Getting Sororities to Give You The Time of Day
 

My chapter has been trying to set up socials with the sororities, but it's been extremely difficult to get most of them to give us the time of day. Asking early only gets us polite rejections.

So, I'm wondering: if you're in a sorority, what factors do you look for when deciding who to have socials/invites with? I understand that all chapters may vastly differ, but I'm trying to guage if there's any one particular thing that my chapter's sorely missing when trying to arrange these things.

Are your members friends with sorority women?

This, in my mind, is the biggest thing. If your members aren't actually friends with the women in many different sororities there's no one to pull for you when they're voting on who to mix with. You don't want them to say, "Does anyone actually know an XYZ?" ... "No. Moving on." Getting to know them is a big action point to turn things around.

Other things you could do: send a nice (handwritten!) card to congratulate them on initiating their new members, send a bouquet of their flowers on their Founders Day, attend all of their philanthropy events, have your pledge classes plan a social/philanthropy/fundraiser/etiquette dinner/etc. together...the list goes on.

Another thing you might want to try is asking a sorority to pair up with you on a philanthropy event or fundraiser - it won't count against how many social events they have, but for your chapter it can be a social opportunity.

1. Do a majority of the sisters like or can at least tolerate a majority of the fraternity members?
2. Does anyone have any major drama associated with members of that fraternity? "I just don't like him" wouldn't be enough but if a sister had an incident at the house (not saying this is your fraternity, but if there were allegations or suspicions of sexual assault, that would be one), or if the president of your fraternity was dating someone in your sorority and he cheated on her with a fraternity brother, that might do it.
3. Do sisters feel comfortable in the house, in general?
4. Do sisters even know any members of the fraternity in general? Getting to know them first before partying with them goes a long way in terms of safety, fun.
5. Does the sorority's social schedule allow for another mixer/formal/party to be added (some chapters do their social calendars waaaaaaaaay in advance)?
6. What is the proposed event? Theme? How would it affect them financially?


I will say that if you're looking to mix with new sororities that you haven't mixed with before, a good way to go about it is to get to know at least half of that sorority's chapter so that you have an advocate while these decisions are being made. You can get to know them at all-greek events, in class, in the cafeteria, wherever. From what I've heard, when a new fraternity came onto my campus after I graduated, it took about a semester or one school year before most of the sororities had held some type of formal or informal event with them.

If you're having problems and you're NOT new, you should start to think about your reputation on campus. If it's something particularly damaging (see: allegations of sexual assault, hardcore hazing, etc), it's probably something you should address. If it's something like "oh they're nerds" then getting to know sorority members on a one-on-one basis is probably the best way to go about it. The "nerd" fraternity on my campus was actually pretty popular to mix with because they actively tried to build relationships with sorority members, and were always very kind and courteous to them (and their parties were fun). Had they been more anti-social, they probably would have had more problems.

If it's a huge reputation problem, I'd hope you would know and be able to work on that. If there's nothing "wrong" per se, it might be a good idea for you guys to start doing little things, like inviting them to parties, making the chapter cookies, sending valentine's day cards to the spring pledge class, making "back to school" packets for the fall girls... Little things can help you out when you're asking for social events.

I dont know your campus or fraternity, but since it has not yet been mentioned...is your fraternity officially recognized on your campus by the university/college administration? The Greek Life Office or local IFC? Is it recognized as a registered student organization on your campus?

If not, then there may be risk management/insurance/FIPG reasons as to why they keep turning you down (as in their HQ/national policies wont allow it).

We used to have the same problem (fraternities would either cancel our socials or just wouldn't schedule any with us)

And this may sound really shallow, but one year, we elected our two hottest girls to be Social Chairs. We started having socials lined up every single week. And because of this, we got to know each fraternity better & made friends with guys in all of them, so that made it easier to schedule socials with them later.

^^One of the fraternities dressed up their hottest guy in a suit and scheduled for him to speak at our chapter meeting where he asked us to be their homecoming partners & have a fall social. Shallow? Yes. Effective? Um...YEAH. We're talking 18-22 year old women. Plus, taking the time to think ahead and SCHEDULE to speak at our meeting, as well as us already being together to go ahead and vote when he was done speaking (after he left, obviously...we weren't going to vote IN FRONT of him) were good ideas.

Great ideas, everybody! I especially like that chapter meeting idea.

My fraternity is relatively new on campus (2 years old, clean slate in terms of reptuation), and our current status is that while we're officially recognized, most of the Greeks know nothing about us beyond the fact that we exist.

However, without going into too much detail, everybody in my fraternity are in majors which are seriously underrepresented by females (~15%) and more seriously underrepresented by Greek Life (~2%), whereas the general status on campus is ~51% female and ~15% Greek. So, it's been very difficult knowing girls in class, etc. Of the few girls in other sororities we know, it's all been thru some very random encounters. Good news, however, is that albeit few, they're all very high-influence (exec board positions, social chairs).

Right now, we're trying to increase our publicity by participating in all the all-Greek events that exist, making an effort to attend every philantropy event, and boosting membership. These are areas that have been severely lacking in the past because we were focused on internal issues (eg. ensuring that the brotherhood is sustainable before anything else).

Sit in the caf, near the sororities, so they can see you. Be sure you look hot.

When you DO have mixers, make sure you publicly thank the sorority you mixed with, thru the school paper or Facebook or whatever. Not only is this the polite thing to do it lets other sororities see that you're mixing.

Participate in intramurals if your school has them.

If the guys have time, get some of them to step outside their comfort zone and join extracurricular activities that aren't specifically to do with their major.

Could it also be that your fraternity is small in number and the sororities are large in number of members, like 25 in your fraternity and 100 in the sorority? If so, can you double up with another fraternity?

Do you participate in the sororities' philanthropies, like for example, basketball, mud tug, corn hole, hockey tournaments? Participate in as many of them as you possibly can and you will be more visible.

Be nice, be nice, be nice. But don't be icky. And there can be a fine line there...my daughter's favorite (and a lot of her sisters) fraternity has a group of really good guys in it. They do a lot of stuff with them, and hang with them a lot. Girls talk, even between chapters, and consequently, the guys in this fraternity are popular with many of the sororities.

Be proud of your fraternity, square your shoulders back, be clean and decently groomed (and keep your house clean), project CONFIDENCE, and girls will notice.

Are you neighbors with any sororities? Go over and introduce yourselves. Bring them flowers. It may take a while, (it can be compared to planting seeds) but surely the suggestions given in this thread above have to move you in the right direction. And keep it up. Good luck!

If you have any awkward/creepy brothers just keep them out of the public eye. Or better yet, ostracize them until they go inactive or disaffiliate.

Lol jk. Kinda.....

I would only do this if it is fairly common/would likely be accepted in the culture on your campus. It could come across as extra creepy/awkward if no fraternity or sorority has ever done something like that before, especially if it's a newspaper ad.
That said, if it seems like it would fit in when you're in school, it might be a great idea!


Also, I get the vibe that you're in a pre-professional fraternity, engineering or something. That could be your problem also. Sororities may be surprised to get a mixer invite from an org that isn't primarily social. That said, if your brothers work on befriending girls before you invite them to mix, you should be okay.

My fraternity's in a very weird spot in terms of stance. We say we're social (we're in the IFC), but the major restrictions and some of the side activities really make things interesting. For example, we're also part of our campus EJC (engineers joint council), and several actual pre-professional fraternities actually explicity (and IMO, rightfully) exclude my fraternity under their dual-membership rules. Hmm, I guess I've given enough info that you guys can figure out which fraternity I'm in already...

Maybe we just need to emphasize the social aspect of our group a lot more, since up until now, it's mostly been an internal thing.

In terms of size, on my campus, the PHC sororities have an average membership of 120 whereas the average IFC fraternity is at ~40.

IIRC correctly he is is part of a social org that recruits exclusively from STEM majors. Not terribly different from AOE when you think about it.

You don't take gen eds in which you could meet sorority women?

If the chapters are that much larger, you should team up with another fraternity and throw a larger, joint event. The numbers don't have to be exactly even, but closer is better. A benefit is getting to know that fraternity as well.