Friday, January 23, 2009

rushing, rushing around.

I do apologize for not writing a new entry sooner, this is my first off day since sorority recruitment has started. Those of you interested in Greek life, read on.

For sorority recruitment, there's four rounds at UVA. Round Robins, Themes, House Tours, and Preference. You visit fewer and fewer houses the more rounds you attend, and start by visiting all the houses at Round Robins. That's quite a long day as we have 15 sororities at UVa (not including multicultural, ethnic, or local interest groups). You spend 25 minutes inside each house, talking to some of the sisters. In my opinion, it's sort of a first impressions, introductions sort of thing. The next round is called Themes -- my personal favorite. Potential new members go back to the houses and watch the sisters put on a skit. The house is also usually heavily decorated, and it's just really a lot of fun. This is also the round that I saw the most of a house's personality, especially through how sisters interacted with each other. The third round is House Tours, in which you basically tour the house. I loved seeing the different layouts and how each sister decorated their room. (As I live in the house, I just spent the morning cleaning up and putting up a couple more decorations. I wonder if I should hide my horde of stuffed animals so it's not overwhelming.. hahaha.) The last round is preference. Sororities move this round off Grounds and rent out a big space. During ths round, the sorority in question shares a portion of their traditions with the potential new members.

So that very structured process is sorority recruitment in a nutshell. The guys however, have it a lot easier for recruitment, in my opinion. It's very informal, with a week of Open Houses. Every night, guys visit the houses they're interested in, and if the brothers find a connection with a guy, they extend second round invites. Those could be dinners, or day trips, I'm not too sure of the specifics.

All this culminates into Bid Day, which is the upcoming Monday this year. For sororities, the newest pledge class is directed to a certain place on Grounds where their new sisters will go pick them up, cheering along the way. I love watching the guys extend bids though. The brothers come to the new pledge's dorm, calls him outside, gets into a huddle and throws him up in the air. During guy's bid day, it's really entertaining to just sit outside on the quad on watch all the happenings.

2 comments:

Yesu said...

Make sure you do you research on Greek lettered organizations before you rush or pledge. There's a lot of orgs that make promises and a good way to verify them is if you talk to other Greeks who will give you honest insights from an outside perspective.

PAgirl said...

How competitive is sorority rush for a northern girl? This OOS rushee will not know a sole in any of the houses. Of the girls that start rush how many pledge? How many are girls don't get a bid on bid day after going through prefs? Are legacy's and recs helpful at UVA? It's ok to be totally honest...better to understand the dynamic then to get heartbroken.