Simpson College sororities had a successful Fall 2025 recruitment process with excellent outcomes, welcoming five new members to each house.
The sororities wrapped up formal recruitment on Sept. 15 with Bid Day at 6 p.m. in Blackbox.
Ava Carnes is part of the Panhellenic Council and vice president of recruitment. She enjoyed being more integrated with a collected group of girls and working together with other houses.
“Bid days are the best thing ever. To have the same amount of girls to go to each house is a beautiful thing, and we didn’t know if that was how it was going to go,” Carnes said. “It’s all at the end of the day, a mathematical equation that none of us are in charge of. I didn’t know how it was going to turn out, but I had a gut feeling it was going to be five girls in each chapter.”
The sororities started with 40 Potential New Members (PNMs) for formal recruitment, and closed with 15 PNMs. This year’s recruitment process looked different for PNMs than in previous years.
For the past two years, PNMs have been told to attend four events lasting three to four days. In this year’s approach, PMNs had to appear at the preference round on Sept. 12 to complete the formal recruitment process.
The preference round entails the PNMs visiting their top picks of houses they would like to be in. They have the opportunity to connect with the girls and match with one another. Having the preference round in the formal recruitment process plays a significant role in the houses’ choice of who to give their bids to.
Audrey Gordan is the Pi Beta Phi Vice President of Recruitment. She started going through formal recruitment, but joined later through Continuous Open Bidding (COB) her first year.
“We were trying to make it more accessible for people that are busy and don’t have an entire weekend free. Because if you didn’t go to one of those events and you couldn’t make it up, then you couldn’t go through formal recruitment,” Gordon said. “Whereas here you have a little more flexibility, the only thing you have to be is preference round.”
Carnes said she likes how sororities allow women to collaborate while she works in Panhellenic and in all the houses.
“It’s not often that women get such an opportunity to be in a true collective like this. I think that at this point in our lives, society and history. It is such a great thing to fall back on,” Carnes said.
Simpson sororities had a successful formal recruitment, but will continue recruiting new members with informal recruitment through the rest of the fall semester and into spring.
