American University, class standing?

[levoothephimu]

1) Coming into freshman year with sophomore standing is so common at AU that nobody will even blink at the "senior standing but technically a junior" thing. I wouldn't worry about people considering you a senior. For the most part, each chapter takes a junior or two during spring recruitment.

2) Fall recruitment never hurts. It's free, and you get to have much more personal and interesting conversations with people. I would guess that the five chapters not taking fall pledge classes will probably have a "recruitment" event regardless, so you might still have a chance to meet all of the chapters. If one of the two doing informal in the fall is the one for you, that's great, but if not, there's always spring. Obviously there are no guarantees, but I do know some older students who tried informal recruitment with no luck, but who did receive bids in the spring. And the more sisters you know, the better chance you'll have.

3) You're right, recruitment is generally not that competitive. However, most of the chapters will be above total, and fall recruitment is going to be a whole different ballgame this time. Girls that would normally be joining in the fall might shy away from fall recruitment this time around, and they will try their luck in the spring. Although the chapters at AU are more welcoming to non-freshman than many other schools, they still want a pledge class of mostly freshmen, so the competition for older students is probably going to go up for the spring. Again, fall recruitment won't hurt you at all, so you should definitely give it a try.