With the beginning of another school year comes something that is a mystery to most and dreaded by many: fraternity and sorority recruitment. As of last Wednesday, sorority recruitment at UF has come to a close. For many women on campus, the last week has been filled with makeup, dresses, heels, small talk and long hours. Girls from all over the country — and world — come to UF to visit each sorority house and find their homes and future sisterhoods through a process that could accurately be described as grueling and rather unpleasant.
As a Panhellenic woman myself, I am all too familiar with this process, having experienced it as both a potential new member (PNM) and as a recruiter for my own chapter. I’m not writing this to talk about what it’s like to participate in recruitment or to persuade anyone that they should or should not rush upon coming to college. I’m writing this to discuss something I’ve noticed about this process in the three years I’ve been a part of it.
It is not what it seems, and people both on the inside and on the outside of recruitment may think they know what it is like for each PNM going through it. Truthfully, it is a very different experience for each PNM, and many women go into it with the expectation that it will work out just as it had for others who went through before them. It is my genuine hope that every woman who rushed had a great experience. I hope they all feel valued, and I hope they all found where they belong and are truly happy to be there. I hope they got a bid, opened it Wednesday and cried because they were so happy. I hope they ran home into the arms of their new sisters and never looked back. That is, after all, the best-case scenario and what every girl wants.
However, I recognize that this is not always what happens. Sometimes, a woman will fall in love with a house only to find out she will not be visiting it the next day. Sometimes, she will fall in love with several and find none of them on her schedule. Sometimes, a woman will receive a call with the news that she has no more houses on her schedule. This may have been the very first thing she ever did in college, and she is being told that she won’t be welcomed into a sisterhood. In a school where Greek life is heavily emphasized and advertised, this can be devastating.
No matter whether a girl experiences the best, the worst or something in between, she is still just as much a human being as the next. She is every bit as beautiful, loved, intelligent, kind, caring and worthy as she was before taking this journey. Greek life has been a wonderful and integral part of my college experience, and I am very grateful for it. However, it is not the only way to make friends and feel accepted in college.
Recruitment can be nothing short of traumatizing for some women, and if anyone reading this has been negatively affected or hurt by this process, I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart. I firmly believe that you can be just as happy — or happier — outside of Greek life than you would be inside it.
If your path brings you to Greek life, I wish you all the best and hope your sisterhood is everything you dreamt of and more. If it takes you elsewhere, I hope you feel fulfilled and find your own path doing whatever you love doing. Greek life is merely a tiny part of everything UF and the world have to offer, and I hope you find what you love.
Taylor Cavaliere is a UF journalism and psychology junior. Her column appears on Mondays.
