Every weekend in January, you’ll start to see campus come alive once again, for the first time since football ended. It starts with a few thousand girls in heels and large puffer jackets making the trek to South Halls for sorority recruitment at Penn State.
I was a PNM (potential new member), then the next year was a recruiter. The following year, I was in charge of recruitment for my sorority, and last I “helped behind the scenes” and basically ran my final recruitment. This post will be a culmination of everything I know, in hopes it helps someone else!
Whether you have you heart set on rushing, or you haven’t decided, I would recommend you read this post to get an idea of what you might be getting yourself into!
Disclaimer: these are all my personal thoughts which are by no means related to or associated with Penn State Panhellenic.
How Recruitment Works At Penn State:
Recruitment at Penn State consists of four rounds: Panhellenic Preview, Values, Philanthropy, and Preference.
You can go through recruitment as a First-Year Student in their second semester (you have to have 14 credits OR MORE to rush) or higher. Make sure you are taking enough credits so you can rush!
Panhellenic Preview:
The past two years, round one has been fully video based. The women going through rush, known as the Potential New Members (PNMs), would create a video introducing themselves and answering a few of the prompts given. After, they post it privately on Youtube for each sorority to watch. Each sorority also has a video for the PNMs to watch. Both the sororities and the PNMs rank each other based on these videos. This video based round has mixed opinions.
As a Recruitment Director, this made sense to me. Panhel Preview, when it was in-person, consisted of only 15 minute parties. In that time, I would need to get all the PNMs into the room, introduce myself and the sorority, then get each PNM + sorority sister pairing to a place where they can talk. This left like 7 minutes for any kind of in depth conversation. This makes it incredibly difficult to decide if they seem like a fit or not for my sorority.
The Convo
The recruiter and PNM mostly get to talk about where each other are from, their major, and what they are involved in so far at Penn State. A PNM had to have this conversation 17 times for each sorority. The recruiter had to do this 20-30 times. Some sororities would have two PNMs with one sorority sister during this 15 minute party. That’s even less time to decide if you like the person you are talking to or not.
PNM perspective
On the PNM side, having sororities decide whether you come back or not based on a 2-3 minute video you made can be terrifying! There’s also the added fact that you can see on Youtube the average length of time that your viewers watched the video most of the time is not a great feeling. From the sorority side, this round being videos based is super helpful. From a PNM standpoint I can see it not being the most ideal. This round does not give the recruiter or PNM much information to go off of.
Values and Philanthropy Round:
The next round is Values, which takes place over a Saturday and Sunday where you will go from 17 sororities on your list to only having 12 max, which having that max amount is NOT common. This is one of the biggest chops you’ll have. Your whole Pi Chi group will see their results at the same time. Some people will be jumping around excited and others will be sobbing within seconds.
As the rounds go on, the conversation time gets longer. You can get to know the sisters better and the outfits get more dressy. Values and Philanthropy parties are about the same. Philanthropy is the third round and is a longer conversation than Values + slightly more dressed up. There are different conversation starters where you get to learn about what is important to each chapter, and the chapter gets to know what’s important to you. Panhellenic should give you a look-book so you can get a feel of what you should wear this round.
Preference:
Better know as Pref, is the final round of recruitment. On Pref you can have two sororities at most, though it is possible to have just one. It is NOT likely at all that you would be dropped by all the chapters. You will always have some left as long as you have an open mind. I have never heard of anyone being dropped by everyone, so don’t stress. Pref is the fanciest round. Chapters will go all out decorating their space, bringing in snacks and drinks for you to have. The majority of the time, you will be talking with someone you have already met. This is the night where you rank the chapters for the final time. Pref night is slightly different from the other rounds when you do your rankings. This time you will have the choice to sign the MRABA or not.
MRABA + Pref Night Thoughts
The MRABA is a contract saying that, when you sign it, you are committed to the sorority you receive tomorrow on Bid Day for the next year. If you sign the MRABA, you are basically guaranteed a bid from a sorority tomorrow. The other option is to not sign the MRABA (This is not recommended!!!). Say you have one sorority you LOVE and you really genuinely don’t want your other option, you can do this thing called suicide bidding. To do this, you would not sign the MRABA and only list the sorority you want. This means you will only accept a bid if it’s from them. If you do this, you will get a call the next morning telling you that you received a bid. Or, a call saying that you didn’t.
If you didn’t receive a bid when suicide bidding, you are free to participate in Continuous Open Bidding (COB). When sororities who did not hit the target amount of new members, they run a mini recruitment event and hand out extra spots.
To put it more simply, MRABA guarantees you a bid in a sorority whether you have one or two sororities left. Not signing the MRABA allows you to pick one sorority but there is no guarantee of a bid. BUT also no commitment yet and you can join another sorority whenever.
The Reality of Recruitment
There are always about three sororities every year that every single PNM adored and loved. Some sororities are chock full of amazing recruiters. They will make every PNM feel like they just killed it / it was the best party of their life. Unfortunately, the more in-demand a sorority is, the more PNMs they are able to release aka not invite back. That’s because they can easily fill up the spots they have for each round. If you keep getting invited back, congrats! But please don’t feel too bad if you don’t. The majority of people are in the same boat as you.
Penn State is becoming more and more progressive recruitment-wise, which is relative since 65% of students are white. They have been making new rules every year to make the process more equitable, fair, and diverse. They stated that large brand logos, like a Gucci belt, are looked down upon to wear. I heard they were potentially discussing a rule of each sorority needing to fill a quote of PNMs from certain religions or backgrounds. To be clear on that last sentence, I am not sure if that passed or not. Overall, Penn State is trying to make recruitment an equal playing field for all.
Behind the Scenes
The main goal of every sorority is to take in the best possible pledge class. What does “best pledge class” mean? They are looking to offer bids to the women with the most fun personalities, the women interested in leadership, and the women that match the vibe of the sorority.
Are sororities judging you based on looks, definitely. Sororities either have a status to maintain, to keep hanging out with the top frats, or are looking to build status, to hang out with “higher tier” frats. It’s not uncommon for frats to realize, oh wow XYZ sorority got a hot new PC, we should invite them over, to see if they are a group they’d consider socializing with.
The “tiers” are something everyone will say does not exist during recruitment, but they do. Know that if you want to be in a sorority because of it’s reputation and not because you like the girls, you’ll end up making no friends, or friends that don’t really care about you. You should be somewhere that wants you back, that you can see yourself being friends with the girls. For me, I was more intrigued by the tier system than anything. If you want to open that can of worms and see how people rank the sororities and frats, check out Greek Rank.
The Commitment:
The transition into sorority life is incredibly fun. You all of a sudden have events every day of the week to meet your new pledge class and find your big sister. This is probably the most exciting part of freshman year, but joining a sorority does come with a responsibilities.
GPA
Each sorority has a GPA requirement that you must be above to be in good standing. There will also be built in ways to help you be academically successful. You might get matched with people in your major, study sessions, or a certain amount of study hours needed. Most sorority will drop PNMs that are below their GPA during recruitment. The required GPA shouldn’t be too out of reach for you then. Most GPAs are not very rigorous, in my opinion. My sorority had a requirement of a 2.5 for members and you would need a 3.0 or above for a position on the executive board.
Housing
Sororities at Penn State for the most part do not have houses. The majority of them have dedicated floors in the renovated South Halls. I lived on my sorority floor and I highly recommend it! Every second of the day, you always have someone to do something with, from group dinners to hanging out in the suite for hours. At Penn State, most people sign leases for apartments in October. In October of my freshman year, I had been at school for a month and a half. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to live with the people she just met. So, I decided I would live on campus again, hopefully with my future sorority, and it worked out incredibly well. I made some of my best friends during my time on the floor. It was one of my favorite times during my four years at Penn State.
These floors are where recruitment is hosted, so the majority of the rooms need to be filled so the chapter gets access to the suite, which is a large room with a kitchen and living room. The new pledge class is normally responsible for filling this floor. Each chapter goes about filling the floor in a different way, but it is a stresser year after year.
Chapter & Dues
Every sorority has a weekly meeting called chapter, most of which take place on Sunday or Monday nights, where every member comes and the executive board and committees give their updates for the coming week. Some updates will be exciting, like a formal coming up, and others will be not so, like mandatory meetings certain members need to attend so the sorority stays in good standing. Everyone goes to them eventually, but mandatory chapter and mandatory meetings are some of the least favorite commitments of joining a sorority, other than paying dues of course. Dues vary by chapter and can range from $250-$1000 a semester (dues dropped very low during COVID so this is a wide range). My dues were about $400 a semester, which isn’t ideal to pay obviously, but this money from each member provides formals, events, free food, free merch, and more to the chapter.
THON
Another big commitment as well as reason to join a sorority is THON. If you haven’t heard of THON, it’s a 46 hour dance marathon that Penn State raises money for yearound to fund research to cure pediatric cancer. The greek organizations created this fundraiser decades ago, and each year they try to raise the most money out of all the other orgs. Each organization is matched with a family who has a child with cancer, that they support through their battle. Sororities and fraternities are matched into pairs and work as a team for THON.
THON is a big part of being in a Greek Org. Being in a sorority or any kind of organization, there is normally an hours requirement of how long you need to be at THON for. Each organization wants to have a big section, but if you don’t have the man power with a person in each seat of the Bryce Jordn Center, an organization with more people might take over the area you want to be in. This happens often when organizations don’t have a ton of people show up for the overnight hours and some fighting between orgs might occur. At the end of the day, THON is about raising money for the kids, so this kind of drama feel shallow on a weekend with such a huge impact and meaning.
Dramaaaa
When you are in a group of 200+ women, drama is not likely to happen. It WILL happen. There is no sorority where each member likes every single other member. When you join a sorority, know that drama is inevitable. It can be entertaining to hear, but is the worst headache possible when you somehow become involved in it. You won’t like every person in your future sorority, and not every person will like you. Just find the ones you do like and stick with them.
Party Culture:
As a part of a sorority, you will be invited to frat parties regardless of which one you join. The amount you are invited to and the rules you will have to follow will differ. Your Social Chair will be in charge of organizing the plans of where you are going and when, then send them out to the chapter.
My freshman year, we got sent the week of plans on Monday so we could plan which nights we wanted to go out. We had at least one event to stop at 3-4 days a week. Later Social Chairs sent them out the day of, and as we built new relationships or burnt more bridges, our plans either grew or dwindled in numbers.
Most frats will require a text or show of proof that you were invited to their event, which is normally just the text from your social chair. Sometimes, the combination of your best outfit, confidence, and a little lying can get you in as well – this is more so for before you join or to get into a frat you aren’t invited into. Making friends in other organizations will give you a wide range of options when you are looking to have a night out.
Penn State is a frat school, so before you are 21 you have to choose between frats and random house/apartment parties if you want to go out. There is one bar that is known to take fake IDs, which is Lion’s Den.
Rules with Partying
Some sororities are more strict with their reputation around partying. I’ve heard of certain girls being told they MUST attend certain events to have a good turn out and keep a good relationship with certain frats. I’ve also heard of only the hottest girls being invited to certain events, or having to wear certain clothes/shoes, or not being able to stand on elevated surfaces. Each sorority is different.
Mine wasn’t that strict, but others definitely are, like if you plan on wearing your sorority merch or letters out that you have to have make up on and your hair done. Feel the vibe of each sorority as you are going through recruitment and decide what kind of rules you are ok with, and which you aren’t.
All through recruitment, Panhellenic will say, there are no tiers or rankings, which is not entirely true. Every sorority has a reputation or something they are known for, like having lots of girls from Jersey or all being blonde. There are websites where people argue over the “true ranking” of each Greek organization.
If you are in recruitment to make friends first and foremost, then I would recommend going in blind so there is no outside influence what chapters you like or dislike. At the end of the day, people (mostly men) going online and making a post ranking women is embarrassing for the individual doing it.
I don’t trust many men’s opinions; once you start meeting men at Penn State you might agree. These rankings superficially lower or raise the chapters egos and pit us against each other when the point of Greek Life is empowerment and community!
Hazing:
To the best of my knowledge, the majority of sororities do not haze at Penn State. I think it’s been dying out since the passing of Timothy Piazza in 2016. You hear questionable stories from frats, but there aren’t many that circulate about sororities.
I don’t have close friends in every single sorority, but I would guess that 80-85% of sororities do not haze. If hazing does occur in a Panhellenic sorority, I would guess it would be at “top tier” sororities that has long standing traditions and relationships with certain frats they want to uphold. But it definitely does happen.
Cons:
Being in a sorority is expensive! Many people pay themself, and others are lucky enough to have parents pay them. Penn State tuition is expensive enough as it is, so make sure this is something you can afford. You can find financial transparency sheets on the Penn State Panhellenic website.
Recruitment can be overwhelming. You will talk with a ton of new people and have to make the best possible first impression. While you are judging the chapter, the chapter is also judging you. These can all be anxiety inducing and nerve wracking experiences. Many people don’t make it all the way through recruitment, dropping out for a numerous amount of reasons. In fact, lots of people go through the whole recruitment process, dedicating lots of time and stress, to leave Greek life a year or two in. People drop out of their sorority all of them time. Probably half of your pledge class will have dropped by the time you get to senior year. dramaCould get hazed if it still happens
Pros:
By going through recruitment and joining a sorority, you will be thrown into a world where you have something to do every week, from social events to community service. Joining a sorority is such an amazing way to meet friends. I made friends in many different areas of my college experience, but I met all my best friends, the ones I still hang with after graduating, through my sorority. There are leadership opportunities and ways to build your resume, as well as another alumni network of sorority sisters nationwide. There are truly so many advantages of rushing, so I would recommend it to anyone and everyone.
Only 17% of students at Penn State are a part of Greek Life, so you won’t be missing out if you don’t join, but recruitment is a fantastic way to make friends, add events to your calendar and find leadership and service opportunities. If you go in with an open mind, you will join a sorority and meet new people. There are a ton of amazing people to meet, and going through recruitment is one of the best ways to do so!
