Record Number of Bids Received in Auburn's 2010 Recruitment

Recruitment, for many Auburn women, is a defining moment of their college careers. For incoming freshmen, a sorority can mean a new group of friends, a home away from home and a large number of role models. Older women deciding to participate are offered a second chance to start over and be involved in a close-knit group of college friends after they may have initially decided that recruitment was not for them.

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Each year, the number of women who go through recruitment appears to grow larger, and this summer, more potential new members, or PNMs, received bids than ever before. Out of the 1,211 PNMs participating in recruitment, 157 decided that a sorority was not for them prior to bid matching. A total of 1,021 young women of the 1,054 who participated in bid matching received bids. In fact, according to Rachel Coffey, Auburn University Panhellenic’s vice president of recruitment, every woman would have received a bid if they have maximized their preference options. That is, if all of the PNMs had listed the parties they visited on Preference Day, the final day of recruitment, all of them would have received bids.

This large number of PNMs going through 2010 recruitment proved to alter the normal proceedings for the sororities. In recruitment, there are different rounds before Bid Day: Ice Water Teas, Philanthropy, Skit and Preference. Each round is more serious as sororities get to know the potential new members better and girls are released at each level, in addition to PNMs releasing sororities as they find their best fits.

“The round that was most affected was Ice Water Teas,” said Kathleen Boehme, president of Alpha Omicron Pi sorority. “We usually have about 60 to 65 girls in each party, but on the first day, we had a party with over 80 girls!” So how did sororities deal with these increased numbers?

“We knew it was something we just had to get through,” Boehme said. “Everyone did their part to make all of the potential new members feel welcome and comfortable. Even though we may have been stressed behind the scenes, we always put on our best face so that we could still have a great recruitment!”

Most sororities’ quotas were increased in lieu of the large number of women who participated in recruitment. Pi Chis, the women selected to guide groups of potential new members through recruitment, played a large role in increasing the number of bids given out, as they encouraged their PNMs to maximize their options. That is, giving a sorority a chance that maybe the woman did not originally plan on.

Auburn University Panhellenic experienced yet another great year of recruitment, and more PNMs than ever received a bid that allowed them to be happily part of a sorority.