Five days, 14 sororities and 313 women looking for social and scholastic opportunity and community involvement.

Recruitment Week, formerly known as “Rush,” helped hundreds of potential sorority members last week find the house that’s right for them.

The number of women who took part in this year’s Recruitment Week was down a bit from past years, said Brian Tenclinger, coordinator for Greek Affairs. “But that doesn’t bother us,” he said. “This is the first year we’ve encouraged women to sign-up for Recruitment Week only if they have a high school GPA of 2.5 or above. Academics were our definite focus this year, and we’re happy with the turn-out.”

This year’s recruitment began Aug. 14 and ended Thursday night, when participants received invitations to join sororities.

Tenclinger said the week began with 313 women and ended with 260 receiving invitations.

“Every potential member who goes through Recruitment Week and wants in a sorority receives an invitation,” he said. “The others decide that sorority life isn’t for them and withdraw from recruitment.”

On the first day of recruitment, brief stops were made at each sorority, allowing time for introductions. After initial visits, participants were asked to select 10 houses to re-visit on the second day.

The third day of recruitment featured a longer stop at each participant’s top five house preferences. Sorority members prepared a skit or video to demonstrate what to expect as a member of their house.

“We found that a skit was more successful in relaying what life at our house was like than a video,” said Amie Carey, recruitment chairwoman for Gamma Phi Beta, 318 Pearson Ave., and senior in speech communication. “We were able to get a better reaction from potential members.”

The fourth night of recruitment was “Preference Night.” It featured evening visits of an hour each to the top two sorority choices of each woman.

“‘Preference Night’ is designed to be a more serious and memorable experience,” Tenclinger said. “Potential members are able to really get a feel for a house and a glimpse of its sisterhood.”

The last day of Recruitment Week is known as “Bid Day.” On the evening of “Bid Day,” all potential members gathered on central campus to receive invitations.

Of the 260 women participating this year, 228 received an invitation to their first-preferenced sorority, and the other 32 were invited to join their second-choice house.

A computer program called “Compute-A-Rush” did the actual matching of women to houses. If possible, it assigned a woman to her first choice house. If not, the second choice house was assigned.

“The program works very well,” Tenclinger said. “It was written by an ISU professor and piloted at Iowa State, and it’s now used nationwide.”

Jill Crawford, freshman in pre-journalism and mass communication, was matched with her first choice house, Gamma Phi Beta.

“I felt really comfortable with the recruitment process and its outcome,” she said. “I knew right away where I would best fit in.”

Crawford wanted to join a sorority with people she felt comfortable with.

“Being in the sorority system makes it easy to meet new people and to get involved,” she said.