Columbia Sorority Information

shockwaveride
Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:25:00 +0000

I’m pretty active in the Greek scene (member of a fraternity) and a large majority of my female friends are in the greek system so I’ll chime in here.

Greek life won’t consume your life here. The sororities are a bit more “intense” than most of the frats here in terms of time commitment but by no means will it consume all of your time. Many of my friends in greek life are actively involved outside of the greek system also. By virtue of belonging to a greek organization, however, many of your friends will be made through brother/sisterhood. There’s also a degree of variety in terms of how involved each sorority is and even within a chapter, there’s sometimes a wide range.

From what I know, recruitment IS deferred until January. It’s a formalized multi-day thing where you have multiple rounds to meet sisters from each of the 4 sororities and will have an “advisor” of sorts from one of the sororities (it’s random and you’re not supposed to know which house she’s from) to help you through the process. You’re guaranteed at least 1 meeting with each house. If they like you, you’ll get invites to subsequent rounds for each house. There’s also something with pref cards … but I’m not sure how that works… (maybe someone who has gone though this can elucidate–I’m only speaking secondhand from my friends complaining about how it’s a big nervous deal for them.

From where my friends were offered bids it seems like the system works well… e.g. the houses have certain “personalities” and there are very few cases of “how the hell did she end up there.”

Barnard students note… The IGC is currently locking horns with SGA (Barnard student gov) over recognition of Panhel/IGC (read about it on bwog) so for next year there’s rumor of a Barnard “cap”.