A&M does NOT hold a spring recruitment, nor do we have any sort of organized informal delayed recruitment. Your friend's absolute BEST bet would definately be to go through fall formal recruitment. I'll try to describe the reason for this in the least confusing way: the way that the numbers work out, the only way there would be spots "open" after formal recruitment would be if a chapter did not fill every allotted spot for their new member class (aka: quota). Then, it is at the chapter's discretion that they are able to 'pick up' new girls. These spots almost always go to girls that the sisters already know. For example, the PNM could be a young woman who'd gone through recruitment before & just did not want to go through it all again. There is NO WAY to guarantee that ANY chapter will have 'open' spots after formal recruitment, and there is almost NO chance that you'll be able to know if a certain sorority that you're interested in will be able to take anyone after formal recruitment.
In the 4 years that I've been here, initial #'s for potential members going through recruitment have been anywhere from 800 to almost 1200 with resulting new member classes of 50-75 young women. With 11/12 sororities, (a few chapters have come & gone since then) that means that 550-900 women each year are finding a home in one of our 12 wonderful organizations! (every year quite a few young women 'drop out' of rush for one reason or another, so remember that these numbers reflect that. Quota, the number that determines how many new members a sorority may take is determined on the last night of recruitment by dividing the number of potential members still going through by the number of sororities. This way, there is theoretically a spot for everyone!)
As far as feeling the need to acclimate to college life before joining a GLO goes..... most people actually feel that the benefits of being involved in the greek system go a long way to helping to create an atmosphere of excellence, both in your studies and social relationships. Your Sorority becomes your home away from home, a welcoming place where you have over 200 sisters who are either going through the same things as you, or have already been through it and can tell you how to handle everything with grace & relative ease. Once again, I STRONGLY encourage your friend to give formal fall recruitment a chance. If nothing else she should just go through to see what it's all about. If she feels comfortable, then she should give joining a try! If not, she has the opportunity to withdraw from the process at any time! Either way, she'll have the chance to meet hundreds of new students like herself as well as tons of active Aggie Greeks!
In the meantime check out the Texas A&M Panhellenic Recruitment webpage:
http://studentlife.tamu.edu/greek/In...on/npcrush.htm
I also suggest looking here to check out each organization's chapter and national webpages:
http://studentlife.tamu.edu/greek/NPCInfo/npcmain.htm