Before school starts, TikTok and college campuses are filled with girls going through recruitment, the chapter members preparing for their new pledge class (PC), Gamma Chis stepping away from their homes and the NPC Recruitment Team making sure rush runs smoothly.

While potential new members (PNMs) prepare to find their place down the row, months of preparation have already gone into Work Week, Recruitment Week and, eventually, Bid Day.

“I didn’t realize how much work went into recruitment. I mean, I knew it was going to be a lot, but it’s a lot,” Olivia Johnson, VP Of Membership for Delta Zeta, said. “There’s just so much that goes into it that I feel like a lot of people don’t realize.”

Girls go through recruitment for any number of reasons. From finding the sisters they always wanted growing up to being from another state and wanting sisters to lean on during the school year, the rush process connects people throughout their college years. 

“I wasn’t originally going to go through Rush,” Olivia Crawley, a member of PC ’26 in Zeta Tau Alpha said. “My deciding factor was the fact that I wanted a home. I wanted some place that I could go that I knew I wouldn’t be judged, that I knew I could have people I trusted in that would build me up.”

For PNMs, recruitment is finding a place to belong. For the NPC Recruitment Team however, recruitment is helping everyone involved feel prepared for the days ahead. 

PNMs have the opportunity to make their recruitment process start a month before they even step through a chapter’s doors. Preview Day, held in July, gives PNMs an opportunity to meet other girls going through recruitment and some of the Gamma Chis who will be there. 

Gamma Chis are members of a sorority who step out of their house during the recruitment process to help and care for the PNMs during the week. 

“Serving as a Gamma Chi, you just get to love on the girls, you get to help them,” Baylee Larson, member of Alpha Omicron Pi and the Director of Gamma Chis for NPC said. “During recruitment, you are seeking genuine connections. But I feel like as a Gamma Chi, I just got to know these girls and be friends with these girls.”

However, Gamma Chis also have to navigate the process themselves. For them, being a Gamma Chi means running home a second time, possibly alongside the very girls they spent the week mentoring.

“Knowing that we get to run home on Bid Day to all of our sisters and the girls that do love us, it’s like, we found our home, and now we get to run home to the girls that are going to bring in that next chapter of our chapter,” Olivia Brewer, a member of Delta Zeta and a Gamma Chi during recruitment, said.

In each of the houses down the row, the Vice President of Recruitment works hard each summer and the start of August to bring their vision of recruitment to life. 

During the heat of summer, sorority members come back to practice and prepare for recruitment week with workshop weekends, mini Work Weeks to brush the dust off the old members and to teach the most recent initiates the ins and outs of recruitment in house. 

The infamous Work Week and RushTok begin soon after. That’s when everyone locks in and gets everything in tip-top shape. From info day run-throughs to learning what your house does for preference round, everyone in the chapter stays late, works hard and prepares for the week ahead.

Even with the late days though, members grow closer with each other and create memories that will last a lifetime. 

“We kept on laughing and talking for hours, but I will always cherish those moments more than anything because you’re just bonding over one simple thing, and you’re just trying to get all through it, and realizing we’re all in the exact same boat,” Olivia Riester, a senior member of Delta Zeta, said. 

Then, it’s showtime. 

Recruitment week starts for the PNMs with move in day, a service project and, finally, inside the chapters for the first time for House Tours. A spick and span house is shown down the row with some of the personalities of those who live there being showcased. 

For some PNMs, it only takes walking through the doors to realize they’ve found their home.

“Zeta just felt like home as soon as I stepped in their house on house tours,” Avery Cooper, a member of PC ’26 in Zeta Tau Alpha, said. “As soon as I walked into those doors, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace that I just knew that I was either supposed to be there or all my friends were going to be in Zeta.”

But even if you don’t know right away, there are three days of talking to the house members where both the chapter members and the PNMs make their choice on if they can see themselves in those letters. 

Info Day is built to get to know the girls coming through and for the girls coming through to learn a little about that house and the sisters there. 

Impact Day is the second day and is all about the sorority’s philanthropic cause. The day also gives members a chance to share the impact they have made on campus and the impact their sorority has had on them.

Preference Round is the last and most important day of Recruitment Week. Between the seniors’ crying because it’s their last recruitment and the beginning of the end of their membership period, the younger members crying for roughly the same reason and the PNMs crying because they’ve found where they want to spend their college years, Pref is also the most emotional day of the week.

Every house down the row wants the girls who go through just as much as the PNMs want them. But, no matter what, the chapter members want each girl that comes through to remember something positive about their chapter, no matter the outcome.

“I hope every PNM remembers the kindness we extended to them and how we strived to make them feel seen from the second they stepped inside our house,” Juliann Stevens, Chi Omega’s VP of Membership, said. “Regardless of where they received a bid, they can always find a friend in each member of Chi Omega, and that as women in sorority life, we are bonded for life, no matter if we share the same letters or not!” 

Those who have gone through recruitment know there are two things to live by during the week: trust the process and be yourself.

“Trusting the process and being genuine will place you exactly where you need to be,” Sianna Rucker, a member of PC ’25 in Alpha Gamma Delta, said.

Staying true to yourself and finding the best fit is one of the most important parts of recruitment. If a PNM feels like they cannot be their most authentic self somewhere, it may not be the place for them.

“If you go through recruitment week and you change who you are as a person to fit somebody else’s standards, and you get that house, you get that house being your fake self, you could go your whole four years not really feeling like you can be your 100% true self because you changed who you were for somebody else,” Maggie Winders, NPC president and member of Alpha Omicron Pi, said.

Outside opinions can make that process harder. PNMs hear what others say about chapters throughout the week, but those opinions do not always match what they experience for themselves.

“Do not listen to Yik Yak. Do not care if they say who’s touse, bouse, mouse. Those words don’t even make any sense. Delete it. None of it is true. Just delete it,” Crawley said. “You see all of these things on Yik Yak, and it discourages all of these houses. And then you go into these houses, and all of these girls are amazing.”

By the end of the week, the opinions, conversations and decisions all lead to one moment: Bid Day. For the PNMs who spent the week searching for where they belong, it is finally time to run home.

Categories: Life