Can you pick the sorority you join?

Hi! First of all, I would not recommend going into rush with the sorority you want to join in mind. Honestly, you have to pick up the vibe of the house to really know / understand what the sorority is like. That being said, there is no guarantee that you will be able to join one of them — it really goes off of how you rank the house and how the house ranks you. It’s somewhat likely (but not guaranteed) that you will be able to join any one of them if you continuously rank them high enough. I don’t think you really need alumni letters (especially at W&M — Greek life isn’t that serious here), but having a high GPA helps depending on the sorority.

Hi! Okay, as said before thinking of which sorority you want to be in already without ever visiting the houses is a realllly bad idea! You don't know the vibes yet so wait until recruitment gets to get a sense of each chapter and where you think you would fit in. You can't pick the sorority you want to be in. Every day after visiting the houses, you pref with your recruitment counselors. Then, the next day before rush you get a piece of paper with the houses that didn't drop you which is your schedule for the day. Your preference matters but the houses matter more. So if you put Kappa down as #1 and they didn't want you back you would be dropped. Every rush day your list narrows down. The first day you go to all 10, then you drop two/two or more drop you, and so on.

Does it matter if you are (or are not) a legacy? My mom was in a sorority that is not on campus.

One thing that I wish I knew during recruitment is that yes, you do have some say in which sorority you may go back to. In reality though, it is mostly up to the houses. I kept trying to drop one house but I had an open slot in my schedule so I ended up having to go back.

I also wish I knew that not every girl gets a bid and some people drop out of recruitment. It's not all that common, but I feel like it should be known that someone is not guaranteed to join a sorority. If that happens, though, people can always try again the following year!

The ranks on this site don't really show the vibes of each sorority, you can pretty much tell for yourself during open house round.

Which sororities will I need alumni letters to help my chances for a bid?

Generally all the houses except bottom Tier are pretty selective and hard to get into. Lots of people get dropped on the first days if they don’t seem to fit in with the house so unless it’s a good fit both ways you probably won’t get to choose.

I went into recruitment wanting “top tier” house but I ended up having a really good time talking to the girls of one of the lower tier houses. I ended up joining the lower tier sorority and I recommend trying to ignore the tiers because in reality, they don’t exist. The ladies of the lowest tier sorority are just as hot and fun as the ladies of the highest tier. It was something that was hard for me to get past but when I realized my tier didn’t matter, I had so much more fun. Look at all of the sorority Instagrams and get a feel for the stuff they do together!