Sororities change recruitment to increase 52 percent bid placement

On a whim, freshman Hayley Fischer decided to go through women’s formal recruitment this past fall.

But after going through all four rounds of recruitment, she didn’t receive a bid.

“When my Rho Gamma came and told me, I had no expression on my face,” Fischer said. “She asked if I was okay, and I said, ‘Uh, yeah.’ I felt like I was supposed to cry.”

Fischer is one of 150 women who went all the way through the recruitment process but did not receive a bid to join one of the 19 sorority chapters early this semester. Only 52 percent of women who start recruitment receive bids, a placement percentage that is almost 25 percentage points below the national average, said Kris Bridges, a college Panhellenic chair for the National Panhellenic Conference, the national governing body for sororities.

After considering the current system, the IU Panhellenic Association hopes to tweak the process and increase recruitment numbers.

“This has been years in the making,” said PHA Vice President of Recruitment Anna Berg. “We were all unsatisfied with the amount of women we were placing. It was a challenge of, ‘Can we change?’”

THE CHANGES

IU currently operates on a bed-quota system. This allows each sorority to choose the number of bids it will give out based on the amount of living space it will have available the following year, Bridges said.

IU is the only school in the country that still uses this system, Berg said.

Representatives from the National Panhellenic Conference told IU’s Panhellenic Association in February that it needed to change the recruitment process so more women could receive bids. One of the recommendations was that IU move to a “quota total system,” where the number of bids each house could give out would depend on the average chapter size at IU.

To increase the number of bids, IU’s Panhellenic Association voted in April on two measures to change the recruitment process.

The first, which was rejected by a vote of 6 to 13, would have changed IU’s system to an all-January recruitment. This would decrease the number of women who go through recruitment just for the experience and have no intention of joining a sorority. Berg said she thought the change was “too much, too soon.”

The second measure, however, passed at a meeting on April 14. In the upcoming recruitment period, women will now preference two more sororities in the first and second invite rounds.

Previously, women selected and ranked 12 sororities in the first invite round and six in the second. Now, they will choose 14 and eight, respectively.

“Each sorority would see a bigger pool of women and get more exposure to them,” Berg said. “It helps everyone.”

But junior Katelyn Walbridge, president of Kappa Alpha Theta, said her chapter voted against both measures because she said they do not do enough to solve the problems of recruitment.

“There’s no reason to change when the outcome will end up the same,” Walbridge said.

And, for some women like Fischer, the changes might be coming too late.

THE OTHER 48 PERCENT

Freshman Sarah Finnerty said she loved having a Rho Gamma, or recruitment guide, to help her through the recruitment process and was optimistic because of the support she received.

But when 19 Party – where women tour all 19 sorority houses – began, Finnerty said her recruitment experience changed completely.

“I felt like I was being speed-dated,” Finnerty said. “I’m pretty sure a lot of people don’t find their true love through speed dating.”

Finnerty also said she felt like sorority members discriminated against her because she was a part of the Air Force ROTC.

“If there was more of an opportunity for sororities to get to know you longer, I could tell them I’m in ROTC but show that I’m not some strict, masculine woman who can’t have fun,” Finnerty said.

After receiving invitations from only two of the sororities she marked as “preferred” at the end of first invite, Finnerty learned of a death in her family and decided to drop out of recruitment.

Freshman Tiffany Barrios, who also eventually dropped out of recruitment, was excited at the beginning of the process.

But she felt “disappointed” after only being invited to five sororities during the first invite round and only receiving two invitations to the second round. She dropped out after visiting those two chapters.

“I didn’t understand how they eliminated people,” Barrios said. “But I’d heard it was really hard to get into a house at IU.”

Fischer also said she felt alienated by the recruitment process.

“The whole thing was hell,” Fischer said. “I got to the last round. After that I didn’t get a bid. It felt like the whole process took place after people had already formed cliques and were already friends with girls in houses.”

But Walbridge said that in Kappa Alpha Theta, having connections within the sorority doesn’t give prospective members an advantage.

“The recruitment process does give everyone a fair chance,” Walbridge said. “But I don’t think knowing people has that much of an effect.”

CHANGE FOR THE BETTER

While most people agree a change needs to be made, there is no consensus about the best solution.

Finnerty said the PHA-proposed changes aren’t enough.

“Even if there were more rounds and you could see more houses, you could still get screwed out of a bid,” Finnerty said.

Barrios also said changing the size of rounds won’t make enough of a difference, since it’s normal for women to only get six invitations during the first invite round.

When women like Fischer, Barrios and Finnerty don’t receive bids, then women’s recruitment needs to be changed, Berg said.

“When it comes to that, I’m speechless,” Berg said. “It’s a difficult situation that doesn’t happen at every school.”

But until recruitment changes, Fischer said women who don’t receive bids will question themselves.

“You’re wondering what you did wrong,” Fischer said. “You second-guess yourself. Girls shouldn’t have to go through that.”