<p>I will be attending IU in the fall and wanted to know a little bit about recruitment. At first, I didn't think I wanted to go through recruitment, but after talking to a couple close friends that are in sororities at IU, it is definitely something I want to do. However, I'm not a legacy and have very little knowledge of the whole greek system. Will this affect my chances? And should I get letters of recommendation from alumna?</p>
<p>Yes get letters of rec, also there are several entrance exams you can take that will also help your chances. Don’t forget about your SGPA (sorority grade point average) which you will need to maintain to keep up with the competition. This is different than regular GPA because in that it adds social performance, clothing collection, and previous boyfriends into the mix.</p>
<p>^^ Ha. Ha. Not funny. </p>
<p>Letters of rec aren’t essential at IU like they are at some southern schools, but if you can get them, I would. IU has an extremely competitive Greek system since, unlike essentially all other schools, most chapters require members to live in the chapter house until they graduate. This obviously caps the number of incoming members to the number of beds they have available. A lot of girls going through know absolutely nothing…I signed up for recruitment on a whim and didn’t even know half the houses existed 
My two best pieces of advice are this: </p>
<p>1) Don’t develop a bad reputation during your fall semester, as it will follow you through to recruitment. We all talk, and if you’re the girl that got wasted and ended up dancing naked on a table at a fraternity, everyone will know about it. On the contrary, DO develop a good reputation if you can. Even if you don’t know a single sorority member coming in, you’ll probably meet some through your classes, at parties, or through clubs. </p>
<p>2) Always keep an open mind and maximize your options. Although the numbers for IU recruitment look bad, a ton of girls drop out because they didn’t get certain chapters back, or only XYZ wanted them at preference round and not ABC. The recruitment process really does work as it’s intended to. A year or so after I joined my chapter, I realized that chapters I thought I loved wouldn’t have been a great fit for me. So even if you think that ABC is the only chapter for you, but only DEF invites you back to pref, go and see what happens.</p>
<p>Not being a legacy and having no recs isn’t going to kill you at IU. What does kill most PNMs during recruitment is a poor GPA/lack of campus involvement/bad attitude, so keep all of those in stride and you’ll be well on your way to having a better recruitment experience than most already. HOWEVER, if you can secure recs in any way I would highly encourage it. They definitely aren’t an automatic “in” to a sorority but they do have their advantages and certainly can’t hurt. Even though you’re not a legacy there’s a good chance that you know at least a couple of sorority alumnae or have connections to them… friends’ parents, family friends, older cousins, etc… ask around and see if you can get any of them to secure a rec for you.</p>
<p>Don’t worry right now about limited knowledge of the Greek system. You’ll find out a lot more during first semester, and Panhel puts on a “Greek Opportunities For Women” event in October every year that does a great job of breaking down recruitment and sorority life.</p>