Before I transferred to Rollins, I saw what it was like to go through virtual recruitment at an SEC school- this is my day-by-day experience:
Day 1
I woke up at 8 am to start my recruitment orientation modules. Under normal circumstances these modules would have been in person and presented by every sorority. After finishing my modules I had to join a zoom meeting with my Rho Gam, aka my guide through recruitment, to get to know each other. Once I finished my meeting I worked some more on the tedious orientation modules and had my second meeting with my Rho Gam for the day. The two hour long meeting would have been in person as well if it wasn’t for coronavirus, but instead it was moved online. After the meeting we all began working through the videos that the sororities shared for scholarship round and started cutting some out.
Day 2
Day two was a long day full of watching videos of sororities trying to sell us on their chapters. The online format of recruitment wasn’t helping me with the issue of telling sororities apart from each other, so eventually, they all started sounding the same. I took notes to help find differences, but it was too early to know which chapter I felt attached to. I sent in my preferences and the next morning received a list of the sororities I was called back to. Since it’s a mutual selection process, they were also cutting people even though they hadn’t met us yet.
Day 3
This was a long day and the first time I actually talked to the sororities in “person”, face to face over zoom. People typically get called back to 5 sororities at FSU, so I was surprised to see ten call me back. The downside was that I had to spend the next two days in an uncomfortable chair smiling. I got my schedule around 8 am from my Rho Gam, but my first zoom wasn’t until 2:20. First I saw Alpha Omicron Pi, then at 3:50 I saw Zeta Tau Alpha, then 4:40 was Gamma Phi Beta, 6:20 was Alpha Gamma Delta, 7:10 was Delta Zeta, 8:00 was Chi Omega, and finally 8:50 was Kappa Kappa Gamma. At the end of the night I went to a late meeting with my Rho Gam to discuss the day’s events. After a day of zoom calls I couldn’t imagine how tiring these events would’ve been if they had been in person!
Day 4
I had to join another call with my Rho Gam bright and early just to make sure we were feeling good about the process. Then I sat and waited for about 30 minutes before going to my first “party” (aka event) at 9:20 am with Pi Beta Phi. Then I met with Alpha Delta Pi at 11:50 and Alpha Phi at 1:30. After that I had another call with my Rho Gam to talk about making my cuts, and then I submitted my cuts. I had to stay awake until 10 for another meeting with my Rho Gam which went until about 10:30. While I loved feeling included in the process, the timing for Rho Gam meetings meant I would suffer from sleep deprivation the whole week (and this wasn’t like some zoom classes that you can sleep through).
Day 5 & 6
I woke up and had a meeting with my Rho Gam to figure out which sororities I had to go to for the next two days. Let’s just say after this week I was very familiar with all of the zoom features. After I got my schedule I took a nap to counter my sleep deprivation because my first event wasn’t until 12:50 with Gamma Phi Beta. Then I had a meeting at 5:30 with Pi Phi, another meeting at 6:30 with Alpha Gamma Delta, and the last meeting at 8:30 with Alpha Omicron Pi. Since I had all of my calls on the fifth day, on the sixth day I got to sleep in and relax.
Day 7
I started the day by waking up around 9:30 for a zoom call with my Rho Gam to get my last two sororities for the day. My first was at 10:50 with Alpha Gamma Delta and the next event was at 2:50 with Gamma Phi Beta. At both events, we saw videos of their usual preference day rituals since we weren’t in person. I had until 5 to make a decision on whether I wanted to accept a bid or drop and try for C.O.B (continuous open bidding). I had a lot of thinking to do so I called my Rho Gam in between meetings and had to wait a day to see whether I received a bid or wanted to do C.O.B for the first semester.
Day 8
I jumped on a zoom call with my Rho Gam to finally end recruitment week. She started by telling us which sorority she’s in, which was a surprise to most of us since Rho Gams have to keep their affiliation a secret for the recruitment process. Then she broke us off into separate breakout rooms on zoom, where she told me I got two bids and I could choose to accept one of them if I wanted to, or try C.O.B. Because of the pandemic, FSU Panhellenic decided to offer multiple bids for the first time in history so that we could meet the sisters in person on bid day and make the right choice. Eventually I decided to transfer schools, but the recruitment process is something I will never forget, even though it was an unprecedented process.