GreekChat.com Forums - A couple of questions

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A couple of questions

The first thing you need to do is contact the Greek Affairs office at SMU and learn about the recruitment process. Formal recruitment at SMU is spring semester. At that time, all the NPC groups on campus will hold formal, structured parties and you must sign up for that process. At this time, the groups that don't meet total are having COR (continuous Open Recruitment) events such as the one you were invited to. Participation in COR does not bind you to that group. Only accepting a bid to that group binds you.

This is just a synopsis and there are links on this board that will give you more detailed information. Your Greek Affairs office can bring you up to speed on your campus events and procedures. If you decide to go thru Formal Recruitment, start getting your recommendations in order ASAP.

Good luck!

Quote:

Originally Posted by stargirl007 (Post 1842105)

Well, I'm considering in maybe trying to join a sorority at my school. I go to Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

A little background about me:

I started off my freshman year at UT Dallas, and transferred to SMU my sophomore year. I used my sophomore year to focus on my studies to make sure I was able to declare my major of choice (the business school at SMU requires a subset of classes with a required grade overall). My grades are overall good, but not exceptional. I still am well over the required 2.5 GPA for recruitment though.

I don't really know much about greek life in all honesty and I am primarily wanting to join a sorority in order to be able to meet some lifelong friends, and just to become more social.

I don't know much about the recruitment process, and I'm the first in my family to attend college so none of my family has been Greek in the past, so any tips are welcome. I'm not going to be picky as to what sorority I get into, because I'm sure they are all nice and I'll be able to find what I'm looking for in any.

I also received an invitation from Gamma Phi Beta to some events they are holding in the next couple of weeks, and I thought about going to those. I'm a little confused as to if that would bind me to their sorority if I went though. I'm not sure if this would be a fall recruitment type of thing or not. I know that SMU sororities mostly do their recruitments in the Spring.

Any tips or advice on this is much appreciated.

A couple of threads about SMU:

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=92329
http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ight=Methodist

As far as general advice and preparation:

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=54403

Good luck.

SMU recruitment is VERY competitive. Honestly, it would be difficult to receive a bid as a junior if you decide to go through with formal recruitment which is in the spring.

It would be wise to check out which sororities are doing informal recruitment this fall. I'm pretty sure there is usually an upperclassmen recruitment info session held during the beginning of the year, contact the greek life office and consider attending that.

Also, attending a sororities events will not bind you to them. Check it out! Good luck!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ☮♥ΣΚ (Post 1842120)

That is what I was planning on. The upperclassmen recruiting session is tommorow and I was planning on attending, and then depending on what I hear there, I was going to definitely attend the Gamma Phi events I was invited to.

I've heard from girls I've met in my classes said that it is very competitive, hence why I wanted to see what I could find out about informal recruitment.

Thanks so much everyone, it's very much appreciated.

i am so glad that you have decided to accept some of the invitations from gamma phi. i hope that you have fun. enjoy yourself!

Hey all, thanks.

Just wanted to give a little update. I emailed back Gamma Phi to RSVP for events just in case they may need a number of how many to expect and they invited me to lunch today, it was fun.

Still going to go to an information session about informal recruitment tommorow night and see how it goes. :)

That's great! :) Good luck to you.

stargirl, when I went to SMU (a long time ago) we had a separate quota for upperclassmen during formal rush, so it was not uncommon at all for juniors to get bids. I believe each house could take up to 2 extra upperclassmen. Check with the Greek Life office to see if there is still an upperclassmen quota. This could effect whether you want to pledge now during COB or wait until formal rush.

If you do decide to wait - try to meet as many people in sororities this fall that you can, either socially, in class, or by joining some organizations on campus. Greek life is huge there, and just about everywhere you turn, you will meet a sorority girl. It helps tremendously when there are people in the house pulling for you.

Also, get your recs, with resume and pics, in to the houses as soon as you can, the sororities are working on recruitment all fall, so you want to be in the mix.

Good luck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by srmom (Post 1842907)

Thanks so much for your information. I think I'm going to go through the informal recruitment that's going on the next couple of weeks. We had a recruitment session thing where we could talk with the 3 sororities that are recruiting this fall, and I really liked two of the three. I could see myself in either of those sororities, but I do have a clear favorite in the sense of the girls that I felt like I connected with and got along with the best. I'm going to go to events of them both and get to know the girls better.

I talked to girls with the third sorority but I just didn't get the same feel as I did with the other two, and I just couldn't see myself being happy with those girls for some reason, so I'm just going to focus on the sororities that I enjoyed spending time with. I hope I'm moving along in the right direction with this. I felt like it went really well, with girls from both sororities I liked running around introducing me to everyone else, making sure I was on their contact list, and even in a couple of instances I had girls putting my number in their phones so they could contact me in the future. I have a really positive attitude about this and I hope it really does work out!

it sounds like you had a good time! good luck and please keep us updated.

I drove through the campus a few months ago and saw the houses for the first time in person. One of the sororities was building a new house, and I'll have to go by and see its progress.

It does sound like you're having a good time. Good luck! Keep us posted!

Am I old, or just wrong? It used to be that Juniors didn't count against quota. Has that changed? We would take a junior or two, as did a lot of houses I knew, because they could.

I'm not sure how that all works! I do have a couple of other questions though about things that are popping up.

The next two weeks is going to be COB recruitment, and I'm not sure if I should focus on the one group that I really enjoyed, or try and go to events of both. There is one night where both groups have events (and sadly enough their times seem to conflict, one event starts at 7, and another at 7:30). Should I just focus on one event that night? I feel like that would be the polite thing to do, but I'm not sure if there's a general understanding of attending as many events as possible during this week.

Another shocking thing I thought was kind of interesting, at the COB recruitment thing where I met girls from all 3 sororities, I don't think there was more than 20 potential girls that were wanting to rush. I found that surprising considering people always talk about how my school has a very competitive recruitment. Or is COB always this small? It just makes me wonder how many girls each sorority is wanting to pick up, but then again all of the girls that attended the event may not go all the way through COB.

I think that the small number of women interested in COB may have to do with the fact that most women who join a sorority at SMU go through formal recruitment.