Students wishing to ‘go Greek’ at the University will soon have their chance – the first annual formal recruitment for Inter-fraternity Council fraternities begins the first week of classes, as does formal recruitment sign-up for Panhellenic sororities.
IFC President Eric Young said the council decided in April to start a formal recruitment process, which will take place during the newly-created ‘Legacy Week.’ He said interested men can attend preliminary, informal events, including a cornhole tournament Monday, Aug. 24, and the Resident Student Association Casino Night (co-sponsored by the IFC) on Tuesday, Aug. 25, to learn more about fraternity life before the Legacy Week kick-off Wednesday and first round Thursday.
Brandon Bookatz, the IFC vice president of recruitment and public relations, said informational sessions will be held for interested men on Tuesday night in various locations, including McDonald, Kreischer, Harshman and Kohl residence halls and the commuter lounge in the Union. Bookatz said attendees will learn how to join fraternities and can ask questions at the meetings, which precede the start of recruitment sign-up on Wednesday evening. He said men can sign up for formal recruitment until the first round begins Thursday evening.
A four-day, three-round process, formal recruitment goes from Thursday through Sunday, during which participants will visit all 17 fraternities with groups led by current fraternity members. Each day, the men will be asked to narrow their choices, and they will get to spend more time with their top picks. Then, on Sunday night, each chapter will decide which men they want to give ‘bids,’ or invitations. The selections will be revealed Monday, Aug. 31, after the prospective members view their invitations and select their chapters.
‘I am very, very excited about it,’ Bookatz said. ‘It will place freshmen into the fraternities that best match them.’
Young said the new process will allow students to choose their fraternities more easily, as it gives them a set way to go Greek.
‘In the past, it’s been continuous open recruitment where the chapters have just done their own thing,’ Young said, adding that once Legacy Week is over this year, open recruitment will begin.
Young’s advice to men thinking of joining a fraternity is to be open-minded.
‘All of our chapters on campus, they have great things to offer but they’re all different,’ Young said. ‘Just come in willing to look at all of the chapters and decide which one works best for you.’
The Panhellenic sorority formal recruitment process is fairly similar to the IFC’s.
Jacqueline Mattmuller, Panhellenic Council president, said women can register during ‘Greek Fest,’ which takes place Aug. 26 at Mac Beach, Aug. 27 at the Union Oval, and Sept. 2 at the field outside East Hall. They can also sign up online at www.greekbgsu.com. She said once the women sign up, their information will be gathered and they will be placed in groups to be led by sorority-member guides called Rho Gammas. The Rho Gammas will contact women who registered and eventually lead them through all 13 houses during the four-day process, which takes place Sept. 10 through Sept. 13.
Mattmuller said the women will start by visiting all 13 houses and spending 20 minutes in each, and then the next day they will pick their top seven and spend 40 minutes in each before choosing their top three houses to visit the following day for an hour each. The hour-long sessions are called ‘Preference Parties,’ which according to Mattmuller provide the women with an opportunity to get to know possible sisters.
‘That’s really intimate,’ Mattmuller said. ‘You really get a true feeling … if you want to be in the sorority or not.’
Once women have visited their top three choices, they rank them. The sororities also decide who they would like to invite to join their chapters, Mattmuller said.
‘[It’s a] crazy matching system, and it’s all done through computer, but if the girls preference all three sororities and they don’t just pick one, they are guaranteed to be in a sorority,’ Mattmuller said. She explained women who go through the entire recruitment process and follow all the steps are guaranteed sorority placement.
Women will learn of their placements on Sunday, Sept. 13, called ‘Bid Day.’ Mattmuller said the women will all be asked to sit on cards that contain the names of their new houses, and they will be told when they can open them. Then, the newly-placed sorority members will pick up t-shirts that go with their respective houses and cover them with zip-up sweatshirts. They will then unzip their hoodies, revealing their letters to the crowd.
‘That’s my favorite part,’ Mattmuller said.
Once formal recruitment is over, some sororities will have open houses to gain members, according to www.greekbgsu.com.
Mattmuller said her main advice for women interested in sorority life is to keep an open mind and complete the entire formal process. She said she wanted to quit partway through formal recruitment when she was a freshman, but she ended up sticking with it and says it was the best decision she has made since deciding to attend the University.
‘Even if you’re kind of halfway there in the middle, just go through to the end,’ Mattmuller said.
Mattmuller said even if women go through the process and decide that going Greek isn’t for them, they will still have met new people and learned more about the Greek community.
‘It’s a win-win situation,’ she said. For more information about these and other Greek chapters, visit www.greekbgsu.com
Got Greek? Source: Greek Life Web site 12% of BGSU is greek 43 fraternities and sororities Undergraduate GPA = 2.76 Undergraduate Greek GPA = 2.93 Undergraduate Women’s GPA = 2.89 Sorority GPA = 3.03 Fraternity GPA = 2.78 Undergraduate Men’s GPA = 2.61 Community Service Hours Performed: 15,258 or 12 Hours/Member Dollars Raised for Charity: $33,805 or $19/Member Greeks Involved in student groups: 759 or 43% Academic Incentives for Members: $12,666 or $7/Member
