Women's rush events begin this weekend

About 1,600 women are expected to participate in sorority recruitment this weekend, visiting all 19 chapters during two days in the first step of a lengthy process.\nAlyson Jamell, vice president of recruitment for Panhellenic Association and a senior, said the purpose of the weekend is for the women to get acquainted with the chapters and the greek community.\n"The hardest thing for the rushees is keeping the chapters straight," Jamell said. "During six- and 12-party they have skits to distinguish them apart, but they don't have this at 19-party. Unless someone really sticks out in their mind they are going to have a hard time differentiating amongst the chapters."\nRecruitment is divided into events called 19-party, 12-party, six-party and three-party. During each step of the process, potential members spend an equal amount of time at each house and afterwards rank their top choices. \nNineteen-party takes place this weekend, and in January, rush participants come back to IU early from winter vacation and go through the rest of the parties in hopes of finding the right house.\nDuring 19-party, Jamell said participants are scheduled to be at each chapter for 30 minutes, speaking to a few members who will give rushees reasons to join the greek system. Following 19-party, each house calls back a certain number of girls back for 12-party in January.\nJamell said women's recruitment starts at the end of first semester because she said PHA wants the women to take the time to get to know the greek system by talking to sorority women in their classes and attending dinners at the chapters.\nDuring recruitment, rushees are put in groups and are assigned a recruitment counselor. PHA chooses the counselors after a competitive interview process.\n"The counselor is a person for girls to talk to and help them in the process of rush," Jamell said. "They are advisors, counselors and friends in a short amount of time."\nRush counselors are not allowed to associate with their chapter during the recruitment process. In January they live with their recruitment group in the residence halls.\nAt the end of the recruitment process, only 49 percent of the participants will be offered a place in a house.\nJamell said if a woman doesn't get a bid during formal rush they could participate in the snap bid process or continuous open biding.\nIf a house doesn't make its quota, on bid night they can call girls who participated in formal recruitment to join their house, although Jamell said this is fairly uncommon.\nAssociate Director of Student Activities for Greek Affairs Stan Sweeney said IU has one of the oldest and most competitive greek systems in the country.\n"We have the highest number of women participate in rush but we have the lowest placement," Sweeney said. "I wish we could place more women in our greek community. But greek life is not be-all-end-all. It's a great opportunity but there are many other great opportunities and organizations out there. Greek life is just one of them."\nSweeney said individual houses set how many girls they will take, many times determined by the number of available beds.\nSweeney said participating women should try to ask members deep and open-ended questions to get the most out of recruitment.\n"Ask how they build sisterhood or what their values are and how they put it to actions," Sweeney said. "Also ask how people handle conflict and dispute. You can't get a one word answers or sugar-coated answers to these type of questions."\nHe also suggested students ask questions concerning scholarship, philanthropy and financial obligations during the interview process.\nCarolyn Jones, greek life graduate assistant said it is important for girls to be themselves during the interview process.\nJones said rushees make the common mistake of judging a house too quickly during the short visits. She said this limits their opportunities and suggests keeping an open mind.\n"A lot of the conversation is dictated how the rusher is communicating to them," Jones said. "The greek women try to have a comfortable conversation and they set the tone on how the conversation goes. But the rushee can also lead the conversation and really show who they are"