What's rush like at your school?

[gphib_95]

Here at the U of AL sorority rush is really strict. I was just wondering what rush was like at other schools? Here are some rules for rush here:

No form of bidding may occur outside the prescribed Panhellenic procedure. No bids, oral or otherwise, may be directly or indirectly issued during events at any time, including any indication to a potential new member by a sorority member, new member, or alumna that the sorority intends to see the potential new member at a future recruitment event.

Sorority members may not sing outside their houses or continue singing after time has elapsed and there must be no exterior decoration.

Each sorority’s budget must not exceed $6,000, and a maximum of $1,500.00 may be spent on flowers. Balloons will be prohibited, including Bid Day. Within 30 days of the conclusion of Fall Formal Recruitment, all Recruitment expenditures, including the value of all donated goods and services, are due to the Panhellenic Advisor. Receipts must be turned in with expenses.


All invitation and bid lists must be turned into the Greek Life office at the designated times. Turning in the disks and related recruitment materials late will be an automatic $100.00 fine per 15 minutes after they are due.

Strict Silence is the period in which there will be no conversation or contact with potential new members by sorority members, new members, and alumnae. This includes any and all references to the sorority - verbal, written, or otherwise. Strict silence is designated as the period of time from the end of the potential new member’s last event until she reports to the sorority from which she accepts a bid.

Sorority members and alumnae are not allowed to separate individual potential new members from the rest of the recruitment group. If repeated, this will be a Tier 1 offense.

Sorority women are not allowed outside their houses at least one hour prior to or following the conclusion of recruitment events (on non-class days) as it reads on the official Panhellenic Recruitment Events Schedule. This same rule applies on class days, except the time restriction is 30 minutes. The Panhellenic Advisor must approve any exceptions, due to work, school or illness.

Shutters, shades, blinds, and windows on the front of the house and around the doors must be closed and all excessive noise must end one hour prior to and following the conclusion of recruitment events and between individual events.

No artwork, choreography, or entertainment, including the use of a DJ, shall be done for Fall Formal Recruitment by any person other than the collegiate members of that sorority on this campus.

No food will be served during Recruitment events. Only drinks will be offered to potential new members during Formal Recruitment events.

During Fall Formal Recruitment, no potential new members shall visit a sorority house except for during designated Fall Formal Recruitment events. The only exceptions would be: if rain occurs, potential new members may be allowed to enter the sorority houses even if events have not yet begun, and a potential new member has to use the restroom, she can enter the house if escorted by a Rho-Chi or Judicial Board Member.

If a Potential New Member must leave an event for any reason, a recruitment counselor must escort her. Actives are responsible for notifying the recruitment counselors if a potential new member must leave.

Communication between sorority women and potential new members is to be kept to a minimum. During formal recruitment, sorority women must not discuss information in regards to Greek Life outside of the formal recruitment events. There shall be no purposeful seeking of contact with potential new members by sorority women during Fall Formal Membership Recruitment except at official events. Purposeful seeking of contact includes, but is not limited to, sorority members making or receiving phone calls or sending letters, wires, flowers or gifts to potential new members. Normal friendly contact shall be allowed during Fall Formal Recruitment, excluding the mother-daughter and sister-sister relationship with the guideline that they are not discussing Recruitment or Recruitment-related activities.


There will be no reference to alcohol on anything worn or used by the sorority members during Recruitment activities. In addition, no elaborate costuming may be worn during Fall Formal Recruitment. Elaborate costuming will be defined as anything that sorority members would not normally own. Exceptions allowed will be:

1. Identical shirts, printed or unprinted, costing no more than $10.00 per member.

2. One (1) accessory/prop costing no more than $10.00 per member. Accessories/props include: shoes, hats, collars, belts, bow ties, and vests. Identical shorts, pants, skirts, pajamas, nightshirts, boxers, dresses, or jumpers are not accessories/props and therefore may not be worn.

Recruitment Counselors will warn the recruitment chairman five minutes before the time for the total event to be over if the sorority has not begun to show signs of ending the party. Recruitment Counselors watches will be set at the same time and theirs will be the official time.

From the beginning of school until the conclusion of formal recruitment, no philanthropic events or social functions can be held where potential new members may be present.

A. There will be no planned sorority functions with potential new members beginning the last day of spring exams until the conclusion of formal recruitment. (This includes: joint parties with fraternities or other sororities, trips, philanthropic events, etc.). The guidelines established in Article IV, number 8 will also be enforced.
B. Sororities may not ask fraternities to invite women potential new members to their events. This will constitute an illegal recruitment event for the sorority.
C. Potential new members may not stay with sorority members during orientation.
D. Sorority members cannot meet any potential new members at the Ferguson Center or any other area of campus during orientation times and events.
E. The sorority house may not be used for recruitment purposes during the summer.


Invitational Rounds

A. Ice Water Teas/15 minutes

1. No skits shall be performed during the first round of Fall Formal
2. Only ice water shall be served during the first round.

B. Philanthropy Day/30 minutes

1. Each chapter must have their philanthropy project approved by the Panhellenic Executive Board on a first come basis prior to the start of recruitment.
2. Three songs sung by the individual chapters are permitted, along with a king size banner for decoration. The use of a video is optional, but the Panhellenic Executive Board must approve it prior to the start of recruitment. Any extra programs must also be approved by the Panhellenic Executive Board.
3. During the second round, those sororities willing to have the Alabama Panhellenic Association extend an invitation to any potential new members receiving no invitations to the second round, must inform Panhellenic at the recruitment meeting immediately preceding Fall Formal Recruitment.

C. Six Party Day/45 minutes

1. Anything other than the skit (slide shows, etc.) must be approved by the Panhellenic Executive Board.
2. No decorations other than those used for the skit are allowed (this includes balloons, etc.).

D. Serious Night/50 minutes

1. Strict silence will be enforced from the end of the last recruitment event until bids have been distributed.
2. Potential new members will sign Formal Membership Recruitment Acceptance cards (preference cards) immediately following the last Recruitment event.
3. After potential new members sign their Formal Membership Recruitment Acceptance cards, they should go to their place of residence for the rest of the evening.
4. If a sorority invites a potential new member to their preference event, the potential new member must be somewhere on that sorority’s bid list, even if she did not attend the event.

Bid Day

A. The only outside decorations allowed during Bid Day shall be welcome signs.
B. All refreshments served on Bid Day must be served inside the sorority house.
C. There shall be no live entertainment, inside or outside, on Sorority Row.

[texas*princess]

Originally posted by BrownEyedGirl

Two questions:
1. Balloons aren't allowed? Are they evil secret bid-matching tools or something? Just wondering why Panhellenic prohibits them, even on Bid Day.

Balloons are no longer permitted on our campus either I'm not sure about the balloon-thing on Bid Day, but I don't remember seeing any balloons at this past Fall's Bid Day?

From what some of the older members told me, they used to be allowed to use balloons, and for each day(except pref), there were hundreds of balloons on the ceiling of each chapter room.

Now we can't use balloons or even hang anything on the walls

[gphib_95]

Two questions:
1. Balloons aren't allowed? Are they evil secret bid-matching tools or something? Just wondering why Panhellenic prohibits them, even on Bid Day.

2. From the no costuming/identical clothing rule above, I am wondering if you can wear matching dresses during Pref/Serious Night. I know my collegiate chapter had and still has identical dresses made for us by a seamstress. Is that a no-no? What do y'all wear for pref?

When I was an active in the house we used ballons. I do not know why they have stop allowing this. And as far as matching dresses, we have never worn them. We were told what color, length, material, and sleeve type to buy on our own.

[Glitter650]

Just for a little contrast I go to a school with very small greek system.... (three NPC sororities) no houses... total is 45 members.... until recently no chpater had reached that in about 10 years or so....our rush budget is 500 dollars and rush is held about the third week of school... (which makes it SUPER stressful because you're JUST getting settled into classes and have all this rush stuff to worry about. We don't have any specific rules about what we can and can not wear... we do have the strict silence time and no bid promising... as all Panhellenics...we did have a rule about having only 10 balloons at our open house night... but that's only becuase we had it in a room that was fairly small and having every chapter having sooo many balloons would be waaaayyy too much... but other than that no balloon rule... (as a matter of fact this fall at bid day we had HUGE balloons that spelled out Phi Sig on our table with the ladies' bid day bags when they came out to meet us on the quad. And our fine for late Pref/bid lists only incur a 20 dollar fine for 15 minutes believe. and MATCHING PREF DRESSES BY A SEAMSTRESS ??? WOW that is like TOTAL wishful thinking to me... Kinda like when people here post pics of their homes and I just drool in jealously == sigh == to have a more "traditional" greek experience... (not that mine wasn't WONDERFUL) just SUPER cool to see the gorgeous homes and hear about football games and "greek row" and rush that people WANT to come to.. (it's like pulling teeth to get people to come to rush at my school) and not having to deal with trying to get rooms on campus for our events ... GEEZ what a nightmare that is.... NE WAY .... interesting to see what is at other schools... kinda makes me go to hear about other schools...

[deadbear80]

Goodness! A no balloon rule!? Wash. U. would have hell to pay if that were the case. For the first round of parties, each sorority is given a color (red, blue, green, purple, yellow (gold), or pink)--randomly (each year you get a new color). That sorority then gets a huge mass of balloons of that color to have on the ceiling of their suite (sororities here don't have houses, just suites in our "Women's Building"). This is done so that on the first day, girls see each sorority equally and can think by color and not necessarily by reputation. It's also hard for some women to keep each sorority straight, so it's a good way for girls to remember the houses they went to.
Although I wasn't always happy with the color choices my sorority had when I was there (despite pink being one of our sorority colors, it just doesn't look right in our suite with some of the red accents we have), blowing up huge masses of balloons with helium (and high float) was always an interesting experience.

[kappaloo]

Originally posted by BrownEyedGirl


Two questions:
1. Balloons aren't allowed? Are they evil secret bid-matching tools or something? Just wondering why Panhellenic prohibits them, even on Bid Day.

It could be an allergy thing? I know that last year we had someone during Orientation who was allergic to latex and luckly told us early enough to nix it from all our plans.

[ladyj39]

To add to what Glitter650 mentioned, we had a "no balloon" rule in the past because of the room we used to have Open House in. The building manager was afraid they would get loose and be stuck in the room forever (it was basically an auditorium which had really high ceilings).

I was really surprised this past weekend at my Regional Conference hearing how different recruitment is among Alpha Phi chapters. There was one chapter that had a rush budget of $15,000! Then there were chapters who had a very strict "no frills" recruitment. At one campus, they lined the girls up and they were fined if their outfits were too similar! That's just amazing to me.

[XOMichelle]

Ours is pretty much no frills, but we have a decent rush budget (I think (2,000?). We get matching T-shirts for the night 1 and philanthropy, and then make the girls buy back dresses for pref. Everyone should own a black dress, so I don't think that's a big deal.
The one cool thing we do is have pref at the Shearton Hotel. When sororities were let back onto campus in 1978 (we got kicked off in 1945 and had to sell the houses to the University), no one had a house, so all the sororities rush in the Student Union, and for pref, at the Shearton.

Rush isn't very strict, besides really common things like bid list due times, and cleaning up rooms after you use them. There are rules on what you can use to decorate, but I don't think there is a money limit. If so, it's much higher than you would want to spend.

The problem with rush is we have it spring quarter, and the girls are "rushed" by sororities starting the first week of school. Onnce April comes around, the girls know which sororities they want to join, and have ideas which ones want them too.

[Bama_Alumna]

You do realize, though, that at the U of Alabama, most of those rules are broken by most of the houses. And you probably know that the Panhellenic Council turns a blind eye to all but the very worst infractions. Most of the houses spend well over $10,000 on rush, many between $20,000-$40,000 per year. The no contact rule is definitely broken by 100% of the houses on campus. How many summer rush parties or teas did you attend when you went through rush? I remember attending various sorority & fraternity parties thoughout the summer before I pledged and a few mother-daughter teas as well.

I think a good question to ask here is not what the rules are at the various schools, but whether or not they are enforced!

[PsychTau]

3. During the second round, those sororities willing to have the Alabama Panhellenic Association extend an invitation to any potential new members receiving no invitations to the second round, must inform Panhellenic at the recruitment meeting immediately preceding Fall Formal Recruitment.

What's that mean?

PsychTau

[SigK_Bama]

Originally posted by PsychTau


What's that mean?

PsychTau

I think it means that, before fall rush even begins, a chapter can decide to extend party invites to girls who were cut after the first round. If the chapter doesn't notify the Pan. Assoc. before rush begins, the girls who got cut first round can't be invited back to that particular chapter's parties for the remainder of fall rush.

[Glitter650]

Actually it seems more like panhell will extend invites to ladies who got none BUT ONLY if the chapter says yeah go ahead and do that... as a second chance type of deal ya know? I think it's a good idea becuase this way less girls get just kinda "skipped over"

[XOMichelle]

[i]
I think a good question to ask here is not what the rules are at the various schools, but whether or not they are enforced! [/B]

ha ha.... yes. The rules are enforced during formal rush here, but not before, and not after.
Two chapters got caught dirty rushing a few years back and they got a silly slap on the wrist, and a great pledge class. The lesson folks? it pays to dirty rush!!!

[breathesgelatin]

Rush at my school is in-between.

While we usually only have around 210 women go through, there are usually about 220-230 women in the freshman class. This makes for a VERY VERY competitive Greek system and lots of tears and drama. We also have a deferred rush so that makes it even harder if women know a lot of women in one group and then get released there.

In terms of decorations, we are also in-between. We have skits, props, food, etc. We are limited to a certain number of lattices each day and can only use our parlors beginning the 3rd night of rush. We have videos and decorations and LOTS OF FLOWERS on pref....

All of our rush rules are enforced--we get inspections and whatnot.

[gphib_95]

*bump*