a little short. Rompers are just not universally flattering on all body types- IMO. The PNM's for the most part wore a dress of some sort with wedges or heals. RFM had us releasing another 39% of our invited PNM's.

Preference. This year preference was moved from the evening to the day. Wasn't sure how that would work out, but we actually liked being done early. From an Advisor perspective we liked it. The only issue we had with our room was a broken circuit breaker that wouldn't allow us to turn off a set of lights- sort of a bummer when your trying to set a mood. The girls wear red dresses. I LOVE the look of the red dresses. They wear black heels with them. There are 2 other groups that wear white and the rest of the Chapters are in all black- some do wear colored heels. The PNM's mostly wore black cocktail dresses and they ran from very dressy to informal with a sun dress thrown in here and there. I have to tell you that I think the girls that dress down on this day stood out and not in a good way, but that is just my opinion.

Out of 12 Chapters 9 made quota. Quota was 60 which is HUGE for our university. There were quota additions with one Chapter getting 2 and two Chapters getting one. It appears they placed most women through bid matching. There were 4 women who did not place; ALL single intentional preferenced so they were not eligible for quota additions. Of the 3 groups that didn't make quota, one is brand new and the other two have struggled a little on our campus. The other thing I want to mention here is that 87% of the women going through recruitment were placed in a Chapter. That is an outstanding number of women retained and it is high for us. It is my understanding that what they did different this year was have the rho chi meeting a week prior to recruitment to train instead of in the spring. I think that may of made a huge difference, but maybe not?

Facebook, recs and applications. I'm starting to think recommendations will gain in importance even on non competitive campuses. The reason is that they will, on some campuses, help you get invited back to round 2. Plus it gives us a photo and information on you that helps us get to know you better prior to you walking in our door. If you fail to fill out your application form with your activities and leadership role your risk of getting released is higher then the PNM who fully fills out her applications. We took a limited number of sophomores this year because almost half of the house were sophomores. We ended up with 5 sophomores (3 were legacies) and 3 juniors. The two sophomores we took that were not legacies had good GPA's and loads of activities and leadership from college NOT HS. We actually got down to looking at applications to see who had the leadership qualifications we were looking for. We released sophomores that our girls really liked because of no activities or leadership listed on your applications. If your going to to through recruitment as an upperclassman you need to give us a reason to take a second look at you. Finally, facebook. We did use facebook as a tool during recruitment. It was used to refresh memories of who we were talking about during membership selection. When you meet 100's of girls in a day very few stand out to the Chapter members. It was helpful when we could find you on facebook to see a picture and spark a memory. We used to get a photo with every application, but they stopped doing that years ago. I think they still do that on some campuses though. My recommendation would be to make your facebook private, but allow your profile picture to be seen and make it a nice one. Glad recruitment is over until next year. All the Chapters that took quota are now way over ceiling and wont pick up any members until next fall.
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Last edited by AXOrushadvisor; 09-09-2010 at 06:01 PM.
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  #2  
Old 02-12-2012, 10:30 PM
LAblondeGPhi LAblondeGPhi is offline
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I know this comes months late, but there was a recent thread about creating more west coast-applicable information, and I wanted to chime in.

I used to be an advisor at UCLA, which is not the most competitive recruitment campus, but does have plenty of sorority-savvy PNMs and legacies come through. Out-of-state students are being accepted in increasing numbers, so that brings a different dynamic (read: more intensely prepared PNMs from Texas).

I think that all of the advice on GreekChat will be applicable to ANY west coast school, because there’s very little harm in ever being over prepared. The requirements for letters of recommendation will vary greatly by school; at UCLA, fewer than 10% of PNMs sent in letters of rec., but they were always helpful!

So, here are my top recommendations for UCLA:

#1) Conversation and Personality – This will be the most important piece of your recruitment success at UCLA, by far. Read the posts about appropriate recruitment conversation. Practice being relaxed but not aloof, confident but not cocky, make sure that your general chit chat skills are solid.

#2) Prepare your application with good information and a good picture. We don’t need a laundry list of your activities – especially since MOST students were involved in National Honor Society, California Scholastic Federation, AP and IB classes, etc. We don’t need a list of every club you were a member in. Mention the organizations that are most important on your list, and then all leadership positions you took in any organization. Mention sports and distinguishing activities (you volunteered at a dog shelter, you lead a fundraising campaign at your church, etc.) – things that will make the chapter remember you, and shows leadership and/or social skills. Include a good picture THAT LOOKS LIKE YOU. If the photo doesn’t look like you, then it’s not going to help the chapter remember you, and it’s not going to impress anyone.

NOTE: Facebook is definitely used to get information on PNMs, but because of time constraints, it’s usually used for PNMs who don’t include any information or photos on their application.

#3) Clothing/Hair/Makeup/Presentation
First impressions matter. You don’t need to get crazy, but significantly under-dressing or being slovenly WILL HURT YOU. It’s always safe to dress a little nicer than what Panhellenic recommends. Dress and prepare yourself as if you were going on a first date, followed by an internship interview – adorable, appropriate, pretty, put-together, fashionable, and comfortable for you.

#4) Have a good attitude, and don’t assume anything
CUTS WILL BE HARD. In general, if you’re reading GreekChat before you go through recruitment, you’ll be ahead of most of the PNMs, but you can’t take anything for granted. Legacies are regularly released from their legacy chapters. Every chapter has to make difficult releases, and sometimes the cut off for who is invited back and who is released is a razor thin margin. It can seem random, and in many ways can depend on who you meet, what topic you discussed, your energy level, her energy level, etc.. In pageantry, there’s a saying: “Different day, different judges, different results”; it kind of holds true in recruitment. Deal with it, and try your best.
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Old 04-28-2012, 10:36 AM
AXOrushadvisor AXOrushadvisor is offline
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I'm bumping this because I think the information in the last paragraph of the original post is still applicable to today. I also think the additional information that LAblondeGPhi put in for UCLA is very good and pertains to many of the recruitments I'm familiar with on the west coast. I think #4 is described in a way every one can understand and is spot on without giving away private MS information.
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Last edited by AXOrushadvisor; 04-28-2012 at 10:37 AM. Reason: because I always find something to change after I hit the post button!
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Old 04-28-2012, 11:03 AM
AnchorAlumna AnchorAlumna is offline
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Good posts, applicable anywhere.
Very good to hear from the adviser AND chapter POV!
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Old 04-28-2012, 08:12 PM
LAblondeGPhi LAblondeGPhi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AXOrushadvisor View Post
I'm bumping this because I think the information in the last paragraph of the original post is still applicable to today. I also think the additional information that LAblondeGPhi put in for UCLA is very good and pertains to many of the recruitments I'm familiar with on the west coast. I think #4 is described in a way every one can understand and is spot on without giving away private MS information.
Why, thank you!
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