dear pnms

Since 90% of GW Greek life is made up of people who didn’t know they wanted to go Greek until they showed up to recruitment, the majority of PNMs have no idea what recruitment is like and are planning on just winging it. If you’ve come to this site for guidance, here are some tips you might not know:

1. We don’t care if you party. Like, at all. We care if you’re dumb about it. Remember how you didn’t post pictures of yourself drinking when you were applying to college and made your social media private? That same philosophy applies to sororities. We will make you take the underage drinking pictures down when you join, including on your VSCO thay you linked in the bio of your private Instagram (sidenote: seriously???). That is, if you don’t get flagged for it before recruitment because we do definitely stalk you. Just take it down.

2. Form your own opinions. You’ve had a whole semester to make friends and they probably have their own ideas of what sororities are “good” and “bad.” Those ideas will likely all change the minute you start recruitment. Don’t let your friends sway you and definitely don’t let ridiculous posts on here influence your opinions on chapters. The truth is out there if you want to know so badly: grade comparisons are public, articles on the internet, etc. but keep in mind as well that stereotypes are meant to keep you in a box. You’re an individual, and you have your own opinions. Join whatever group YOU feel comfortable in, and if it’s not the same as your roommate, that’s okay!

3. You have way less choice than it seems. Your two biggest opportunities to influence this process are choosing your attitude and choosing to continue. Rankings and all that are nice, but you end up where the system wants you to. If it’s not the right fit, evaluate yourself and try again next year.

4. Be nice to everyone. You have no idea who will be your future sister or whose sorority you just visited. Girls have been removed from recruitment for being rude to sisters during rounds. The girl you’re rude to might be best friends with girls in the house you love and despite what this website says, we’re all friendly and we all talk.

5. Be yourself. This process can kind of feel like mutual judging, but we want to get to know you and want to like you. There was a girl last year who wore these outrageous outfits, like an animal print jacket with hot pink feather trim. We loved it because she owned it and was confident! If you’re fake you’ll either end up joining a house that doesn’t suit you and hating having to keep up a facade or we’ll see right through it and drop you.

6. There’s nothing wrong with COB. Chapters who can do it can choose not to, and some sororities are forced to any time possible by their HQ. informal style suits some girls better.

Pan love!