Fall traditions are in full swing at the UA, including sorority houses welcoming their new members.

According to the Panhellenic Council, 700 girls participated in formal recruitment this year, visiting all 12 Greek houses on campus over the course of seven days.

Rush week was split up into four sets, starting casual and getting more formal with each set. Each set has a different objective, ranging from getting to know each other to philanthropies, skits, house tours and preference days, but all have the same common goal: to help young women find where they belong in Greek Life.

After spending countless hours over the summer stalking the sororities’ Tumblr pages, watching and re-watching their recruitment videos, reading Total Sorority Move articles and searching the Panhellenic Council’s Pinterest for what to wear during recruitment, the potential new members were ready for a week unlike anything they’d ever experienced before.

Pre-business freshman Hannah Fyfe looked forward to formal recruitment all summer, leading up to her first year at the UA.

“I was so excited to start school and start sorority recruitment because I’ve always seen myself as a sorority girl, but I had no idea what the process was going to be like,” she said.

Communications freshman Megan Getty had family and friends go through recruitment, which helped her anticipate what it would be like.

“My sister and mom both went through rush, so they helped me prepare for it and told me what was to come,” Getty said. “I knew what to expect because I had other friends who went through the rush process here so they helped me as well.”

The goal of rush week is for every girl to end up happy and feeling comfortable with the house they’re in, but with the amount of girls rushing, not everyone ends up happy in the process.

“I had an open mind going into it, even though there were some houses that stood out to me,” Fyfe said.

At the beginning of each set, every girl was given a slip of paper from her recruitment counselor with the houses she would be visiting that day, hoping that the houses she chose in selections the day before would appear on her slip.

Some days, the girls got exactly what they had hoped for and left excited to go back to the houses. Other days, they were in shock of which houses appeared on their slips.

“When we got our slips back [for set two], I was so disappointed and upset and I considered dropping out because the house I really wanted back dropped me,” Fyfe said. “Everyone always says stick with it and trust the process, but at that point I hated hearing that because I thought I knew the house that I wanted.”

Potential new members were told over and over again throughout the week to “trust the process.”

“On bid day, I was so nervous because my luck that week wasn’t really on my side,” Fyfe said. “When I opened my bid envelope and saw the sorority I wanted, I was overjoyed and so excited.”

Although rush week was full of surprises, it was a learning experience for everyone who went through it, whether they ended up where thought they’d be or not.

“Rush week was a very interesting experience,” said communications freshman Paige Figone. “You really need to keep an open mind about the whole process because at the end of the week, you might be upset with how it ends up, but it’s worth a try.”

Fyfe agrees that recruitment ended as it was meant.

“Even though the rush process is super stressful, overwhelming and competitive, I’m glad I stuck with it because I fell in love with the house I ended up being in and I couldn’t see myself in another house,” she said. “By the end of recruitment, I learned to trust the process … It ended up working on my side and I couldn’t be happier.”

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