UCLA Recruitment begins Wednesday!
 

Recruitment begins this Wednesday at University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA). Anyone have a pnm going through?? My daughter is a senior this year and she said that early numbers indicate that a huge number of girls are rushing this year, in the neighborhood of 900. UCLA does have a very competitive rush for first year girls, not really competitive at all for non-freshman. Each sorority at UCLA has a freshman quota and a non-freshman quota. For example, a chapter might have a quota of 45...but as many as 10 to 15 of those might be second or third year girls. I will say that the sororities generally do not like that they are required to take so many non-freshman because the drop rate after pledging or initiation of non-freshman is fairly high. UCLA sororities put on an impressive recruitment! Great chapters there! I will post what chapters are on campus in my next post.

Go Bruins!

So, UCLA has the following sororities on campus:

Alpha Phi
Delta Gamma
Kappa
Theta
Tri-Delt
Chi Omega
Pi Phi
Kappa Delta
AEPhi
Gamma Phi
ADPi
AChiO

I think that A Chi O recolonized a year or two ago, and they are doing great. All of the chapters at UCLA have strong sisterhoods and thriving numbers of members...well, with probably one exception...not going to say which one. Last night events kicked off on campus with the annual Bruin Bash, a huge open air concert for all new students and returning students. The sorority girls all try to look their most adorable by wearing special Bruin Bash t's designed specifically for their chapter. It is the pnm's first look at the sororities!!

BTW, the sun in out and shining in L.A.!! Classes begin on Thursday, recruitment on Wednesday. Pref is Sunday morning---Bid Day is Sunday night!!

Wow that's one busy day!!

So excited as all the UC's recruitment is basically this weekend. Going to be an exciting week.

The schedule for UCLA recruitment goes like this:

Wednesday (daytime) and Thursday (evening) are Conversation Days. PNM's visit all chapters.

Friday is House Tours/Philanthropy Day...each house gives a house tour (incl a few beautifully "primped" bedrooms!!) and the philanthropy is introduced. Each house is usually decorated with some kind of theme and the members dress accordingly.

Continuing....

Saturday is a very long day for the chapters!! This is "Entertainment Day". Most/alll chapters do some kind of cute and entertaining skit. This is the party where the individuality of the sorority really comes through! House decorations are usually fairly elaborate...The sorority members usually are up until 3:00 am decorating and getting ready!! Parties begin late morning and go all day.
This is when the fatigue for the PNM's and the members really sets in! Throat lozenge anyone?!

Sunday...PREFERENCE ROUNDS!!!

PNM's attend up to 2 Pref parties. Chapters have up to 3 pref parties, depending on how many PNM's are invited/coming back.

Pref parties begin at 9:00 am!!! Oh, those poor PNM's have to get up at the crack of dawn to shower, do their hair and walk across campus...in their cocktail dresses and heels!! Pref parties at UCLA are of course sentimental and serious events, but most sororities have moved away from wearing black dresses (a tradition started when pref round was at night), to wearing white dresses, and usually flowers or ivy wreaths in their hair...

The white dresses look so much lighter and fresh for morning ceremonies. And, being in Los Angeles, the sun is always predictably shining and warm! Pref parties conclude by around 1:00 pm. Bids are distributed at around 6:00 pm. Many sororities then takes their new pledges off (in big busses) to venues in and around L.A., such as the Santa Monica Pier, venues in Hollywood such as Universal Studios, or even to a private mansion in Beverly Hills for swimming and dinner! It is a crazy day, but always a wonderful day!!

BlueOwl, you read my mind!

865 PNMs are already registered. It looks like the PNM registration will easily hit 900 by Wednesday morning.

Add UCLA to the list of campuses hitting record registration numbers. Last year 715 women were registered.

Pepperdine also starts their recruitment on Wednesday, and they are looking at registration around 250.

I'm an active right now at UCLA. We have almost 900 signed up for recruitment as of now with a second sorority orientation tomorrow. We're bracing ourselves for MUCH larger parties than we're typically used to.

This is interesting to me, because at the SEC schools that have experience with, chapters are not required to take upperclassman quota, but are allowed to if they want to. It's more seen as a bonus number of girls you can take if you like. Many chapters don't, so it's still incredibly tough for the upperclassmen. Are the sororities at UCLA required to take the upperclassman quota or is it optional?

The upperclassmen quota in NOT optional. Each sorority is required to take quite a few, usually about one third of the new member class will be non- freshman women! This policy began about five years ago. As I said before, the sororities aren't exactly in love with this requirement. The drop rate for junior transfers runs particularly high. I think that it can be really hard for the junior transfers to develop the strong bonds of sisterhood within a group of girls that already shares a couple of years of experiences and "history" between them. The junior transfers tend to stick together, live together, and often drop together. The retention rate for girls who join as freshman, however, is very high.

CaliTransfer, what has your experience been?

Are you certain about this? I have a REALLY hard time believing that any chapter is required to take anyone.

I suspect the requirement is something more like "these are junior spots, if you don't take juniors, you may not take freshmen instead", which feels to the chapters like they must take juniors so as not to have the smallest pledge class.

I would think they'd be beyond "not in love" with it, considering this is infringing on each sorority's individual right to select its members.

Is it a flat number or a percentage? Or is is just capricious and arbitrary?

I'm surprised that any national organization would permit this.

Well, I am a parent, so I don't know all of the specifics, such as does the panhellenic office determine how many non-freshman a chapter must take, etc. But, I will say this for sure...non-freshman women get bids from houses that they would never get a bid from if they were rushing as freshman. Sure, my daughter's sorority has offered bids to some highly desirable non-freshman women. The competition for desirable non-freshman is intense! For example, student athletes generally do not join sororities due to their time commitments in their sport. If the girl no longer plays her sport, she may decide to rush. And, yes, there are lots of great girls who transfer in to UCLA from community college , etc. But, yes, it's absolutely true that chapters will have to extend bids to non-freshman girls who are less desirable to them in order to fill their non-freshman quota. Believe me, if it was not a requirement, they would not do it! No, the actives do not like having to do this one bit.