"blind" recruitment
 

My friend had the idea of a blind recruitment, where sorority women recruit out of convention/student union space, don't wear letters, or say what sorority they are in... that way conversations are more about getting to know each other and PNMs don't fall victim to tent talk...

obviously it would be difficult to arrange (seeing friends you know in the chapter already...)

but what do you think of this concept?

Man oh man. This would have to be done probably with an early move-in and all active members go on complete social media blackout over the summer. Chapters would have to temporarily deactivate Facebook pages and Instagram accounts and stuff so that PNM's couldn't search for and memorize who is in what chapter, at least by face if not by name.

Honestly, I don't think it would be possible, at least not where I was at undergrad. A good majority of the women we recruited each year already knew at least one person in the chapter who could vouch for them prior to recruitment-it would be impossible to pretend that affiliation wasn't there and impossible to guarantee PNMs wouldn't tell each other.

I like the concept of not recruiting based on letters, and there might be some way to adapt aspects of that to recruitment, but in practicality it wouldn't work.

Sorority recruitment isn't all about just liking each other. How would the groups communicate philanthropy, ideals, activities, etc? That would be GLO specific and give away the information you are trying to withhold.

The legacy apsect would also make it difficult.

I'll let Bette Davis speak for me.



https://media0.giphy.com/media/3oEdu...VOz6/200.gif#5




The thing is, we're a little Utopian here on GreekChat. I think a recruitment as described above would work for about 15 minutes.

^ What HC said.

You might be able to get away with a blind recruitment for open houses during FR. No songs or chants that would give away the sorority. No mention of specific philanthropy activities that would identify the sorority - so a sister could say, "We volunteer at a soup kitchen once a month," but not "We went to the hospital to visit pediatric AIDS patients, because one of our philanthropies is the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric - d'oh!". No letters, but maybe assign each chapter a random color (that might or might not be one of the sorority's colors) and have the sisters wear that color and mix it up from year to year - so, when the PNMs go to rank, they can list, say, red, yellow, green, and brown as their top choices and blue and purple as the chapters they'd rather not return to. Ask PNMs who can identify which chapter is which to keep mum, just like PNMs can be asked to keep mum if they know a particular recruitment counselor's affiliation.

Then, starting with the first invitation-only round, chapters reveal their identities. The chapters can then do activities related to their philanthropies for philanthropy round, do songs and skits that name the sorority, show off their houses if applicable, conduct their nationals-approved pref ceremonies, etc.

Social media adds a whole new layer of difficulty that didn't exist when I was a collegian (the World Wide Web was only just starting to take off). Chapters would have to pull all photos and rosters down from their web sites, and sisters (just like recruitment counselors) would have to scrub their social media presence to obscure their affiliation.

It might have worked 20 years ago. Today, it would be difficult to say the least.

If we're playing "wouldn't it be nice" I think a Panhellenic Open House would be great. Before traditional Open House, PNMs attend integrated parties. They'd go through a party meeting sisters from multiple groups, so a PiPhi would bump an AGD who would bump a Kappa, etc. At the end of the night the PNMs will not rank but will have a better idea that all the chapters are full of amazing women.

Here's what I think would happen. The girls who are "in the know", the ones who rarely struggle during recruitment, would know who a lot of the girls are anyway and ace recruitment like they would have normally.

The girls who hardly know anyone and don't know much about recruitment are still probably going to end up with fewer choices. In other words, you would have the same results as you did during a "normal" recruitment.

FTW.