The Panhellenic Association is the largest women's organization on campus, home to 11 organizations. Students can join Panhellenic organizations through the Formal Recruitment process or through an informal process called "Continuous Open Bidding." This page will overview both methods of membership recruitment Panhellenic organizations use to bring in new members to the community.
Formal Recruitment is the primary process the National Panhellenic Conference sororities at the OU use to recruit new members. Formal recruitment is typically conducted before the start of fall semester and lasts 5 days. Formal Recruitment is a fully structured process facilitated by the Panhellenic Association.
Formal Recruitment involves structured rounds and scheduled events. Invitations are facilitated by Panhellenic.
After total is reset each semester, several chapters are eligible to participate in Informal Recruitment, or Continuous Open Bidding (COB). COB occurs both during the fall and spring semesters and is not a structured process. A chapter's eligibility for COB doesn't necessarily mean the chapter will extend any membership bids.
Informal Recruitment is based on the eligiblity of the chapters. Chapters plan all events and invite students to attend individually.
It is important to recognize that both types of Panhellenic recruitment are mutual selection processes. Participation in any Panhellenic recruitment experience does not guarantee an invitation to join a sorority, nor does it obligate a student to join. Aproaching either process with an open mind is the best way to have a great experience.
We are excited that you are interested in joining the Panhellenic community at the University of Oklahoma. The information below should be helpful in preparing you for the 2024 Panhellenic Formal Recruitment process. For questions about Formal Recruitment, feel free to email panhellenic@ou.edu or give us a call at (405) 325-3163.
Formal Recruitment is scheduled from August 6 - 12th, 2024.
Registration for the 2024 Panhellenic Formal Recruitment process will open on April 15, 2024 and will close on July 1, 2024.
To participate in Formal Recruitment, you must be a full-time, undergraduate woman enrolled at the University of Oklahoma and registered with Panhellenic. The fee to participate in recruitment is $155 ($5 technology fee and $150 registration fee). You must pay the registration fee in order to be registered for recruitment. Please note these fees covers all operating costs of Panhellenic Formal Recruitment.
Make sure to have a high quality picture to upload when you register to include with your application. Please be very detailed with the information you submit in the activity boxes as this will be considered your resume. This information will be sent to our Panhellenic chapters.
Preparing to Register
To prepare for registration, please download and review this document. You'll want to be sure to have all your information prepared before starting the registration form.
Recruitment Registration
The registration form will not save your progress. Please ensure you can complete it in one sitting. Please do not register for recruitment more than once. To edit your form, email panhellenic@ou.edu.
Check out our 2023 Recruitment Guidebook for tips, outfit suggestions, our preferred vendors, and more! This publication is downloadable for your convenience.
The 2024 Recruitment Guidebook will be published here soon!
The 2024 Panhellenic Recruitment schedule is below. Please note that dates are subject to change.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| April 15 | Recruitment registration opens at 9:00 AM CT |
| July 1 | Recruitment registration closes at 11:59 PM CT |
| July 15 | Last day for registration refunds (not including the $5 tech fee from ICS) |
| August 6 | Early Move-In Day, Panhellenic Orientation & Family Farewell |
| August 7 | Round 1 , Day 1 (Open House) - 11 parties over two days |
| August 8 | Round 1, Day 2 (Open House) - 11 parties over two days |
| August 9 | Round 2 (Philanthropy) - 8 parties maximum |
| August 10 | Round 3 (Sisterhood) - 5 parties maximum |
| August 11 | Round 4 (Preference) - 2 parties maximum |
| August 12 | Panhellenic Bid Day |
| August 14 - 18 | Camp Crimson |
| August 19 | Fall 2024 semester begins |
Students living in the residence halls or on campus for the 2024-2025 academic session year will have activated meals plans to use during Formal Recruitment. For those living off campus, your registration fee covers lunch on both days of Round 1 (August 7 - 8).
Recruitment check in will take place on August 6, 2024. Check back here for more information and instructions on how to check in for the Formal Recruitment process.
The Panhellenic Association is thankful for our many vendors and community partners. We encourage you to check out our Panhellenic vendors and support these amazing local businesses. Learn more about specials, deals, and other recruitment-related offers by checking out our 2024 Panhellenic Recruitment Vendors below.
Check out more information and shop our Greek vendors online here.
A Recommendation/Reference (also called a RIF) serves as your introduction to a sorority, and gives their members a chance to get to know you prior to the start of primary recruitment. A “recommendation letter” is a generic way of referring to the support documentation a student interested in joining a sorority will have completed on her behalf.
Potential members are not required to secure recommendations in order to receive a membership bid. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the sorority to obtain a letter of recommendation if one is needed for membership. While letters of recommendation are not required to participate in recruitment; PNMs can reach out to sorority alumnae or an Alumnae Panhellenic for assistance.
While we do recommend having one recommendation letter per chapter if possible, many students participate in recruitment at OU without any recommendation letters and successfully join chapters.
Panhellenic membership bids distributed at 4:00 PM in residence halls, all guests should be exit the residence halls by 3:45 PM so we may distribute bids as efficiently and quickly as possible.
Students living off campus should report to Jim Thorpe Multicultural Center / designated meeting area with Rho Gamma at 3:45 PM for bid distribution.
To help share helpful information about the Panhellenic Formal Recruitment process, we communicate regularly with parents, families and student supporters. Check out the inks below to stay connected!
All videos and recordings from Panhellenic Formal and Informal Recruitment 2024 will be posted here. Continue to check here for additional information.
We know sorority recruitment is often a new experience for so many students and families. We've compiled some of our most frequently asked questions below. If you have other questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to our Panhellenic team.
Primary sorority recruitment at the University of Oklahoma is only conducted in the fall semester, prior to the start of school. 2024 Recruitment week begins August 6, 2024, and concludes with Bid Day on August 12, 2024. It is important to note that the OU Panhellenic does not host a formalized spring recruitment. If you are unable to participate in fall primary recruitment, but are interested in joining a sorority, you may participate in Continuous Open Bidding (COB).
All sorority women including collegians, alumnae, College Panhellenics, Alumnae Panhellenics, inter/national organizations and the National Panhellenic Conference should actively promote the overall sorority experience and membership opportunities in organizations. This should be done through all forms of communication (e.g., print, digital, in-person) in the spirit of Panhellenic unity and desire to reach out to all women to share the opportunity for sorority membership. College and Alumnae Panhellenic rules should not infringe on the rights of individuals, chapters and/or organizations in the content or forms of communication to promote the sorority experience.
The intention of this guideline was to inform and allow PNMs to be encouraged to participate in Formal Recruitment across all campuses. Additionally, chapters are allowed to ONLY contact women to promote the overall Panhellenic experience before registration. If you have been contacted by a chapter(s), please know that the intention of this communication should be to promote the entire Panhellenic experience, not just one chapter. Whether or not you have been contacted by a chapter member, this communication should not affect your Recruitment experience. We hope that you will have an open mind and a positive attitude going forward into this Recruitment season.
On February 20, 2019 the University of Oklahoma Panhellenic Association voted to adopt a resolution regarding financial transparency during Panhellenic recruitment processes. In a spirit of transparency and accountability, this information will be provided to potential new members and other Panhellenic constituents before, during, and after the University of Oklahoma Formal Recruitment process.
Click the link below to download and view the 2023 - 2024 Panhellenic Financial Transparency Report, outlining all required costs of Panhellenic membership.
It is important to be as informed as possible regarding the costs associated with obtaining a college education. Understanding the financial obligations associated with sorority membership is just as important. Each student joining a sorority should be aware of the dues, fees and other expenses that are involved and should consider these when making financial plans to attend college. During Formal Recruitment, a potential member should ask sorority members about financial obligations and payment options. Each sorority sets its own fees and housing costs as well as payment schedules.
Yes! The Panhellenic team has been working closely with our friends in the Camp Crimson program. Students will be able to fully participate in both programs. There will not be any overlap for mandatory events for either program. We encourage all students to fully participate in Camp Crimson to build community here at OU.
Just like there is a governing body at the collegiate level for Panhellenic chapters, there are local Alumnae Panhellenic organizations around the country. Many of these local organizations have early deadlines to assist potential new members with obtaining letters of recommendation. Please note that you do NOT need to register with these groups in order to participate in Formal Recruitment at OU.
The ONLY paperwork requirement needed to participate in Formal Recruitment at OU is completing our campus registration form found on this website.
Alumnae Panhellenic registration forms, recommendation letters, or letters of support are not requirements of the College Panhellenic recruitment process.
The Panhellenic Association does not require a specific grade point average to participate in Formal Recruitment. However, each sorority has a minimum grade requirement to be considered for membership and initiation. The average grade point for a freshmen to join is around a 3.2. and the average grade requirement for an upper-class student is around a 3.0. These grades are pulled directly from university admissions records.
Entering freshmen can expect to be scored on the grades that they were admitted to the university with. Upperclassman can expect to be scored on their overall collegiate GPA.
A legacy can be defined differently by each chapter, but most commonly, a legacy is defined as a potential new member who is the sister, daughter, or granddaughter of an alumnae sorority member. Learn more about the legacy policies for each organization on our campus.
If you are legacy you are not guaranteed a bid to your legacy's chapter. It does not hurt or help to be a legacy; it just notifies our chapters that you have a family member that was a part of that specific organization. Each chapter looks at the individual going through and will make their decision on what is best for their group at that time. We would encourage you to go through the process with an open mind.
While many women in the Panhellenic community join our system through Formal Recruitment, we are happy to offer a secondary way to join a chapter. After total is reset each semester, several of our chapters are eligible to participate in Informal Recruitment, or Continuous Open Bidding (COB). COB is for current and unaffiliated University of Oklahoma women. Informal Recruitment happens both during the Fall and Spring semesters.
The big difference between Formal and Informal Recruitment is that there is not a structured event for Informal Recruitment. Formal Recruitment involves structured rounds and scheduled events - Informal Recruitment is based on the eligibility of the chapters. Not all chapters may be eligible for COB. Chapter eligibility is dependent on how campus total is reset at the start of the semester and the timing of the reset of campus total is dependent on the semester; on Bid Day for the Fall semester, and 24 hours after the start of the semester for the Spring.
Just because a chapter is eligible for Informal Recruitment does not mean that they are required to contact students or offer them a bid to their chapter. It is a right to the eligible chapter(s) if they would like to contact or extend a bid to a student.
Students who are interested in being contacted by a COB-eligible chapter are highly encouraged to complete the COB Interest Form. The completed interest forms will be sent to the eligible chapters directly.
The COB Interest Form does not roll from semester to semester, it should be completed each semester a student is interested.
Please join us on Wednesday, January 17th, 2024 for our Spring 2024 Informal Recruitment Informational. At this event students will learn more about the Panhellenic experience, the process of Informal Recruitment, as well as speak with the eligible (but not necessarily required to participate) chapters for Spring 2024.
We suggest using the flow chart below to determine if you are eligible to join a Panhellenic chapter through the Continuous Open Bidding process.
To determine your eligibility, ask yourself if you've participated in any Panhellenic recruitment process in the past. If not, you are eligible for COB. If you have participated in a recruitment process with Panhellenic before and were matched with a chapter, you are not eligible for COB until the start of the next formal recruitment process on our campus. If you were not matched, you are eligible for COB.
Just as not all Panhellenic chapters are COB-eligible each semester, not all PNMs are COB-eligible either.
*Please note that if, at any time, you have gone through another NPC organization's initiation process, you are not COB-eligible.*
If you still have questions about your COB eligibility, contact the Panhellenic team and we can help.
We know sorority recruitment is often a new experience for so many students and families. We've compiled some of our most frequently asked questions below. If you have other questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to our Panhellenic team.
Chapters will update their rosters with Panhellenic the first week of classes in the spring term. Panhellenic will calculate and reset campus total (the total number of women each chapter is allowed to have) by chapter median size. There are typically 4 to 5 COB-eligible chapters that will host their own events and programs to get to know potential new members.
Chapters will update their rosters with Panhellenic the first week of classes in the spring term. Panhellenic will calculate and reset campus total (the total number of women each chapter is allowed to have) by chapter median size. There are typically 4 to 5 COB-eligible chapters that will host their own events and programs to get to know potential new members.
Each term, you can email the Panhellenic recruitment team or reach out at panhellenic@ou.edu to inquire about what chapters are COB-eligible. Please note that COB eligiblity does not necessarily mean a chapter will participate.
Panhellenic will host a COB Informational Meeting in the spring semester to kick-off the COB experience and all other events will be held by the chapters. Check out Panhellenic's social media platforms prior to the informational meeting to find event details.
COB, also known as Informal Recruitment is just that - informal. Chapters can contact potential new members in two ways:
After total is reset each semester, COB-eligible chapters can contact you and invite you to events they might be hosting. Previous COB events have included movie nights, dinner at the chapter facility, etc. These events are typically informal in nature and allow chapter members and PNMs to get to know each other.
The Panhellenic Association does not require a specific grade point average to participate in formal or informal recruitment. However, each sorority has a minimum grade requirement to be considered for membership and initiation. The average grade point for a freshman to join is around a 3.2 and the average grade requirement for an upperclassmen student is around a 3.0. These grades are pulled from university records.
Use the information below to find who you should contact with specific recruitment questions. However, feel free to email anyone with questions and we will be happy to direct your question to the appropriate team member. You can also call (405) 325-3163 during normal business hours for assistance.
