What did your sorority wear for recruitment?
 

There's so much chat about what the PNMs wore for recruitment, but what did your sorority wear for the different rounds. Did you all order the same tops, or wear sundresses or spirit shirts? Post pictures if you have them!

Our Panhellenic Association doesn't allow chapters to wear the same shirt or order identical outfits for recruitment. Our continuing membership chair went out on a limb this formal recruitment and used color schemes instead of telling us specific pieces to wear. For example, for one of our parties we could wear any combination of brown, white, pink, or purple. It sounds weird but it looked really cool because the color scheme was aesthetically pleasing and made us look unified without making us look cookie-cutter. Another open house we wore brown, white, green, or blue. For our invite party, we wore black and white sundresses (any pattern).

Stillettos? OUCH.

Open house- any letter Tshirt, jeans
Novelty Party- Hawaiian shirt, jeans
Final Party- Black and red dress, skirt+top, or trousers+top, dress shoes

There was an old thread about this awhile back....

We couldn't wear identical outfits, but basically...

Round 1: Khaki shorts, sandals/matching belt and t-shirt or polo shirt that represents either school spirit or participation in a campus activty
Round 2: Khaki pants, sandals/matching belt and red/white/blue polo shirt (you are assigned a color)
Round 3: varied, depending on year. One year, we did a skit called "ADPi Through the Years." You were assigned a decade and dressed to suit the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s. Another year we did "A League of their own" with denim capris, sneakers, and baseball tees with colored sleeves.
Prefs: One year, we wore all-black cocktail dresses. Another year, we did a waterfall affect with some on azure blue and others in navy blue. Another year we did all navy blue.
Bid Day: Bid Day t-shirt and casual bottoms (jeans, pants, shorts or a skirt). Later that evening, everyone met up to go to Bid Day dinner and you wore a casual sundress.

When I advised at UCLA, they bought matching clothing.

House Tours- lavendar shirts with dark purple letters, jean bottoms, black stilettos

Philanthropy- Red Alpha Phi shirts, black bottoms, black stilettos

Skit & Slideshow- Cocktail dresses- NOT black! and stilettos

Pref Night- Black cocktail dresses, black stilettos

WTF is up with the stilettos??

Back in the day, we wore Keds for first round. Actually, I think Keds would hurt your feet worse than stilettos... even our rush chair was complaining by the end of first round :p

We were never required to wear stilettos, even for pref. For pref, we wore black cocktail dresses and heels of our choice.

I'm guessing they really mean heels, not specifically stilettos.

Boy, the southern ladies sure do dress differently from the ones in the west. White pumps? Pink suits? Sure, some women out here have them, but I don't think my chapter would ever assume all the women in our chapter would have a pink suit. :p

Oh, and I can't remember the specifics of what my chapter wore for rush, but it was something like the following:

Open House: panhellenic tshirt, jeans
Second: tshirt in assigned solid color, khaki pants
Third: button-down in assigned color, black pants or skirt
Pref: black knee-length (cocktail) dress, appropriate accessories and black heels
Bid day: bid day shirt and anything we wanted on the bottom

Round 1 - Black and white dresses or skirt/top. Matching heels. Pearls.
Round 2 - Floral Print Dress. Coordinating jewelry and heels.
Round 3 - Black Dresses. Pearls. Black heels.
Prefs - Red dresses. Black, closed-toed heels. Pearls.
Bid Day - Brightly colored cocktail dresses. Gold or silver heels. Gold or silver jewelry.

Jocelyn's from Ohio - not exactly southern. :p

Last year, my chapter wore:
Open House: black ADPi polos, nice jeans, black stilettos, pearls
First Round: blue button downs, black pencil skirts, black stilettos, pearls and pin
Second Round: dressy white tops and black bottoms with turquoise accents (jewelry, shrugs, shoes, etc.)
Pref: black cocktail dresses, black stilettos, pearls and pin

There are people who DON'T wear heels for recruitment? I can't imagine wearing sneakers to something I want to look nice for.

Yeap, first 2 rounds here are basically tennis shoes/whatever you want. Depending on the weather, that might include weatherproof snowboots ! Chapters here dont tend to do coordinating shirts for recruitment--only for Homecoming/Greekweek...some do have pledge/active shirts, but only a few. Novelty parties are themed (ours is a Jimmy Buffet/Beachy theme), others do 80's or Red Carpet and wear shoes appropriate to each (which for us means flip flops--HAPPY DAYS!). Final party, we're not really FORCED to wear heels per say, some girls wear dressy flats...but again, it's winter in Ohio, you never know what's going to happen.

Well, sometimes people can look nice not wearing heels--I don't know. :p

Now, I know Miami and Otterbein aren't anything alike, but I rushed in Ohio winter too. :p

Maybe it's because I ALWAYS wear heels - I like being six feet tall and I don't do casual.

Once there was a Panhellenic BBQ before rush officially started, to which we all wore the Panhel t-shirt and any bottoms. Maybe other chapters coordinated, but we didn't, so skirt, shorts, capris, etc.

Round 1:Letters with any bottom, sandals or flip flops usually.
Round 2 (philanthropy): same as above
Invites: skit people wore their "costume" and everyone else wore matching sisterhood rush tshirts and the same color/style bottoms: black, jeans, khaki, etc.
Prefs: BLACK dress, skirt and blouse, or pants, no flip flops or running shoes (obviously), badge (!)
Bid day: letters, jeans/shorts, and running shoes or flip flops

pearls optional throughout. :D Actually, I'm trying hard to remember if anyone wore pearls at anytime other than prefs...

:D I couldn't imagine WEARING heels for anything but prefs! We'd probably break our ankles while doing door chants!

Whoops, true. My bad! :o

Regarding heels, I think most chapters wear them, but I think it surprised us to read "stilletos" specifically, since that is a very high heel that is not-so-fun to stand in for long periods.

I went to school in the west, so y'all know that we dress more informally on most campuses here (some campuses being exceptions). Flip flops were worn by many women on my campus during recruitment, though pref parties were always dressy.

ETA: I think the attitude at many western schools is for the girls to look cute/cool/trendy versus "classic," which is why we can get away with the flip flops/sandals/flats/Uggs/platforms/whatever-else range in footwear. Again, always exceptions for some campuses.

Doing door chants is entirely possible in heels.

Unless you were in my chapter, where we jumped up and down and went nuts during our cheers. haha Plus, we were all pretty clutsy, so it was entirely possible we would have hurt ourselves.

I've even done in then - we bounced during ours. However, I also sold shoes for a long time and am used to running around in heels.

I was just thinking about how many times we've nearly burned down the house during ritual because someone slipped with a candle...for these reasons, I'm terrified of our stairs and heels. I'm just imagining the PNMS opening the door and our president going, "Welcome to Tau--thud thud thud". Hehehehe.


But hey, if you can pull it off, rock on...I'm a heel wuss! Go go kitten heel.

REALLY??? LOL. We wore heels for every single round. We didn't specify what type of heels but most girls wore pointy stilettos.

Round 1 (Open House/Punch Party): Heels, blazer, trouser jeans, silk scarf.
All of our scarves were the same...we weren't allowed to wear the identical shirts for open house so we ordered identical scarves... some girls wore them in their hair, some girls wore them around their neck and some around their wrist or tied to their jeans. It was really cute!
Round 2 (Philanthropy/Sisterhood): Business attire...any color button down tailored shirt, trouser pants (not denim), heels.
Round 3 (House tours): all black -- short black skirt, black top, and black heels (not as dressy as pref, so no long skirts allowed)
Round 4 (Pref): White dresses, silver heels. Silver jewelry only (except for our pin, most of us had yellow gold pins). Kind of a Grecian goddess "theme"

Our recruitment was really formal, I guess, at least as compared to some other schools.
...And yes, we did door chants in our stillettos :)

For recruitment at UW-River Falls, we wore:

Night One: Panhellenic T-Shirt, black gauchos, black sandals
Night Two: Phi Mu polo, black dress pants, black dress shoes
Night Three: Black dress, black dress shoes, hosiery, badge
Bid Day: Phi Mu t-shirt, jeans

Day 1- Open Hall Night- Panhellenic T-shirt, jeans, and white sneakers (flip-flops, black heels, and croakies are what the other sororities wore)
Day 2- Philanthropy Night- Philanthropy Shirt and khaki pants, white sneakers
Day 3- Pref. Night- Black Dress with lavalier or pearls and black sandals
Bid Day- Bid Day shirt and any shoes and bottoms

In regards to door chants in stilettos, I'm a little confused. Our door chants basically consist of all of us crowding around the door cheering and chanting, we aren't moving around or jumping up and door or anything. Can someone tell me what door chants people are referring to that would be difficult in stilettos?

I went to school in the Midwest in the 90s. None of the houses did "matching" clothes really at that time. And as rush chair, if I had required people to wear heels - stilettos specifically - and pearls, I would have had a coup on my hands. Plenty of our girls were the heel/pearl wearing type, but plenty of them were not. Quite frankly, I think it makes you look too steroetypical and not at all diverse.

Round 1 - Panhel issued Go Greek shirts and khaki colored bottoms - skirt, shorts, pants - your choice; any shoes you want (flip flops weren't popular then, but I would have "outlawed" those)
Round 2 - A letter shirt you already own and khaki colored bottoms, any shoes you want
Round 3 - Badge attire - most wore skirts/slacks and nice tops, or sundresses
Pref - All black dress, black dress shoes

Oh my---dust off the cobwebs in the brain!
 

What a great question to drive my brain crazy!

Years ago----August Hot recruitment
Open House------nice short outfit (capri's were not in)
1st event------Skit day, so we all wore our skit costumes
2nd event-----House Tour, Badge Attire which was dress or skirt, no pants
3rd event/pref------Badge Attire, very dressy black dresses
Bid Day-----nice short outfit

Notice we did not wear jeans of any kind. We sang one sidewalk song for at least 10 to 15 minutes, over and over again until it was time for the rushees to enter the house! Also, my freshman year, all the women on campus that were in the many sororities were NOT allowed to wear pants or shorts to class. We all, yes I said, all of the chapters, had to wear skirts, dresses to class. Thank goodness that changed my sophomore year. But most of us were used to dresses, since the public high school I went to had us wearing skirts only too!

Today------August and September Hot recruitment
Open House-----matching polo's or shirts with jean skirt
1st event-----Skit Day, skit costume, or black and white outfits--no shorts
2nd event------Philanthropy/House Tour, Badge Attire pastel dresses
3rd event/pref-----Badge Attire, black dressy dresses--nothing long
Bid Day-------matching tee shirts with jean skirt

The chapter I advised for the past 4 years did a couple of things:
Round 1 (Open House) - for many years this was red & white badge attire. Anything the women wanted that was pure red and pure white - dressy pants or skirts and blouses or dresses, patterns or not as the member chose. It looked very classy, too, and stood out because the other houses did jeans and t-shirts/polos. This year they did shades of light blue and turquoise and white instead, and again it looked great!

Round 2 (Philanthropy) - everyone wore t-shirts that matched the theme of the day, which has alternated between the beach and the red carpet. The bottoms have gone back and forth between jeans and black pants. No micro-minis, though.

Round 3 (Preference) - black dresses (no cleavage, no strapless, no spaghetti straps), nude hose, black dress shoes, badge & lavalier, no watches.

Bid Day - bid day t-shirts and jeans (skirt, shorts, capris, pants).


Many years ago, when I was in school somewhere else, we did this:
Round 1 - matching t-shirts and khaki pants.
Round 2 - costumes for the theme of the party (poodle skirts most often).
Round 3 (Preference) - red dresses, black dress shoes, nude hose, pearls, badge.
Bid Day - Letters and jeans

Holy crap this is long...sorry!
 

When I was an active (fall 01-spring 05) we were really strict about rush clothing. Typically it went like this:


Go Greek/16-party day: Panhel issued t-shirts, every house got tshirts in a certain color with their letters on the front and a design on the back, which listed all the sororities and usually had a cute saying of some kind. Competition over colors was usually fierce since Panhel randomly picked 13 colors and then each house would draw a number to decide what order they picked their shirt color. Pink was always chosen first and the ugly colors like moss green (which we unfortunately had my junior. year :( ) were the last to go. My senior year we had light pink shirts with hot pink writing, LOVED those! And last year when I helped as an alum (2005 recruitment) they had black with hot pink/magenta-ish writing, also cute! Each house then decided on what they would wear on the bottom, usually a denim, khaki, or white skirt. My house bulk ordered whatever we chose from places like American Eagle, Gap, Old Navy, etc. to make sure we all matched. We also bulk ordered Phi Mu flip flops, or another type of flip-flop to wear.

Skit/9-Party Day: For this day we wore black and white outfits with a hot pink accessory, such as earrings, a belt, a scarf, etc. The outfits were to be dressy, like nice capri pants and a nice top, or a nice dress. Also had to wear black heels on this day. People in the skit obviously wore their costumes. :)

House tours/Philanthropy/5-Party Day: The theme for this day was (and still is) "Phi Mu of the Caribbean" and we all wore the same t-shirt that the day chair had designed. My favorite year was when they were bright blue with a picture of an island with palm trees on the back which said "We went looking for treasure and found Phi Mu!" and said "Phi Mu of the Caribbean" on the front. We wore those with light khaki American Eagle skirts (bulk ordered again) and bright blue J Crew flip flops that were the exact same shade as the shirt. That was my junior year, senior year we switched to red tshirts with black writing and wore black capri pants and black flip-flops.

Pref Day: For the first two years while I was active we all had to wear the EXACT SAME BLACK DRESS. It was a nightmare. They were so ugly and uncomfortable, not to mention expensive after I got mine tailored to actually fit. We also had to wear the exact same black heels as one another, plus pearls or our lavaliers and our badges. The shoes were open-toed so that meant no nailpolish except something extremely light and not noticeable. We looked like clones, not cool at all. Finally my senior year we were allowed to wear "approved" black cocktail dresses and our own black heels. I chose this year to wear a really cute pair of black, strappy Steve Madden shoes that had a silver ring on the top (hard to explain but they were cute). SUCH A BAD IDEA. After standing on the front porch in 90 degree heat, sun blazing down on me all day, that stupid silver ring burned into my foot. I still have faint scars from that, so awful.

BID DAY: We all wore our bid day tshirts which were exactly like the new Phi's shirts, except ours were different colored. Theirs usually got to be pink :(, while ours were white, black, or whatever color (light blue one year, eww). We wore these with denim skirts, of our own choice, and the black Phi Mu flip flops we all had.


Our recruitment, as you can tell, was pretty strict while I was active. I know now they're getting away from that so people can be more "themselves" but I didn't ever really mind getting the stuff. We would always bulk order skirts, tshirts, and shoes (flip flops, heels, and even matching tennis shoes one year! :eek: ) because when there are 170+ girls in your house you can't really count on being able to show people what they should get and expecting everyone to come back with things that all looked at least somewhat similar, or at least "meshed well" together. Even though it might seem extreme to some people, it was really the only way to make sure we didn't look like a big jumbled mess. Slightly different outfits, or denim color, or skirt colors, or whatever can look cute when there are 20 or 30 of you. But when there are so many girls, plus alums (who also dressed like us), 200 people in 200 different outfits looks kind of sloppy.

Ok, sorry this was way too long and probably boring, I'm done now! :)

Well I know that we were all over our house-hanging out second floor windows, some dancing (note: "hoe down" silly dancing, not REAL choreography or anything) on the porch, and some bouncing while cheering. In the first rounds, we line up along our staircase, so stomping and leaning over the banister is involved...just not something I would consider doing in heels!

Keep in mind that I joined in 1993, so times have definitely changed (the year I "rushed" was the last year of lawn chants and being able to take the flowers with you that were presented during preference)

For our recruitment, we wore:

Open Houses- Floral Dresses with dressy sandals (no flip-flops) and our badge

First Parties- Cardinal Red dresses with hose & heels and our badge

Second Parties (skit night)- we had a Brady Bunch theme so we were all in '70s clothes (and if it was "dressy" 70s, then our badge)

Preference-Black dresses with black hose & heels and our badge

Bid Day- various block letter "bid day" tee shirts, each year the new member class was given them, and you wore them on the subsequent bid days (so you could tell what active was in what new member class)

Day 1: Open Houses: Everyone wore jean's and then the panhellenic greek shirt. It used to be the same one for every sorority but my senior year they personalized. So ours was green with a teddy bear on it while the KKGs was blue with a key, etc.

Day 2 & 3: Philantrophy Day: We wore jean skirts one year and black pants the next and with it we wore fitted black shirts with our letters embroidered on it in hot pink. They were really sharp but ran really small. I always wear a medium comfortably and it fit me like a corset...but they looked slimming...

Day 3: Skit: Black pants and usually a fun colorful dress shirt, although this past year I think they all wore black pants and white shirts. Plus any skit costumes.

Day 4: Pref: A black dress (that must be approved of course...not too much boobies) there were not real restrictions on jewelry but everyone knew to go low key. And shoes were black and formal, not hooker boots :)

Bid Day: Jeans and our bid day t-shirts.

Round 1- Red shirts with black and white stitched letters, denim knee length skirts and black flip flops. We were to wear silver accessories.
Round 2- Blue or white V Neck tops, black gauchos, and black strappy heels. Silver accessories. Blue or Silver sash.
Round 3- White wrap shirts with black tank tops underneath, black pants and black close toed heels. Silver or gold accessories.
Round 4- Black coctail dresses, pearls or lavalier, and black heels.
Bid Day- Bid day t-shirts with our letters, and any bottoms.

Badges were worn every night after open house.

This is what we wore my senior year (Fall 2004)

Round One- Ice Water Teas
We had matching Panhellenic t-shirts (each sorority had them but in different colors and the sorority's letters on the pocket area) that had the panhellenic logo on the back with the sorority spelled out underneath (Delta Gamma, for instance). Ours were black with hot pink writing. We had jean skirts with pink ribbon belts and matching black sandals.

Round Two- Philanthropy Day
We wore matching polo shirts, but in different colors (you could chose a white, pink or blue polo) with an anchor embrodered on it. Jean cuffed capris, fabric belts (that matched whatever color your embrodered anchor was) and matching flip flops with the greek DG on the straps.

Round Three- Skit Day
We wore matching fitted red t-shirts with our first name embrodered in black on the pocket area, a black skirt or black pants and black high heels and black jewelry (our choosing).

Round Four- Preference
We wore black dresses (had to be sleeveless) with a strand of pearls, black heels and our badges.

Bid Day
Sundresses with our badges.

:)

My campus doesn't have a lot of regulations as far as dress code for GLO members during recruitment, with the exception of Rho Gammas, who have to all wear matching shirts. Within each organization, though, groups are given full license to do as they please. This past fall we had an 80's-MTV theme for Recruitment, so we had matching shirts made up with a retro MTV logo. We all wore them during Round Robin with any bottom and accessories (most girls elected for something with a little 80's flair, like a demin skirt and leggings and some hoop earrings), and then were allowed to wear those shirts or any other shirt with letters throughout the rest of the week's events. Preference night we wore all white- dresses, pants and tops, or skirts and tops- didn't matter, but had to be completely white. Bid night we dressed however we wished, but all very nicely.

hey, I found illustrations!
 

Last year, here's what we wore:

Round 1 / Fall Parties--KD jerseys, black dress pants, black boots, nametag, silver jewelry:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...s/IMG_1542.jpg

Round 2 / Slideshow Day--Black KD polos (with little roses on them), dark blue jeans, black boots, nametag, silver jewelry:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...IMG_1686_1.jpg

Round 3 / Skit Day--Unless you had a costume for the skit, you wore a black cocktail dress, silver jewelry, nametag, and black heels:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...s/IMG_1688.jpg

Round 4 / Pref Day--Black matching dresses, gold jewelry, gold nametag, black heels, pearl necklace:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...IMG_1689_a.jpg

Bid Day: Sunday/business attire, pin.

I second that.