Insider Tea
The Complete Sorority Recruitment Glossary: Every Term PNMs and Parents Need to Know
Sorority recruitment has its own language, and most PNMs and parents walk into it without a translator. This glossary defines every term you’ll hear during recruitment, written by someone who’s been in the basement of 40+ recruitments and watched families try to decode what was happening in real time. If you’ve ever heard the words MRABA, RFM, or snap bid and nodded along while quietly panicking, this is the page to bookmark.
A quick note on why this exists. Most recruitment glossaries online are pulled from Panhellenic websites and read like legal documents. This one is written from the back room, the place where chapters actually score, debrief, and decide who comes back. Some of the language here you will not find anywhere else, because most people writing about recruitment have never been in the basement. That’s the version of these terms you’re getting.
The list is alphabetical. Skim for what you need or read it straight through. Every term that matters during recruitment is here.
Welcome to Notes from the Basement
Quick context first. The Rush Guide Co. exists because recruitment is a system, and systems can be learned. Most of the chaos PNMs and parents feel going into rush is because nobody hands you the vocabulary. So here it is, in one place, with the basement context the official Panhellenic glossaries leave out.
If you’re a first-gen family, this glossary is going to feel like an unlock. You’re not behind. You just haven’t been given the language yet. (More on that on the first-gen page.)
If you’re a parent trying to support a daughter going through this for the first time, the parents’ page is your next stop after this one.
Onward.
Basement
The room where the data lives. The basement is where PNMs’ scores are tallied and every comment left after conversations is read. These teams rank everyone for the next round and debate who stays and who gets dropped. It’s also where they track everything they know about you outside of recruitment itself, including whether you answered their DMs over the summer, what your social media looks like, and what alumnae or current members had to say about you.
Access to the basement is tightly limited, usually to around ten to fifteen people even at the largest chapters. Most sorority members will never see the inside of one. As someone who has been in the basement of 40+ recruitments, that’s why I created this brand. To give PNMs (and actives) the perspective most never get to see.
Bid
Your formal invitation to join a sorority. A bid is the card you open on bid day that confirms which chapter is offering you membership. Accepting the bid makes you a new member of that chapter.
Bid Promising
When an active member tells a PNM that her chapter is definitely going to give her a bid, or strongly implies it. This is not something active members are allowed to do. It happens anyway, and it is incredibly frowned upon by Panhellenic. If someone bid promises you, take it with a grain of salt. Lots of people have influence into who gets a bid, not a single member, and bids are never guaranteed until you open the envelope.
Bump Groups
The pre-assigned groups of active members who will talk to PNMs during a party. Bump groups are organized in advance by the chapter so that the right members are paired with the right PNMs based on common interests, hometowns, majors, or whatever else the chapter is trying to match for. When you walk into a house and get handed off from one member to another, that’s a bump group rotation in action. It’s heavily rehearsed during work week. You don’t need to manage it. Just talk to whoever is in front of you.
COB (Continuous Open Bidding)
Informal recruitment. COB happens outside of formal recruitment, usually after formal ends or the alternate semester, when one or more chapters on campus have open spots they need to fill to reach total. It’s a much smaller process than formal. Not every chapter participates, and the process looks different at every chapter, but most of the time you’ll be invited to the house for a dinner or an activity, meet some members, and receive a bid that way if they want you. COB is a real path to membership and not a consolation prize, but your options are limited to whichever chapters are open.
Drop (also: Regret, Release)
The mutual selection process gives both PNMs and chapters the ability to end a connection. When a PNM ranks a chapter last on her preference list, that’s potentially a drop or a regret, depending on whose language you’re using. When a chapter doesn’t invite a PNM back to the next round, that’s a release. The terms get used interchangeably. If you hear any of the three, they’re describing the same thing: someone said no.
Formal Recruitment
The structured, Panhellenic-governed recruitment process where every chapter on a campus participates simultaneously. Formal recruitment happens once a year at every school, though some campuses (Baylor being one of the big ones) hold formal in the spring instead of the fall. It involves anywhere from a hundred to several thousand PNMs going through together, depending on the school. This is the version of recruitment you see on TikTok during what’s nicknamed RushTok. It’s overseen by the College Panhellenic Council and follows a strict timeline with multiple rounds.
Informal Recruitment
See COB. Informal recruitment is the off-season process where individual chapters with open spots recruit PNMs without the full formal structure. Panhellenic still has some oversight, but the rules are much looser and the timeline is set by the chapter.
Legacy
A PNM whose mother, sister, grandmother, great-grandmother, and sometimes aunt or cousin was a member of a specific sorority. If a chapter of that sorority exists on your campus, you’d be considered a legacy there. Legacy policies vary widely now. A handful of sororities still give meaningful preferential treatment to legacies, but for many others, legacy status is essentially in name only and won’t move the needle on your chances.
Lining Up
What you do outside the chapter house before a party. PNMs are lined up in a predetermined order, usually alphabetical or by PNM number depending on the campus, so that when you walk in, you’re matched with the right active member for your first conversation. The lineup is part of how chapters keep parties running on time and how they make sure their bump groups work the way they were designed to.
MRABA (Membership Recruitment Acceptance Binding Agreement)
The legally binding agreement you sign on preference night listing the chapter or chapters you’d accept a bid from. Signing the MRABA commits you to joining whichever chapter on your list extends you a bid. It’s valid for one full year, which means if you back out of the bid you receive, you can’t go through formal recruitment again at any school for twelve months. The MRABA is the most consequential piece of paper in the entire recruitment process. Read it before you sign.
Mutual Selection
The system underlying the entire formal recruitment process. Mutual selection means both sides, PNMs and chapters, get to indicate who they want to continue with at each round. PNMs rank chapters. Chapters rank PNMs. Where the lists overlap is where invitations to the next round get issued. It’s the reason recruitment can feel both empowering and brutal: everyone has agency, which also means everyone can say no.
Panhellenic
The governing body of the international sororities and local chapters. The word itself is Greek for “all sisterhoods.” There are two layers: the National Panhellenic Conference, which sets policies all member sororities must follow nationwide, and individual College Panhellenic Councils, which run recruitment on each campus and can set additional local rules. When someone refers to “Panhellenic rules,” they could mean either, and sometimes the campus-level rules are stricter than the national ones.
Philanthropy Round
The round of formal recruitment where chapters talk about their national and local philanthropies and the volunteer work they do. PNMs are typically asked about their own volunteer experience and what causes matter to them during this round. It’s also one of the easier rounds to make a real impression in because you have a clear, concrete topic to talk about.
PNM (Potential New Member)
Anyone going through the recruitment process. Once you have a bid, you’re a new member, not a PNM anymore.
Pref (Preference Round)
The final round of formal recruitment. By pref, PNMs are typically invited to two chapters or fewer, and the chapters they’re invited to are required to extend them a bid. Pref is the decision round, both visually (it’s the most formal, most emotional round) and procedurally (it’s when you sign your MRABA). Everything before pref is conversation. Pref is commitment.
Quota
The maximum number of new members each chapter on a campus is allowed to take in formal recruitment. Quota is set each year by RFM specialists based on the math of total PNMs going through and how many chapters are participating. Hitting quota is the goal for every chapter, and the system is designed to give every chapter a fair shot at it.
Recruitment Counselor (also: Rho Gamma, Rho Chi, Pi Chi, Pi Rho Chi)
Active sorority members who have temporarily disaffiliated from their own chapters in order to guide PNMs through recruitment as a neutral party. Recruitment counselors typically do not reveal which chapter they’re a member of during recruitment. Their job is to stay unbiased and help PNMs through whatever comes up at each round. The name varies by campus, but the role is the same.
RFM (Release Figure Method)
The mathematical system Panhellenic uses to keep every chapter on a campus viable during recruitment. The simplest way to explain it: if every PNM wanted to be in the top three chapters, those chapters would be impossibly selective and the rest of the chapters would lose every PNM they invited back. RFM prevents that by setting release figures (how many PNMs each chapter can invite back to the next round) in a way that distributes PNMs across all chapters. The top chapters get to be more selective and drop larger numbers. Mid-tier and newer chapters keep larger numbers to give themselves a real shot at quota. The result is a system where every chapter on campus stays healthy. RFM specialists who run this process are some of the most important people in formal recruitment and most PNMs have never heard of them.
Rotation
What happens inside the party when a bump group transitions members. You’ll be in a conversation with one active member, then a rotation happens and you’re now talking with a new one. This is rehearsed obsessively during work week before recruitment. From the PNM side, it’s not something to worry about. The chapter is managing it. Your job is to keep the conversation flowing through the handoff.
Rush Crush
A PNM that active members are obsessed with and desperately want to join their chapter. The term gets used constantly in the recruitment community, both inside chapters and publicly on social media. (As someone who reads tens of thousands of comments from active members about PNMs each year, being labeled a rush crush is the highest honor a PNM can get.) It’s a good sign, but plenty of other things factor in before bids go out.
Scoring
What active members do between rounds to evaluate PNMs they spoke with. Scoring happens through online platforms (the two most common are Omega Recruit and MyVote), where members can leave numerical scores and written comments about each PNM they had a conversation with. The basement reads every comment, every score, and uses that data plus everything else they know about a PNM to decide who stays on the list for the next round. The cards, the scores, the comments, it all funnels into one decision: invite back or drop.
Sisterhood Round
The round of formal recruitment focused on the bonds between members and the chapter’s social life. Chapters use sisterhood round to show what their member experience actually feels like, including the activities they do together, the traditions they keep, and how connected the chapter is. For PNMs, sisterhood round is one of the best opportunities to read a chapter’s actual culture instead of taking their word for it.
Snap Bid
A bid extended after formal recruitment ends, specifically by chapters that did not reach quota during formal. After bid day, chapters that came up short are allowed to extend snap bids to PNMs who were dropped, didn’t pref, or withdrew from formal recruitment. Snap bids are a real and legitimate path into a chapter. Plenty of happy members started with a snap bid.
Suicide Bid (now called Single Intentional Preferencing)
When a PNM is invited to two chapters on preference night but chooses to list only one chapter on her MRABA. The older name was suicide bid because if that one chapter doesn’t extend you a bid, you get no bid at all. The updated, official term is single intentional preferencing, and you’ll hear both used. It’s a strategy reserved for PNMs who are absolutely certain about one chapter and willing to accept the risk of leaving recruitment with no bid if that chapter doesn’t choose them back. I do not recommend this strategy.
The Five B’s
The five topics PNMs are advised not to bring up during recruitment conversations: boys, booze, Bible, budget, and ballot. The reasoning behind each:
Boys. Chapters do not want PNMs talking about frat guys, hookups, or boyfriends during conversations. It signals the wrong priorities.
Booze. Don’t talk about how much you party or ask the members how much they party. Same reasoning.
Bible. Religion is the most regionally variable of the five. In the South, bible is a much softer rule, and faith comes up in conversation more naturally. Unless you are at a religious university, in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast, religion is essentially off the table entirely. When in doubt, let the active member lead on this one.
Budget. Don’t flaunt wealth, don’t apologize for not having it. (There is usually a dedicated finance night during recruitment where dues and budget are discussed openly, which is the appropriate time for those conversations.)
Ballot. Politics. Don’t bring up candidates, parties, or current political issues. Recruitment is not the place.
Total
The number set by National Panhellenic for how many members each chapter should have to maintain viability on a campus. Quota is calculated each year as the path to hitting total. If a chapter is below total, they can hold COB to fill those spots throughout the year.
What to Do With This Glossary
Bookmark it. Send it to your daughter or your mom. Pull it up the first time someone mentions a term in conversation that you don’t recognize. Recruitment moves fast, and the worst feeling is being three days into formal and still nodding along while you Google “what does MRABA mean” under the table.
If you’re a parent, the parents’ page is the next read. If you’re a first-gen family, start here. Vocabulary is the single biggest gap first-gen PNMs walk in with, and once that gap closes, the playing field levels out fast.
For the full breakdown, the rounds, the conversation strategy, the outfit calls, the social media audit, the resume, the post-bid-day logistics, all of it, the Full Recruitment Bundle is what 40+ recruitments of basement experience looks like organized into something you can actually use. Most of what’s in it is the kind of detail this glossary just gave you a taste of.
Recruitment is a system. Now you have the language. The rest is preparation, and prep is how you walk in calm.
