After seven long days of recruiting, WSU’s 14 sorority chapters have finally recruited their new member class of 2022. 

Junior neuroscience major Roshni Mathew is the Vice President of Recruitment and Marketing for the Kappa Delta sorority, and she is a big fan of the recruitment process and the opportunities it can bring. 

“When I was a PNM (potential new member), I personally had a really good recruitment experience. I was new to college and through recruitment I was able to kind of decide who I was going to surround myself with,” Mathew said. “I got to really look at myself, the values that I had and what I was looking for; I feel like it was a very insightful experience.”

Because of the impactful recruitment experience Mathew had, she knew she wanted to be on the front lines of recruitment this year. As recruitment chair for Kappa Delta, Mathew was able to lead her sorority sisters to recruit to the best of their abilities, she said.

“I think being a recruitment chair is really important because you kind of set a precedent for everyone in the sorority when it comes to recruitment,” Mathew said. “It’s kind of a culture that training for recruitment can be a really hard thing and I feel like this position is really important because when it’s done right it helps create a more positive environment.”

Formal recruitment is a week-long process, and it can be very draining for not only the recruiters, but the PNM’s, Mathew said. Because of that, there is an option to join a chapter through the process of informal recruitment, which can take away a lot of stress or allow girls who missed formal recruitment to still join a chapter. 

With formal recruitment, there are specific parties, certain ways to dress, certain topics of conversations that need to be followed, and informal recruitment takes all of that away, Mathew said. 

“Informal recruitment is kind of like how it sounds, it is a lot more casual, also known as COB, continuous open bidding. We’re able to casually give out bids during the timeframe in which we are open to COB,” Mathew said. “A lot of chapters will just host events, and anyone can come. If they like a girl they can be given a bid.”

Jessie James, junior family and consumer sciences major, is also the Vice President of Membership for her sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta. 

Formal recruitment this fall saw a much smaller number of girls hoping to join a sorority, so James worked very closely with the Panhellenic board to find the most effective way to recruit a smaller class, she said.

Not only was there a lower number of PNM’s in general, but many girls withdrew from the recruitment process in the middle of the week, meaning the numbers got smaller every day, James said. 

“Not only with the withdrawals, but also with the low numbers, I think that there is a really good opportunity for people to do COB. COB is a way for a lot of girls to have an easier opportunity to join a sorority without all the stress,” James said. “I personally think that there will definitely be more people going through COB this year because numbers were all over the place.”

Not only does informal recruitment allow for a reduced level of stress and anxiety, but it helps girls join houses that they may have been the perfect match for but just slipped through the cracks, James said. 

“The recruitment system works and it’s been proven that it works over the last however many years,” James said. “[However] I know for our chapter last year, we had someone that we really wanted in the chapter and somehow with quota and the way things were going it just didn’t end up working out, so we got her through COB and it can be a good backup plan in those cases.”

For those interested in COB and eager to be a part of Greek Life, students can email [email protected] or contact specific chapters via social media.