Volunteered with Recruitment...Observations

[PersistentDST]

I had an opportunity to volunteer for recruitment this year, and it is certainly an experience! I wanted to thank all of you ladies (and gentlemen) with giving me a lot of great information about the terms/process/etc. I assisted with handing out and organizing MRABA's on Pref Day and helped/observed on Bid Day.

Just a few random observations:

1. I do not envy those who went through formal recruitment. Some of the young ladies looked so drained and stressed! I saw the "maybe I should just take my chances with COB" girls and the "I want to be in a sorority but not THIS sorority," girls. A couple of girls handed their MRABA back and walked smooth out of the room. We had tissues on hand everywhere! One young lady (she was a sweet girl) loved both sororities so much she didn't know which to rank first (that is a good problem to have)! I wanted to hand out hugs!

2. The SRC's were excellent! They were really trying to sell the chapters to the young ladies. There were quite a few ladies who were strongly thinking about dropping (quite a few did actually drop throughout) and the SRC's talked some back into giving the chapter(s) a chance. They were out there for 5 hours helping a collection of emotional women. I didn't envy them either!

3. I know this is an NPHC person talking, but I wish that the first shirts given to the new girls were in the official sorority colors. One chapter did wear shirts in their colors with their letters on the front and a cute saying on the back, but 3 of the other chapters all had shirts in the same colors/styles. From where the PNM's were standing, they couldn't see the letters on the tops, so if a member wasn't holding their letters/signs high it caused confusion! A couple of young ladies started to run "home" in the wrong direction!

4. I saw some young ladies wearing shorts that had their Greek letters on their behinds. A couple of friends that are AKA's were also working and we were...well...totally surprised.

Overall, it was a great experience, and I would love to help again! One thing I will say about the timing of recruitment, was that the PNM's get a month into school and formulate their own opinions. I think tent talk really hurt chapters, especially the weaker recruiting ones. Quite a few PNM's weren't willing to give the chapters a shot which was unfortunate.