Commuter School Recruitment

[AEPhiSierra]

I wanted to know if there are any other chapters at commuter schools out there who want to share recruitment ideas? I know at my school it can be hard to get people people to give greek life a chance because people don't understand its value at a commuter school especially when they still have friends who also didn't go away to school and you don't have the benefits of living in a house or dorm. I would love to hear how other chapters in a similar situation approach rush.

[FAUNikki]

I attend a commuter school and greek life is relatively small, 4 sororities. Phi Sig has 18 girls , and the other 3 have around 20 each. Our Greek Advisor this year is trying to really push greek life. But we have done some great things this year. Our recruitment begins on Sept 7. It goes on until the 13th. All of our decorations are due today. We are trying to be organized! Many girls dont understand the concept of a sorority without houses and most of them live at home.

[ajuhdg]

I went to the University of Houston...BIG commuter school! One of the biggest reasons for this are the multitude of high schools that are in Houston. That's how some people nicknamed it 'Cougar High'. Anyways, getting into college night at the area high schools is always helpful! We would always camp out at move-in days of the dorms. The women would pass out flyers and chat up the new students, while the men would help carry boxes and stuff! There are lots of little ways to let students know you're there and what you do!

aj

[White_Chocolate]

funny, we're 'grant line high'
we have 3 sororities with all between 17 to 20 members
phi sig is somewhere in between

we cut our rush down to 3 days
that upped our PNMs by a large margin
the biggest rush class came in with me
which was 30 girls
this year, i think we have more than that signed up

[dakareng]

I attended a commuter school (ok, when I was an undergrad, it was that way... it is increasingly becoming residential). Our parties were in the student union so decorations were simple. Costumes were simple (who wanted to go eat in public places dressed up?) Twenty years ago, we were doing "no frills" rush. Our emphasis was our service projects and the support we gave each other-- having people to eat lunch with becomes very important when you commute. We publicized heavily during freshman orientation- most of the orientation advisors were, in fact Greek and talked it up heavily. Despite only 10% of the student body being Greek, most student leaders were in GLOs

[Glitter650]

My school is basically commuter... and it actually helps it feel less like it is a commuter school to be in a sorority.. makes you feel like you have a school life rather than attending classes and having your social life be seperate from school like most commuter schools tell girls this !! I also suggest as much publicity as you can possibly muster.. wear letters all the time. Since people don't come with the intention to go greek at my scholol we spend the first two weeks of school with tables in the quad (each local sorority has one and Panhellenic has a table) and let people know when rush is starting and get their contact information to remind them. We do this for about two weeks then we have open house. This helps a lot because it's not like a school that will open dorms a week before for girls who want to rush to live in while they are going through or anything like at the larger schools. This year we plan to try and really do soemthing interesting to the drab walls of the conference rooms we use for our parties to make is seem more "homey" also

[dzsaigirl]

I also went to UofH. It's probably not as bad as most commuter-oriented schools since it has a TON of student housing, especially now, plus there is Greek Row now, which throws a whole other dynamic in!

We had greek life booths at Cougar Preview, Orientation, etc. Plus as ajuhdg said, we passed out water and lemonade (along with rush applications!) at the dorms for move in day (this only works if there ARE dorms). When I was VP of Panhel, we had professional information pamphlets made with pics of the sororities and general info, plus a rush interest card that the girls could fill out and give to us. Also, the sororities were allowed to pass out apps to girls at the University Center, another place to eat called the Satellite, some of the major buildings of classes, etc. Once, we even got a phone list and called female freshman names!!! (this is panhellenic here...not specific sororities).

I was like a vulture when I was a rho chi. I went to every single orientation activities mart and I accosted every single girl I saw with a rush booklet!!!!! It was a cool challenge

Our school is also big about painting your car before and during rush with sorority messages. We painted the fraternity guys' cars too at their houses! Anything and everything to get the word out.

We had banners on campus for each sorority and the rush/greek life office phone number on them.

We had bright red GO GREEK shirts that everyone was supposed to wear on a certain day to make our presence known, while on the other days, the sororities had their own "shirt schedule" (at least mine did).

Basically, you have to make it IMPOSSIBLE that a girl could go to your school and NOT know about rush. It's still hard, I know, but it must be done!

[Buttonz]

I liek the idea of getting bright color shirts and wearing them on the same day...I was thinking of posting something like this

[Glitter650]

T shirts totally work !! Our panhellenic rush shirts are red Baseball tees that say go greek with all the orgs letters in the tail... and appearantly they are very effective... our panhel advisor's co worker asked her if a new sorority opened because she "saw all these girls around campus in these bright red shirts... there must've been hundreds" really there were only about 90 greek NPC women AT MOST on our campus at the time wearing these shirts... but if people keep recognizing them... it seems like they see them A LOT more than they really do

[Pi Kapp 142]

Dude, those baseball Tees worked great at state last year. It made our greek life seem way bigger. I wish the other fraternities would wear T-shirts that showed off. Too many of us make black t-shirts with designs that do not advertise well enough. I am talking SF STate, but kinda in general too.

[greeklawgirl]

Cara, are they doing the baseball tees again this year? Let me know if they are, because I want you to order an extra one for me! I think that's a great idea!

[PM_Mama00]

UMD is all commuter. Basically we're just passing out flyers like crazy to all women. We have a booth up at all chances, but it sux cuz panhel can only have a booth up 3 days a week for 2 weeks a semester, so we're tryin some new things this year. Plus we have two recruitment shirts.

One day, the week before recruitment starts, we have Panhel Rush day. All three sororities are separated into groups, so that there are some Phi Mus, Phi Sigs, and Deephers in one room, and so on. We then rush the girls all together for that day. Then the next week we have formal recruitment. This worked very well to bring the three groups together and we've actually gotten along a lot better since we started doin this.

Our shirt for that day is an all-American theme. Some people will be in red, some in white, and some in blue and I forgot what the front looks like. Then our shirts for the first day of recruitment are Planet Greek with the slogan "There are two types of women, Greeks and those who wish they were" or something like that.