Informal recruitment questions.

[jordang312]

Hi! I am currently a Sophomore and am interested in informal recruitment. I have gone through formal recruitment, but did not find a home. I felt like during formal recruitment (because I'm not super familiar with sorority life, etc.) a lot of things happened that I didn't understand and everything was so "mysterious" that I felt it wasn't explained to me well enough. But, I am interested in joining a sorority on campus and don't want my feelings hurt a second time. I don't know what I did wrong the last time, but I'm trying to identify it. I know my grades couldn't have been the issue, I developed a rapport with all the girls I talked to, I dressed nicely and I made sure to ask all about each sorority to let them know how interested I was. But, after the second day I only had 3 parties to go to. I was dumbfounded because I didn't know what I had done wrong. Instead of resorting to cruel tactics like the other girls, I was nice to the 3 sororities that invited me back. But, 1 of the sororities I had no interest in joining for personal reasons which I won't disclose. The 2nd sorority house (which is the one I am now interested in joining for informal recruitment) was nice. I just couldn't see myself there at the time. Plus, I hate to say this, but this sorority didn't have the best GPA and I let that stand in the way of my decision. (During formal recruitment, I think I did the wrong thing when I tried to decide which sorority I wanted by how "good" or "bad" they looked on paper). After meeting many of the girls from the 2nd sorority and forming friendships with them during the school year (and meeting their sisters informally), I feel that I would be able to have fun and be REAL friends with them. But, as for the 3rd house, I was actually excited about going back to this house (it was 1 of the ones I liked the most). Sadly, I found out that they had the most exorbitant fees out of all 7 of the houses which I know my family could not pay. So, I decided to leave the recruitment process. But, as to my questions...
What could I have done wrong? Does informal recruitment sound like a good idea? What criteria do they use to determine eligibility into the sorority during COB? Any other tid-bits of information would help. Thank you very much!