Grades and Recruitment
 

hey there! i'm a sophomore at a big ten school and i went through formal recruitment this fall and was severely disappointed-- not with the girls, but with the results. (i actually went in with a negative attitude about greek life, and came out completely ridded of all of the misconceptions i had) my school has 17 sororities that formally rush, and i was really surprised that i only had 5 out of the 13 i could've had. i didn't know what i did wrong and was so devastated that i dropped, but it'd been brought to my attention that my grades could have done me in, seeing as i only have a 2.97.

i guess my question is, if i can get my gpa up above a 3.0 after this semester, will that really do me any good? is there a chance i could do better in informal recruitment?

i realize that there's no way you guys could know how my school's sororities work, and you have no idea why they even dropped me in the first place (heck, even i don't know!), but i'm asking anyway, maybe for some insights and things i could do to better my chances this coming spring.

Generally speaking, I would say that your GPA is pretty low. This definitely could have had some impact on your recruitment experience and why you were only invited back to a handful of chapters.

Improving your GPA never hurts (in recruitment or otherwise), so that could improve your situation and the way the sororities are evaluating you.

Whether or not they'll extend you a bid if you improve your GPA, though, we'll never know. You just have to work hard in school and go through recruitment again.

ETA: Keep in mind that depending on where you go to school, going through recruitment once and dropping/going through as a sophomore or upperclassman could also work against you. And if you're looking to join this coming spring (by means of informal recruitment, I would assume), you may have limited options in terms of which sororities are still open for taking additional members.

I think most of the Big 10 isn't too deadly for sophomores, but juniors are less likely to get placed. My recommendation is to sign up for informal rush. You can do that now, there may be some chapters still looking for members this fall. The chapters looking to add will be the smaller ones who aren't as good at formal rush. That does NOT mean they won't be fun, meaningful, valuable experiences. But it does mean in head to head competition they may have looked "less than."
This is part of what is great about informal rush - you get to judge a chapter based on its own merits instead of in comparison to any others. And there usually is a blessed lack of odd breaking into song and dance.

thank you ladies for your insights! dubaisis, i look forward to informal recruitment come this spring for that exact reason-- looking more at the merits and sisterhood of the sorority rather than it being a competition for my attention!

Improved grades will help, and recs will help. You sophomore status and rerushing status will likely work against you to one degree or another (but need not be fatal.) Make sure that you are befriending greek women in your classes and activities. Asking where someone lives is often a good conversational gambit to finding greeks.