Joining a sorority is not for everyone, but second semester recruitment makes the process much easier for those who do chose to join.
Joining a sorority was one of the best decisions of my college career. I have fostered so many friendships, have had amazing opportunities for leadership, and have accrued thousands of hours of laughs with the greatest women I have ever met. The timing was right for me, because my school has Recruitment during the spring semester. So rather than everyone joining a chapter two weeks into school first semester, we join as soon as we come back from winter break.
This timing has made the decision for many freshman and sophomores to go through even easier. When coming to college, everything is so new and different that participating in sorority recruitment on top of that can be too daunting for many. I hear stories all the time of women waiting to join a chapter until the next year because they want time to settle into the new environment.
With second semester recruitment, everyone has a semester under their belts and can feel more confident going in, knowing that it is the right decision for them. Of course you will still have people drop when they figure out Greek life is not right for them, but the majority of the potential new members know they want to be there.
Unfortunately spring recruitment comes with its own problems. Many of the women going through come in already knowing what house they want to join since they spent a semester meeting women from those houses in casual settings like class and through other friends. This makes it more difficult for them to be open minded and realize that they might actually like a house that they did not think they would have previously. Additionally, “dirty rushing” becomes much more of a problem since there is a whole semester for the women in the house to also meet the potential new members and sway them (sometimes obviously) to join their chapter before recruitment has even started. However, even with these issues, second semester rush is still better.
I would not be where I am today without my sorority. The choice to join one was made so much easier because we have second semester recruitment.