Every year, college students decide whether they are going to rush, or in other words, “Go Greek.” On Sunday, Kent State’s Bid Day, women were initiated and welcomed into their sorority chapters.

“Sunday is when we give the bids out to our girls on whatever chapter they decide to go to. All of the sororities go on the lawn and it’s just a big festival,” said Shannon Carlough, a sophomore fashion merchandising major and sorority recruitment counselor. “Everybody is cheering for you, and it’s so happy to get new sisters and have them get to meet you and it’s just a very exciting day.”

Women register for the recruitment process through an online system that tracks who signs up. Registration costs $50 to go through recruitment. Through that, it covers the cost for materials and all that it costs to run the recruitment process. They go through the course of three rounds of recruitment. This is a process for both potential members and current members.

“Our role as SRCs going through recruitment is trying to show the girls what your sorority is really about; really talking to the girls and seeing if they’re right for your chapter,” Carlough said. “If you could see them with leadership qualities and things like that then that’s what we really look for and we practice practice practice.”

Although welcoming, there are certain standards and tasks that need to be met for recruitment.

“To prepare for recruitment, we encourage the women to spend some time figuring out what their values are and what they care about and to make sure that when they’re going and visiting with the chapter, they are finding the chapter that best fits them and their values,” said Dennis Campbell, assistant director for fraternity and sorority life in the Center for Student Involvement.

Campbell said that they receive permission for the release of recruits’ academic information provided to chapters. Sororities are able to view possible sisters’ GPA and compare them to their respective minimum GPA requirements.

Recruitment week is a stressful and time-consuming period for both the members and those women who are going through it.

“You get no sleep, there’s no sleep at all … honestly,” said Megan Upham, a junior marketing major. “We just put so much time and work into (the rounds themselves) and making everything absolutely perfect … recruitment week is just exhausting and we just stay up so late to make sure that everything is perfect for the girls.”

Greek life is meant to bring men and women together to find people with similar values and brings service to the community, especially through philanthropy.

“I would say the most rewarding part is just being able to give back because I didn’t realize how much we care about our community and our philanthropy,” Upham said. “Giving back, and to see the changes that we can make just because there are so many of us … is truly rewarding.”

With every pro there is a con. With Greek life, a major con is stereotypes.

“It’s crazy what they say about us because we’re looked at in the media as these really bad girls that are slutty and … sleep around, drink and party … we actually have a ton of standards,” Carlough said. “We have academic standards, we have financial standards, we have behavioral standards … If we break one of the standards we get punished, so it’s kind of hard to see all of these stereotypes about the Greek community because we do so much for the community.”

Greek life affects people in many ways. Recruitment week can be physically and mentally exhausting, and the women of the chapter got a little taste of it.

“I would say being in Greek life, you really learn to come out of your comfort zone because there (are) a lot of leadership opportunities with different events,” Carlough said. “I think all in all, it’s just a great experience to go through. You just meet amazing people, and it’s just so much fun and it looks great on your resume too. It’s another form of opening up doors.”

Brittney Prather is the Greek life reporter, contact her at [email protected].