Each January, hordes of college women adorned in their nicest outfits and warmest puffer jackets fill Rugby Road, Chancellor Street and surrounding areas for sorority rush. From visiting 13 different houses to making tough choices each round, the University’s sorority recruitment process can be a stressful path to sisterhood. Thankfully, each of this year’s 1,100 rushees had someone in their corner while they searched for their home in the Greek life community.
At the University, recruitment is broken into four separate rounds over the course of six days — Round Robins, Philanthropy, House Tours and Preference. Throughout each round, sororities and Potential New Members must narrow their choices down until they are left with their pledge class and new chapter, respectively.
Like Cinderella had a Fairy Godmother, each PNM is assigned a “Pi Chi” — an unbiased student counselor affiliated with the Inter Sorority Council. Besides helping with difficult decisions and moments of disappointment, Pi Chis are also responsible for the general logistics of getting hundreds of women through the six day-long sorority selection process. From lining up PNMs in alphabetical order outside each house to walking them through the voting system after each round, Pi Chis wear many hats.
To become a Pi Chi, a woman must be an active member of one of the University’s 14 sororities participating in panhellenic recruitment, and she must have recruited with her chapter during at least one cycle. With experience on both sides of the rush process, Pi Chis are able to offer valuable insight to PNMs. Third-year College student Kristin Tidey decided to become a Pi Chi in part because of how helpful her own Pi Chi was when she rushed two years ago.
“[A Pi Chi] is a mentor for the PNMs,” Tidey said. “It’s an unbiased person to guide them through the process, when they have houses drop them and when they have hard decisions to make. We're kind of like therapists — we provide them with guidance.”
Because it holds such a key impact on PNMs’ rush experiences, the Pi Chi role comes with a detailed and competitive application process. Interested sorority women first complete a written form, and if they are selected to move on to the next round, a situational interview follows.
“They asked some in-depth questions like ‘What would you do if a girl comes to you crying because a house she likes dropped her?’” Tidey said. “They ask you different scenarios to make sure that you're able to be unbiased and provide good advice to the girls.”
To some outside of Greek life, a recruitment “therapist” may seem unnecessary. But when PNMs are faced with pressing choices, the extra support can make all the difference. This specifically comes into play when PNMs must decide which houses to “cut” and which to keep based on a few short conversations with active members. Like Tidey, third-year Batten student Sophie Holland opted to serve as a Pi Chi this recruitment season because of how helpful she found her Pi Chi to be when she was making difficult decisions during recruitment.
“Right when I walked out of Preference Round, I remember going up to my Pi Chi and being like ‘I have no idea what I'm going to do,’” Holland said. “She said to me, ‘That's okay, we can talk about it,’ and she was great.”
While Pi Chis may make their job look easy — sporting matching sweatsuits and encouraging smiles throughout each long and cold day — coaching PNMs to work through their emotions is not a skill learned overnight. Morgan McCroy, a fourth-year nursing student and Pi Chi, said she and her co-recruitment counselors underwent extensive empathy training from the ISC to prepare for tough conversations.
“[We learned] how to listen to what the PNM is saying and how to not just give our own opinions in response,” McCroy said.
Once the training process concludes, Pi Chis formally disaffiliate from their chapters by Dec. 1, and stay disaffiliated for the duration of recruitment so PNMs do not feel pressure to withhold their feelings about their recruitment counselor’s chapter.
“We've wiped our sororities off our social media accounts and our LinkedIn accounts,” Tidey said. “We have taken our last names out of our emails, from our GroupMe names, basically from everything in an attempt to make sure that our PNMs don't find out what sorority we're in.”
When the actual rush process begins — which, this year, was Jan. 8 — each Pi Chi is assigned roughly 10-15 PNMs to support throughout recruitment.
During each round while the PNMs are inside the sorority houses, makeup totes, black puffer jackets and all sorts of other belongings remain outdoors. Keeping watch over these items in the freezing temperatures of mid-January is yet another job of the Pi Chis.
“We're in charge of their belongings,” Tidey said. “All of them have bags, and most of them have jackets. We have these big bins [for the PNMs’ things], and we have to bring the bins in every time we go inside a house. We can always just stay outside, but it is either cold or raining.”
When all the logistics of running a round conclude, it is time for one a more emotional aspect of the Pi Chi role — counseling PNMs through getting cut from houses they wanted back. Just as PNMs select which houses they want to return to after each round, sororities choose the women they want to see back. The limited number of spots available in each chapter can lead to disappointing news for a number of PNMs.
“The cut from the Round Robins to Philanthropy is hard because during Round Robins, you go to all 13 houses, and then you go to a maximum of 10 for Philanthropy, but many of my girls didn't have the full 10,” Tidey said. “I tried to tell them beforehand that it's totally normal not to have a full schedule, but it still does hurt when you get cut from a sorority.”
Drawing from her past experience as a recruiter, Tidey assured her PNMs that cuts are not personal — many chapters have limited space.
“I tell them that it's based on a five-minute conversation, and it does not define them as people, but it is so hard it is hard for them to grasp,” Tidey said. “I definitely had some girls who were disappointed.”
Along with the challenging moments, Pi Chis are also able to witness the joy PNMs experience as they fall in love with different sororities. No two women rushing are the same, and helping them navigate unique journeys throughout the recruitment process is often rewarding for their Pi Chis.
“I think it is super cool how one girl will really like one house, and another girl will really like another house,” Holland said. “It really showcases the well-roundedness of Greek life at the University and how not every sorority is meant for everyone.”
At the end of what can be an exhausting recruitment process, many Pi Chis have formed lasting connections with the women they mentored. From supporting PNMs through their most disappointing recruitment days to celebrating on Bid Day, Pi Chis are there every step. Whether it be a word of encouragement or a sage piece of advice, Pi Chis keep PNMs grounded during the frenzy of recruitment, helping them make clear-headed decisions that lead them to a sorority that feels like home.
“It's definitely rewarding to see how excited the girls are about recruitment and to hear how happy they are when they go back to the houses that they love,” McCroy said. “I can’t wait to see where everyone ends up because the recruitment process, even though it's difficult, is made so that you end up in the house that you're supposed to be in.”
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