Admissions Blog Posts
what a RUSH!!
What has chanting, yelling, singing, and a bunch of girls in matching outfits? SORORITY RECRUITMENT!! From an outsiders point of view recruitment can seem a little intimidating so I thought why not breakdown my own experience to help it all seem less overwhelming!
Furman sets up their Greek Life formal recruitment to be in the second semester of the school year which gives all the students a chance to build relationships with the upperclassmen in the different sororities! Seeing the familiar faces also really helped me relieve some stress during the actual rounds of recruitment! So now that you’ve spent the first semester getting to know the different sororities, it’s time for formal recruitment!
Formal recruitment takes place the week before classes start for the second semester and consists of three rounds! For round one, you and will spend the day attending all seven of Furman’s sororities parties! This day is also known as “Philanthropy Round!” Each sorority pairs you up with girls to have conversations with and then will present their philanthropy to you! This round is a really cool way to see every sororities passions and ways they contribute to their philanthropy! After you have visited all the sororities you will make your selections for your top five sororities and then head back to rest up for day two!!
Day two consists of “Sisterhood Round!” Within this round you will visit only five sororities and have slightly deeper conversations that primarily revolve around the sisterhood within that particular sorority and the type of sisterhood that you are looking for! After you finish up your fifth sorority, you will go make a slightly harder selection! For day two you must select your top two sororities you’ve connected with!
Day three!! Day three was my personal favorite because this day is known as “Pref Tea” and is a day where you get to talk to one of the girls you’ve made a connection with and have a truly deep conversations about how you are feeling about the recruitment process/different sororities! This day is also a day for the members of the sorority to show their raw emotions and true love for their sorority and its members! Just a warning, there may be tears, but all happy ones I promise!! After you’ve visited with the two sororities you will submit your ranking of the final two and then spend the entire rest of the night trying to sleep through the excitement and nervousness that is BID DAY!
Now that all the actual recruitment process is over, it is time for the real fun to begin! This is of course Bid Day! For this day, you will receive an envelope containing the sorority that you are becoming a member of. Let me tell you, from first hand experience, that is the most excited I’ve ever opened an envelope! You open the envelope and then take off running to the designated room to meet the rest of your pledge class and to be showered in giant name tags and decorations that match the theme of the sorority for that year! Singing, dancing, and lots of hugging takes over the next few minutes until you are instructed to run to meet the rest of your sorority sisters outside the library! This is what has been affectionately termed as “running home.” Those initial hugs are ones you will remember for a lifetime and make you feel more loved than anything I’ve ever experienced!
For me, I ran home to Chi Omega and I have never been happier to be apart of such an empowered, creative, diverse, intelligent, fun, compassionate, and loving group of sisters. But truly, the recruitment process here at Furman showed me just how amazing each of our sorority chapters are and it is such a cool experience to see friends of mine find their homes in different places. So yes, the chanting, singing, and matching outfits might seem a little overwhelming but I promise it’s worth it in the end! I’m so happy to say, if ya ever need a Chi-O I’m your girl! – Rosemary
