Across the nation, sororities have been preparing for recruitment since Bid Day of last year. For months, they put in hours of hard work to get ready for the new members who will step across their house’s threshold and find a sisterhood to call home for four years.
The hard work they are putting in is for one goal: to find new sisters. What each sorority cares about is the *people* who walk through that door at the beginning of recruitment. They want to find the people who will buy Starbucks with them at 10 p.m. when they’re cramming for midterms, watch The Bachelor with them and thirty other sisters on Monday nights, or drink a bottle of wine and listen to them vent about their latest is-he-isn’t-he boyfriend-type person (he’ll commit eventually, right?). Sorority women want to grow their sisterhood and find friends for life.
Sororities boast many assets during recruitment week. Maybe it’s their mansion, alumni connections, record-level donations to their philanthropy, or maybe it’s how much fun they have at “social events” (PSA: they mean getting shitfaced and making out with boys at parties). All of those elements to a Greek organization are important and help enhance your time in the house, but if you’re participating in these events while surrounded by people who do not genuinely feel like sisters, it won’t feel like home.
When I was trying to decide between houses, my sole focus was philanthropy. I loved the causes that some of the houses represented and wanted to choose one where I could help a philanthropy that meant something personal to me. But the second I met the girls in my current house during the recruiting process and they started telling me about the best taco places in town, I knew I was home. All of the other reasons that I mentioned above were what led to me the recruitment process to begin with. But the people who I met in the house I call home are what made me stay.
Pick a house where the women make you feel comfortable. Pick one where the women make you feel like the best version of yourself. Pick the house where you can picture yourself laughing in the library at 2 a.m. with these women, even though you’ve been writing an essay for that God awful class you hate for hours. Pay attention to the way the girls interact with each other in the room, in the slideshow, in pictures you see around the house. That’s how they will interact with you once you’re their sister.
Each sorority is looking for new girls to join who feel like they could be their future bridesmaids, their partners in crime, the other half of their Halloween couple costumes. Contrary to some rumors you may have heard, they don’t care what country club your family belongs to at home, or what zip code you live in. They want to know you. Your favorite foods, what you’re passionate about, your favorite place to travel. And you should try to get to know them over the course of the week.
If the house with your favorite philanthropy or favorite living room couches does not call you back, remind yourself that those aren’t the most important things. Find a sorority for life by finding your sisters for life..