Sorority recruitment week, commonly known as “Rush Week”, will begin Friday. Iowa State’s Collegiate Panhellenic Council — a collective representative of 17 sororities on campus — said this is a week in which recruits will face the “most important decisions that [they] will make during [their] undergraduate years.”

Rush week is held Friday through Aug. 22, and those who are interested are encouraged to register by 8 a.m. Monday and pay the $300 registration fee. This event is open to students who are interested in joining a sorority, and those students will have the opportunity to move into their residence halls early to visit each chapter they are interested in “rushing”.  

There will be a “Welcome Weekend,” during which recruits will visit all the available sorority chapters and will be placed within a group led by an assigned recruitment counselor, known as a rho gamma. The events the students will attend are based on a mutual selection process during Preference Night, when a potential member will choose the chapters they are interested in and the chapters will also choose members they want to invite to join them. 

“I’m honestly going into this with very little knowledge and trying not to have any bias,” said Casey Hinders, an Iowa State transfer student in public relations. “Most of the chapters I don’t really know other than knowing a couple of people in some of them.”

After the selection process, if the student and the sorority have chosen each other, students will be offered to join the organizations on Bid Day — the day after Preference Night. According to the recruitment website, there is no guarantee that a recruit will receive a bid. However, at the end of the week, the student will receive a bid to a chapter they attended.

“I have two older sisters who were both in a sorority at Iowa State, so I felt pretty prepared coming into recruitment, since I was already somewhat familiar which sorority life,” Sonja Paulson, a sophomore in business said. “[…] During recruitment, girls are separated into groups based on where they live and each group is given a rho gamma, which is a guide for the group during recruitment. My rho gamma answered all of the questions that my group and I had, which helped me feel even more prepared for the recruitment process.”

The recruitment process is intended for students to find a chapter that has similar values and to help the potential member grow as a person and student. This concept also applies to chapters recruiting new members into their organization. 

More information about recruitment can be found on the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Engagement website or by contacting the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Engagement at 515-294-1023 or at [email protected].