Bid Day on its way

Eliza Dillard | Opinion Editor

Take a look around campus this week and you’ll surely see women clad from head to toe in their Greek letters. Yep, it’s sorority recruitment week, and the only thing on every sorority woman’s and potential new member’s mind is Bid Day, or the day that new members are formally invited to join a sorority. As a member of a sorority, I know firsthand just how taxing recruitment is. As if college isn’t stressful enough, imagine a week when you have to sing, dance, scream, smile, and talk nonstop until the wee hours of the morning on top of keeping up with homework. Sleep? Forget about it. Sleep becomes unfamiliar during recruitment. Sorority recruitment might sound similar to being tortured, but it’s worth it in the end.

It’s one of those concepts that you can never fully explain. Sorority recruitment in general is one of those experiences that words could never do justice. If you don’t experience it for yourself, there’s no way you could ever understand just how demanding, exhausting, overwhelming and rewarding it really is. Some people who aren’t in Greek organizations laugh off sorority recruitment like it’s some sort of joke, but this stuff is no joke. Sororities plan months in advance for recruitment.  Hours are spent practicing conversation skills, perfecting skits, making decorations, singing songs and screaming chants. My sorority held an all-day recruitment workshop back in April, and recruitment is just being held now.

Some may wonder why sorority recruitment is such an intense process, and I actually still wonder this myself and have no good answer to the question. It seems a little unfair to me that fraternity recruitment consists of events such as golfing, watching sports, eating wings…you know, fun things that don’t require months of preparation and stress. Girls always have to be more complicated than guys, though, and thus sorority recruitment is complicated as well.

All I can say is that all of the hard work, pain, laughter, smiles, tears and exhaustion make getting new members so much sweeter. To see the girls you worked so hard to get running towards you on Bid Day gives you an indescribable feeling. No, we don’t get to sit around and eat wings during our recruitment period, but each sorority does get a great group of girls who blend perfectly with existing members, and that makes all of it worth it.