Informal Recruitment

[CaffeinatedPNM]

First of all, I want to say that I have been a long time lurker, so I know the rule of, "Please use the search engine before asking stupid questions." Second, I used the search function, but it seems that my search words are widely used and I'm having trouble finding actual information.

Okay, so I am interested in going through informal recruitment in the Spring. I did not go through Formal this fall (long story) but am reconsidering my choice to not go through.

I know how Formal works (at least at my school). About a weekish long, narrows each day, I got that part down. I am having trouble finding info about how Informal works though?

Do I submit my name to the Greek office and they will contact me? Should I be on the lookout for a table set up somewhere in the student center around Spring semester?

And then, once it starts, how casual are things?

Long story/post short I was wondering if someone could give me a brief overview of how informal works while I wait anxiously to hear back from my schools Greek office (submitted an email over the weekend, just waiting for a response as I can't get over to the office any time soon. )

[DubaiSis]

Yes, submit your interest to the Greek office. There may be opportunities even still this fall.

Informal rush works very differently at different schools, so I could be quite a ways off for your school, but this seems like a common scenario:

There are 3 or 4 sororities that are not at total, maybe by 1 and maybe by 50. They will hold events, at the chapter house, at a bowling alley, at someone's apartment, and they will invite you along. These may be a scaled down version of a formal rush party or it could be you hanging out eating pizza and watching movies. Over a week or two these chapters will have a handful of events. Normally they don't consult with each other so there could be time conflicts. Then the chapters will have a vote and you will be offered a bid if everything works in your favor. With this type of informal recruitment, you could receive bids from more than one chapter, but you wouldn't necessarily get them on the same day. Of course, you can only accept 1 bid if it's NPC rush.

Now some schools have a semi-structured informal rush where a lot of chapters (Iowa has been doing this for the last few years, but probably not this year) participate and as such they have scheduled times, and I believe they had a preference night of sorts as well. And then I believe you'd only get one bid because they went through a bid matching process.

Some chapters will advertise widely and some it's on the deep down low. If you have friends in sororities you should make sure to express interest to them, just in case. And if their chapter isn't informaling, they probably know some chapters that are.

[CaffeinatedPNM]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

Yes, submit your interest to the Greek office. There may be opportunities even still this fall.

Informal rush works very differently at different schools, so I could be quite a ways off for your school, but this seems like a common scenario:

There are 3 or 4 sororities that are not at total, maybe by 1 and maybe by 50. They will hold events, at the chapter house, at a bowling alley, at someone's apartment, and they will invite you along. These may be a scaled down version of a formal rush party or it could be you hanging out eating pizza and watching movies. Over a week or two these chapters will have a handful of events. Normally they don't consult with each other so there could be time conflicts. Then the chapters will have a vote and you will be offered a bid if everything works in your favor. With this type of informal recruitment, you could receive bids from more than one chapter, but you wouldn't necessarily get them on the same day. Of course, you can only accept 1 bid if it's NPC rush.

Now some schools have a semi-structured informal rush where a lot of chapters (Iowa has been doing this for the last few years, but probably not this year) participate and as such they have scheduled times, and I believe they had a preference night of sorts as well. And then I believe you'd only get one bid because they went through a bid matching process.

Some chapters will advertise widely and some it's on the deep down low. If you have friends in sororities you should make sure to express interest to them, just in case. And if their chapter isn't informaling, they probably know some chapters that are.

You are wonderful. I should bake you cookies. Thank you for both a quick and very nicely explained response. I do have a few friends in sororities (one, ironically, who received a bid last informal) so I will let them know.

Any idea when chapters usually know who will be participating and who won't? Like, is now too early to know who might be participating?

[dgdramadawg]

Like DubaiSis said, it's different at different schools.

At my school, it was rare for chapters to need to do informal. Usually it was a case of a few sisters graduating in December and the chapter wanting to fill those spots to remain at total.

When I did informal, I contacted Greek Life for information and registered. They gave my info to the chapters that were participating. That year, six chapters were participating, which is a HUGE number for informal at UGA. Three of the chapters sent me invitations to events and I was able to select which events I wanted to attend. It was a really casual process in which the chapters got to go after the PNMs that they truly wanted and the PNMs did not have to attend events for chapters they didn't feel an interest for.