Despite some changes from last year, women’s recruitment went off without a hitch.
“We changed things up a lot from last year, and for the better
in my opinion,” Associate Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Jesse Koch said. “In the past, Panhellenic recruitment consisted of two weekends worth of formal recruitment rounds. This year, we chose to move recruitment one week earlier on the academic calendar
and shortened the event to just one weekend.”
Regardless, Koch said enrollment
numbers were still very good.
“We had 388 women who signed up for recruitment, with 220 women ultimately accepting
a bid,” he said. “That enrollment
number puts us well over the average over the past three years, which was 366. However, this number is slightly down from last year’s 402.”
Aside from the changes in the amount of time dedicated to recruitment, not much else was different this year, Koch said.
“Round one took place on Friday, with potential new members
visiting all seven of our chapters
that evening,” he said. “On Saturday, the women visited five chapters, which was narrowed down to two chapters on Sunday. Through a process of mutual selection,
we were able to place these women in their new homes.”
Overall, five chapters were able to recruit at least 34 new members this year, Koch said.
“The quota was set especially
high this year at 34,” he said. “With all the new women, our Panhellenic community now consists
of 738 women.”
Panhellenic Director of Recruitment Sam Scheeler said she thought the weekend went very well.
“In general, we felt it was a great success,” she said. “It was a little scary making such a drastic
change in going from a two weekend format to a one weekend
format, but overall, I was very pleased with the way things worked out. A few tweaks may be needed for next year to accommodate
for the time crunch, but my guess would be that Bradley will most likely be continuing with a one weekend recruitment.”
Koch said he agreed.
“With the success of this year’s single weekend of recruitment, I feel that this schedule will be replicated
next year.”
Junior music education major Amanda Leo, who participated in recruitment, said she was overwhelmed
by the short amount of time in which recruitment was held.
“I personally found it extremely
overwhelming to have rush crammed into one weekend, and I’m not even a freshman,” she said. “I can hardly imagine how terrifying and confusing the whole experience must’ve been from a freshman’s perspective.”
Despite the confusion, Leo said she enjoyed recruitment and ended up in a house she’s happy with.
“I had a really great time rushing,”
she said. “Everyone was really nice and it was great to meet so many different girls. I think it’s true that somehow you always end up in the house you’re supposed
to be in. Rush was a great experience for me, and it really opened my eyes to the benefits of sorority life and helped to disprove
a lot of the preconceptions
