[SOPi_Jawbreaker]

My sorority does rush very informally. I think one of the MOST effective things in our recruitment is making a personal connection. At the very beginning of the semester, our rush chairs and our president emphasize how very important it is for everyone to really get out there and actively recruit (meaning talking to women in their classes, student clubs, bible studies, study groups, class projects, dorms, commons, etc.) Then, our rush chairs emphasize that active recruiting is more than just passing out rush flyers and telling girls when and where our rush events are held. For us, recruiting means taking the time to talk to girls and getting to know them. A lot of girls have said that they would have been intimidated to come out to our rush events if they had not already met so-and-so in the commons and talked to her for several minutes. But knowing that there would be one sister there that they knew made them less nervous.

That's how it was for me. I used to have a lot of prejudice against Greeks. I believed the stereotypes, and I thought that sorority girls were really as catty as MTV's Sorority Life depicted. One day (during my first weeks at Penn State) I was waiting in line for coffee, and the girl behind me in line just started talking to me. I had only made friends at that time, and this girl was so friendly. We asked me the usual questions (hometown, year, major), but then we went on to talk about some other stuff while we were waiting for our coffee (what I want to do with my major, my ethnicity...turned out she's Taiwanese too, visiting Taiwan, my family, etc.) Then, when we finally got our coffees, she gave me a rush flyer and invited me to the info session that night. I was a little unsure and nervous (I was still pretty shy at the time), but I went to that info session because I thought to myself "She was so nice and so friendly, and if THIS is what sororities are like, I should go check it out. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe sorority life could be for me." And here I am almost four years later :-). If she hadn't started up a conversation with me, I don't think I would have gone Greek. I would not have gone out and sought out a sorority, because I would have held onto all those misconceptions I had about sororities.