[*winter*]

Some schools use this "Deferred Recruitment" idea. Formal recruitment is held in the beginning of the Spring semester only. Some houses low on numbers do COB in the fall, but I'm not sure Freshman are allowed to participate in this.

One of the schools my niece (the senior in HS one) is interested in does deferred recruitment. I went to a school where rush (yeah- I'm that old-I said "rush!") took place in both fall and spring. The recruitment period started a few weeks after school was in session, too- which seems different than in other parts of the country. Typically fall PCs were larger than spring, but the spring recruitment gave students the chance to wait and see if they were interested in sororities.

There are good points and bad points to each, it seems. On one hand, by the beginning of your second semester, many students have already found their "niche" and may not be interested in recruitment. On the other hand, girls don't have the pressure of recruitment immediately after settling into (or while settling into) a new environment.

Only problem with doing it up here is that by January...it's DARN cold! So much for Lilly Pulitzer sundresses!