<p>I am so excited to rush for a sorority at Alabama for fall 2015 but I am also pretty nervous! I visited at the beginning of the month and fell in love with the houses on sorority row! My sisters were both legacies at Phi Mu and that would be my first choice! Does being a legacy guarantee me a bid? Is rushing at Alabama really competitive? I would feel horrible if I couldn’t carry on the tradition my sisters began. Does anybody have any tips for rushing? Thank you! Roll Tide!</p>
<p>Hi, Yes- it is competitive, but if you prepare you can maximize your chances for a successful recruitment. Get recommendations to each sorority. No- being a legacy is not a guarantee. Don’t go into recruitment with your heart set on one sorority. You may be disappointed. Keep an open mind. Look for the guides that Bama Panhellenic puts out every year. You can refer to last year’s guide to get a good idea of how to prepare for recruitment. Read sororitygirl101.com- good information there. greekchat.com is also good for reading the threads on how to prepare for rush. The people there are not always very nice- but there is good information in past threads about recruitment at Bama. Good luck! </p>
<p>Hi Emily, InvolvedmomFL has hit all the high points! UA has the biggest sorority rush in the nation and, while it’s competitive, it is indeed possible to find the best sorority for you. You will probably hear nasty comments about every group, but really each sorority, no matter what “tier” people claim they’re in, will have gorgeous sisters, plain sisters, outstanding scholars, barely-making grades students, girls from wealthy families, girls whose families are scraping to send them to school, campus leaders, girls who are happy to do what they’re told, women good at business, women good at caring for children - all kinds of students in every sorority.
Being a legacy may - or may not - get you an invitation back for second round. Many of the chapters have enough legacies coming through to fill 3 or 4 new members classes. Also remember that chapter personalities vary, so your sisters’ chapter may be totally different from UA’s chapter. That said, these are 300-member chapters. You may never be close friends with EVERY sister, but you will be close to a good many of them.</p>
<p>Top tips: get great grades. Get involved in some organizations or sports. Volunteer somewhere. Pay attention to grooming and clothes, but head-to-toe designer (or even heel to toe) is NOT necessary. Practice your conversation skills. Smile! And get great grades (can’t emphasize that enough!).</p>
<p>Thank you @Southlander and @InvolvedmomFL for such great advice! I really appreciate it! Roll Tide!</p>
<p>Oh yes - you can search the U of Alabama forum here and find a number of questions about sororities discussed over the last couple of years. All the info is still pertinent.</p>
<p>Great advice Southlander! They have a Spring Preview Day, be sure and register and attend that.</p>
<p>@StangSVT Do you think attending Spring Preview Day is a must? I’m from Maryland so I’m not sure if I’d be able to make it down there for that. </p>
<p>My D was unable to attend the spring preview. She still had a successful recruitment. However, she did feel a little behind the curve.</p>
<p>I would say attending spring preview day is helpful but not mandatory. One of the best things that comes from it is it gives the PNM a chance to go house to house with short stops at each, much like the first stage of recruitment.</p>
<p>Spring preview WILL:
*Get you familiar with campus layout, especially sorority row, and with some of the sororiites
*Give you a preview of the sorority members, house interiors, campus dress
*Give you a preview of conversation techniques and topics, although there is no one-on-one rushing (I’m pretty sure)</p>
<p>Spring preview will NOT:
*Affect whether or not you get a bid, nor which sorority you get a bid from
*Give you a penalty if you can’t go
*Tell you exactly what to wear for parties
*Negate the need for alumnae recommendations</p>
<p>Many girls don’t even know which college they’re going to by then, plus as a senior you will have a LOT of things to attend in the spring. So please don’t worry if you can’t go! It’s nice to do if you can, but is neither necessary nor required.</p>
<p>Southlander’s top tips are key. My daughter was coming from Northern VA and did not come to the Preview Day. One of her roommates had attended and during recruitment, my daughter felt this roommate was a little more “in the know” and had met some of the girls in the different houses. She was called back to some supposedly top houses throughout the process and was even promised a bid to her top choice on the final day. In the end, my daughter got into a great sorority and her roommate got just a mediocre one…she did not get a bid from the one she’d been promised. I know she is happy with hers and in the end, everyone says you will know which one is right…and that was true for my daughter. The house she ended up in wasn’t really on her radar when she’s started recruitment, but it caught her att</p>
<p>Having some technical difficulties here…continuing.</p>
<p>The house she ended up in wasn’t on her radar when she started recruitment, but it caught her attention on the first day and remained at the top for the week. We took the advice from a previous post and used the money we would have spent traveling to Spring Preview on clothes and accessories for recruitment. My daughter had a strong resume-high GPA, was an all-state athlete, had multiple awards and scholarships, and a variety of community service. She also had at least two recommendations for each house and she is outgoing.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that sororities vary from campus to campus and being a legacy may help you at UA if you are in the running anyway, but isn’t a guarantee. It really is important to keep an open mind because you may have a particular house in mind at the beginning, that you end up not liking at all during recruitment. Some of the best advice was from a rho chi, who told my daughter that the best position to be in was to have your top three on pref day…that you would be happy in any of them. So not to hold out for a particular one only, but to maximize your options to top three. That is how it ended up for my daughter and she would have been happy in any of them, but just slightly liked her top one more…and that is where she ended up!</p>
<p>Good luck-my daughter thought recruitment was the best week ever!</p>
<p>"MontessoriMom2 - I hope your daughter filed a complaint against the sorority who “promised” a bid. That is a HUGE No No! Note to others - no one girl can guarantee a bid. What the member said could have been an honest mistake, but still was a violation of the rules. To OP - legacy to a particular sorority --even from UA-- does not guarantee a bid. If you are not familiar with the current group of girls at a house, your best plan is not to talk about past affiliations or favorites during recruitment interviews. Sororities are rated poorly if too many on their call back list decline so they will drop a girl before she has the chance to drop them.</p>
<p>I realize I wasn’t very clear in that sentence about the promised bid. It was promised to my daughter’s roommate, not my daughter. And roomie did not report it as she knew several girls in the house. The point I was trying to make was that my daughter stessed a bit because she hadn’t gone to Spring Preview. At the beginning of Recruitment, she felt like her roomie was in a better position, and knew girls in a lot of the houses because of Spring Preview.</p>
<p>However, as it turned out, my daughter ended up in a great house, and the one which was her first choice. Her roommate held onto the one house as her number one, and despite the promise, they did not offer her a bid and she ended up with her second choice. Although she is happy enough in that house, she didn’t necessarily bring her top three to preference day…because she held out out for that top one, she was sure she would get, she didn’t really focus on the other two houses. In other words, she liked the other two, but didn’t love them. She might have loved another if she hadn’t been so focused on the “top” one in her mind.</p>
<p>My daughter went in with an open mind, but also prepared for it most of her senior year, by gathering recs and Recruitment clothes, and building her resume. Her top three houses were in her top five favorites each evening of recruiment, even though she mixed up their order some days. In the end, though, she went to pref with them all and that evening, called and said she would be happy in any of them.</p>
<p>So in our experience, Spring Preview is not a must, but maximizing your options is!</p>
<p>To be fair - girls sometimes think they’ve been promised a bid but haven’t. “Hope to see you again tomorrow” could be interpreted several different ways. </p>
<p>Worth a read, if only to prepare yourself for the “sticker shock”!</p>
<p><a href=“Greek Letters at a Price - The New York Times”>The New York Times - Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos;
<p>Describing any sorority at BAMA as “mediocre” does the entire Panhellenic a disservice as well as is misleading to pNMs. The truth is, BAMA has an AWESOME group of sororities, each of which has members who LOVE their sisters and whom are thrilled to belong to that house. The size and strength of each sorority at UA compares favorably to any GLO anywhere. The best advice I could offer is to embrace the process, put your best effort forward, and trust you will find yourself where you belong in the end.</p>