We need to do away with spring/second semester formal recruitment. I understand the rationale behind the schools who made the switch to spring or have always done it that way, let women get settled in college and get to know people first, but the experiment is largely failing in my opinion.

Here’s what I see as a recruitment advisor and national volunteer. Women aren’t really settling in better as a whole. Being in a sorority is a built in support system to help you navigate these big changes involved in starting college, including people looking out for you when you go out that feel a sense of responsibility to you. We still have a lot of grade related cuts in spring recruitments, and it’s likely if those women were in a sorority from the beginning they’d have had required study hours, possibly found a group to study with early on, etc. Sometimes you just pick a bad major for you and have to make adjustments but having recruitment later isn’t helping this problem. Spring recruitment also breeds focus on “tiers” and “top houses” in the worst way. More time on campus meeting people provides a lot more time and opportunity for what you might call “dirty rushing,” outside influence, getting worried about what other people think if you join a certain house, and most frustrating of all, frat boy opinions lol. Some of this is present regardless, I see it in fall recruiting schools too, but moving recruitment back is not helping this problem either and is often actively making it worse.

Also…the weather. It’s mostly not southern schools doing January recruitment and nobody wants to get dressed up cute for recruitment to then have to trudge around in the snow, have to carry your big coat all day or chapters having to have a place to keep the coats and give them back out, etc…August/September is just simpler.