As the UA in August welcomed its largest freshman class of over 9,300 students, 4,900 from Arizona, UA sororities saw their largest class of recruits.
There were 2,153 women registered for formal recruitment, 25% more than last year, University of Arizona Panhellenic officials said.
Last year, 1,717 women registered for formal recruitment, and 1,418 received a bid to join, said Laura John, the senior coordinator of leadership and educational initiatives with the Panhellenic Council.
This year, 1,660 women received bids, a 17% increase.
John gives some of the credit to TikTok and another UA – the University of Alabama.
In 2021, Bama Rush took over TikTok, with potential new members sharing everything from what was in their rush bags to their outfits of the day. Some women gained millions of followers by sharing their recruitment experiences.
The campaign went viral, and potential new members at the University of Arizona jumped on the bandwagon to share their recruitment experiences online, too.
John credits the social media presence for pushing enrollment numbers over 2,000, not quite matching Alabama’s 2,500; ‘Bama is the most competitive sorority recruitment school in the country.
“One of the challenges, when we talk a lot about sorority recruitment, is it’s so nuanced, and there so much that is taken into consideration in the process, which is why sometimes it is really hard to talk about the numbers,” John said.
The UA’s 13 sororities distributed 1,660 bids, which means nearly 500 women did not receive a bid. This includes some women who dropped out of the process.
For those who did not receive bids, Panhellenic provides information on other ways to get involved on campus, including information about submitting an interest form for Continuous Open Bidding, the informal recruitment process. This fall, the chapters participating are Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Epsilon Phi, Alpha Sigma Alpha and Phi Sigma Rho.
To learn more about Arizona Panhellenic, visit their Instagram and website.
Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.
