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


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  #16  
Old 07-24-2017, 12:13 PM
SarahE SarahE is offline
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Yeah, I'm not sure I'll able to get everything done on time. I will jump on this and hope I have letters for as many houses as I can get!! I have a lot to do omg .
  #17  
Old 07-24-2017, 01:20 PM
ZTA1550 ZTA1550 is offline
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SarahE (as AZTheta said, hoping this is not your real name), in addition to the very wise counsel provided by my Panhellenic sisters earlier in this post, you might want to see if there is a Panhellenic alumnae association in your area. Depending on where you're located (please don't post it here), they may or may not know anything about recruitment at UT specifically, but they may be able to assist in tracking down recs and/or answering general questions.

You are getting a very late start for this process. That being said, I wish you much success at tracking down the recs you need, and with recruitment. And as many have stated previously, ignore the opinions of others as to tiers. Keep an open mind and be thankful for every invitation you receive.
  #18  
Old 07-24-2017, 03:08 PM
FloMo Mom FloMo Mom is offline
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I'll share a few thoughts and comments about Texas recruitment. My daughter is a junior at UT and had a successful recruitment. She is in-state but never planned to go Greek until senior year of high school, so she was not preparing for it all her life as mentioned previously.

UT has a sophomore quota and most houses take advantage of it. I actually heard one active say it's easier to get into a sorority as a sophomore than a freshman. However, I wouldn't squander your first opportunity at recruitment now, just to wait and see what might happen next year. Do the best you can, get as many recs as possible, and see what happens.

UT does not send any sort of recruitment brochure to incoming freshmen. There is usually an online recruitment guide but it hasn't yet been updated for 2017 so perhaps they have discontinued that resource. There's a lot of good information on the Texas Panhellenic website, including the 2016 recruitment brochure and suggested attire for each round of recruitment.

http://texaspanhellenic.com/

UT does not have an organized spring recruitment. Most years 3-4 houses will add a few new members, but it's not an organized process and I believe the new members are often close friends of new initiates who joined in the fall, possibly those girls who withdrew from formal recruitment. (More on that later.) You can find more info about which houses have added new members in the spring by looking at spring grade rankings here. Choose a semester, open the document, and see which chapters have a GPA listed for new members. The chapter grade rankings online go back to 2014. You will notice that only 3 chapters added new members in spring 2017.

http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sfl...derankings.php

I know OOS girls who have had a successful UT recruitment, even starting this late in the summer. I recommend you get your packets and recs lined up ASAP. Recruitment is well under way for 2017 and you don't have any time to lose. My daughter just returned from work weekend in Austin, where she learned all about recruitment from the "other side." Her chapter has already received many sponsorship forms and letters of support for the 2017 PNMs.

Appreciate every invitation you receive during recruitment. Be a gracious guest at every party. Look at each chapter through fresh eyes each time you visit. If you've been invited back to a chapter, they see something in you and think you have potential to be their sister. As an OOS PNM your invitation list may be different than a Texas girl from an established area of Dallas or Houston. It doesn't matter. Every chapter has something to offer and you will have a similar Greek experience at any house.

Continue through recruitment all the way to the end, even if you *think* you don't want to join any chapter left on your invitation list. Attend preference if you're invited. It often changes the way a PNM feels about a chapter. If you attend pref and wouldn't consider joining either chapter you visit, that's the time to withdraw from recruitment. Often girls who drop from recruitment before it's over are offered a snap bid or COB after formal recruitment to the SAME CHAPTERS that were left on her invitation list when she dropped. So stick it out through preference and finish the job. Then decide if you want to drop.

Are you registered for Camp Texas or Ignite? It's a great way to meet Greek girls prior to recruitment in an informal environment. I heard that Camp Texas is full (ask to be put on the waitlist in case a spot opens up) and Ignite Session 2 is still available. Connections can be the key to a successful recruitment.

There are 14 UPC sororities at UT Austin and 13 participate in formal recruitment. The recruitment schedule is online at the Panhellenic website. Note that the schedule there is a little different from the UT SFL (Sorority and Fraternity Life) website. Refer to the Texas Panhellenic website as your "official" resource.

Remember to register for recruitment by next Thursday, August 3, 2017.

Feel free to send me a PM if I can answer any questions for you. In my role as an ambassador for Texas Parents, I have spoken to OOS moms about Texas recruitment. I would be glad to have a conversation with your mom (or you) if you're interested.

I hope to hear about your successful UT recruitment.

Good luck and hook 'em horns! \m/
  #19  
Old 07-25-2017, 05:58 PM
SarahE SarahE is offline
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Thanks for all this info. I'm doing as much email as possible for recs to speed the process but I can tell I will not have recs for every house by registration time. I'm still psyched to rush, though!

FloMo Mom
I have a question I will pm you
  #20  
Old 07-26-2017, 06:46 AM
FSUZeta FSUZeta is offline
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Don't stop trying to get recs, even if the deadline is looming. Even if a sorority chooses not to open a rec that arrives past the due date, at least you know you did all you could. And speaking only from my experience as an advisor, it made our jobs easier to have received all recs by a certain date, but we always opened and read late arriving recs.
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  #21  
Old 07-27-2017, 01:31 PM
Ladybugmom Ladybugmom is offline
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Sarah E you have been given very good advice. If I were you, I would remove every thing but the first paragraph of your original post. What you have written could be considered very inflammatory by almost every chapter that you have listed. I would guess that it would be very easy to identify you at this point.

The ranking of chapters is extremely subjective depending on who you are talking to. There are no clear "tiers" at UT because ALL of the chapters are hard to get in to. This is especially true for an OOS PNM that has very few recs and contacts within the houses.

Every house has different strengths depending on what is important to you. If grades are important, look at the grade rankings of each house. Some of the houses that you listed as "lower" are actually top in grades. If intramural sports are important, look at those statistics or ask questions about what sports that particular house participated in last year. If religion is important, some chapters have very active bible study groups. There are so many important factors that go in to what makes a particular chapter "good" to each person. What I think is a good chapter for me might not be the same to you.

UT has a very good placement rate for the girls that are willing to finish the process and not drop out because the perceived "upper tier" houses have dropped them. I wish you luck and hope that you will take all of this advice that you have been given to heart.

Good luck on the 40 acres!
  #22  
Old 07-31-2017, 03:10 PM
SarahE SarahE is offline
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Thanks to everyone for this advice. I actually have 4 rec letters in the bag!! Not enough I know but I'm pushing through this whole week anyway. Fingers crossed that I can get 5 more at least. I hope ppl don't find me pushy but I'm going to keep at it until the end of this week.
Hitting the stores for some outfits that I'm hoping will work down in that heat. Trying to mix this all in with general dorm prep is really making my parents crazy. They already had to shell out extra for me to move in early.
  #23  
Old 07-31-2017, 07:50 PM
thetalady thetalady is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SarahE View Post
Thanks to everyone for this advice. I actually have 4 rec letters in the bag!! Not enough I know but I'm pushing through this whole week anyway. Fingers crossed that I can get 5 more at least. I hope ppl don't find me pushy but I'm going to keep at it until the end of this week.
Hitting the stores for some outfits that I'm hoping will work down in that heat. Trying to mix this all in with general dorm prep is really making my parents crazy. They already had to shell out extra for me to move in early.
Oh my... this concerns me. Are you familiar with what a sorority costs? It can be quite expensive. I would hate for you to go to all of this work only to find that the expense is more than you counted on.
  #24  
Old 07-31-2017, 09:08 PM
aephi alum aephi alum is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SarahE View Post
What are the strongest houses at UT to consider as an out of state student? I'm going to start getting rec letters together but do I really need to have them for the lower houses?
The strongest houses at UT are PiPhi, Kappa, Theta, Tri Delta, Chi O, Zeta, APhi, AXO, AEPhi, DG, KD, ADPi, AZD, and SDT. There's no such thing as a "lower house".

Quote:
Originally Posted by SarahE
I think I can skip AEPHI and SDT because I'm not Jewish.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaffyKD View Post
Don't rule out houses because of their religious founding. You just may find your best fit is at that house. I AM Jewish but I belong to a house that was not founded on Jewish practices.
What DaffyKD said, x1000. I wasn't Jewish when I pledged AEPhi. My chapter has active sisters and alumnae who are Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Methodist, Hindu, and that's just off the top of my head. So, get recs for every chapter, including AEPhi and SDT.

And ditto what thetalady said about the financial obligations associated with sorority membership. You're looking at a few hundred dollars per semester even if you're not living in the house, and your first semester is going to be the most expensive as you will have to pay some one-time fees (e.g. initiation fee, cost of a badge).
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  #25  
Old 08-01-2017, 12:25 AM
TXDG TXDG is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aephi alum View Post

And ditto what thetalady said about the financial obligations associated with sorority membership. You're looking at a few hundred dollars per semester even if you're not living in the house, and your first semester is going to be the most expensive as you will have to pay some one-time fees (e.g. initiation fee, cost of a badge).
A few thousand dollars, not a few hundred. The range of mandatory fees for the New Member school year is $2700-4700, varies by house. These estimates don't include paying for social events, tshirts, etc which can easily add a few hundred extra per semester.
  #26  
Old 08-01-2017, 05:15 PM
DeltaGlamorous0 DeltaGlamorous0 is offline
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I'm currently in a sorority at UT. I have to say that it isn't a good idea to come into recruitment with a ton of preconceived notions about the different houses. That being said, there are some things you should know.

1)Despite what was previously posted, AEPhi at the University of Texas is 99-100% Jewish. So many girls like them every year, only to eventually be cut because of this. It is apparently the only AEPhi chapter in the country that takes only jewish girls. That being said, girls who are jewish do not always go AEPhi at UT
2)There are sororities that will take you if you do not have a rec, but you may not feel like you fit in with those sororities, so try and do everything you can to obtain as many as possible.
3)You are at a disadvantage for starting so late. The unofficial deadline for recs is typically July 1st. We will look at them if you send them in after that though.
4)The rankings that you talked about were determined in the 70s, and it is archaic. Some of the top sororities you described are not widely liked, and some of the ones you listed in the middle are widely loved.
5)OOS girls get bids all the time. I would say there is a house with the highest concentration of them, but every sorority has OOS girls.

Also, a word of advice, rank is not everything. There are some snotty people that think it matters. Those people don't get very far during recruitment. Often times girls who only go for "top" houses end up miserable because they don't fit in, and they could've been really happy at a house they thought wasn't "top" enough for them. It also really rubs everyone the wrong way when you try and rank the houses. Even girls in "top" sororities get offended because they have friends in other houses.
All of the sororities who participate in formal recruitment are strong at UT. You couldn't go wrong with any of them. It is all about where you fit in.
It also does cost a lot of money. Be prepared to spend around 4000 for your first year, and this often does not include things like t-shirts, parent's weekend activities, possibly eating at the house, etc. UT greek like is expensive.
You should try and get a rec for every house you can!!

If it doesn't work out, plenty of girls go through as sophomores and find the process much easier. Every house has sophomore quotas.

As for general advice, don't worry too much about your clothing. Yes, it should be appropriate, but if a house is going to cut you cause you didn't wear the right brand or something, you don't want to be in that house anyways. Instead, focus on finding outfits that you feel comfortable in. If you're comfortable in your outfit, you are going to be more comfortable and confident in the houses. That will take you farther than a designer dress ever will.
You might already know this, but don't talk about boys, alcohol, religion, or politics.
Bring flip flops or something to walk between houses during the later rounds. Your feet will thank you.
Give every sorority a shot. You're there for a reason.
  #27  
Old 08-01-2017, 08:13 PM
thetalady thetalady is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TXDG View Post
A few thousand dollars, not a few hundred. The range of mandatory fees for the New Member school year is $2700-4700, varies by house. These estimates don't include paying for social events, tshirts, etc which can easily add a few hundred extra per semester.
This estimate is from the University and can be VERY misleading. There is so much that is not included with these figures. Please use them as a rough estimate and assume they can be higher.

UT Austin sorority costs

"Additional costs throughout the semester may include parking at the chapter house*, optional meal plans, pictures, gifts, social events, T-shirts, etc. **parking availability and cost will vary by chapter"
  #28  
Old 08-01-2017, 10:27 PM
aephi alum aephi alum is offline
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Originally Posted by TXDG View Post
A few thousand dollars, not a few hundred. The range of mandatory fees for the New Member school year is $2700-4700, varies by house. These estimates don't include paying for social events, tshirts, etc which can easily add a few hundred extra per semester.
I guess I'm showing my age, LOL. I can't remember dropping more than about $1000 in any given semester.

My chapter also did not have a house, which means I didn't have to pay parlor fees and the like.
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AEΦ ... Multa Corda, Una Causa ... Celebrating Over 100 Years of Sisterhood
Have no place I can be since I found Serenity, but you can't take the sky from me...
Only those who risk going too far, find out how far they can go.
  #29  
Old 08-02-2017, 09:07 AM
SarahE SarahE is offline
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Well, I have 5 rec letters total and 2 supposedly going to chapters in the next few days. Hope that happens because I've done all I can. My parents got zero financial aid on my OOS tuition so I guess that means they can afford the dues and extras haha. I owe them! We saw the chapter houses at night earlier this summer and I remember AEPhi's had some sort of new construction or addition out to the side. It was a really nice house. From Delta Glamorous' post, Jewish girls have other options besides AEPhi but not many non Jewish girls going into it. They're one of the houses I don't have a rec for, which is fine.

Thanks for the advice everyone!!!
  #30  
Old 08-02-2017, 10:20 AM
SarahE SarahE is offline
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Delta Glamorous, I have a question for you. Will pm u
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