Fraternity and Sorority Recruitment & Intake

NPHC organizations take new members into their organizations through a process called membership intake. This process is organized by each chapter individually and includes selection of candidates, education about the organization and initiation and full membership. Some will host membership intake every semester, every year, or every two years. Chapters work with their national organizations to schedule membership intake when it best suits their membership needs. 

Students interested in joining any of the NPHC organizations are required to attend NPHC 101 which is an in-person educational program organized by the council at the beginning of each semester. It provides interested students with more information about each chapter, membership intake and the expectations of fraternity and sorority life at the University of Kentucky.  

Fraternities and sororities within the United Greek Council individually coordinate their recruitment opportunities by chapter. Traditionally some chapters within UGC host weeklong recruitment periods, while others conduct membership intake processes at different points throughout the academic year. To provide a centralized location to learn about each organization within UGC, the council hosts an open house event within the first few weeks of school. 

Another way to join the UGC community is by starting an interest group! Interest groups are a group of men or women who come together to create a new fraternity or sorority experience that is not already being offered at University of Kentucky. While all interest groups within UGC will eventually affiliate with a national special-interest or culturally-based fraternity or sorority founded on one specific interest or culture, all our UGC chapters celebrate a diverse membership! 

The Interfraternity Council (IFC) organizes a formal recruitment at the start of the Fall and Spring semesters. This process allows interested men to meet and learn more about each fraternity at UK before bids are extended. Students interested in joining an IFC fraternity must be a full-time enrolled student at the University of Kentucky, as well as meet the academic requirement of either a 2.7 high school GPA (on a 4.0 unweighted scale) or a 2.6 college GPA (minimum of 12 credit hours). The full list of the IFC eligibility requirements is available here. 

In order to receive a bid from an IFC fraternity, interested students must also register online at www.kentuckyifc.com and pay the $45 recruitment fee at the end of the registration form. 

The fall IFC recruitment period kicks off with IFC’s annual Main Lawn Mingle K Week event, and then continues with the primary recruitment process, which is typically a week long and includes an information session about all participating chapters, as well as open and invite-only chapter hosted events. Bid Day is the last day of primary recruitment and is when new members are officially invited to join. Some chapters will choose to continue to informally recruit after this structured process and men interested are still required to register through IFC’s website. IFC will also host a structured process in the spring.

The Panhellenic Council  (PC) hosts primary recruitment for the 14 National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) sororities at the University of Kentucky each Fall semester. UK uses a fully-structured recruitment process in order to build relationships and discover shared interests between chapter members and potential new members, discover shared interests and values among chapter members and potential new members and display the high standards held by all NPC member organizations. 

Primary recruitment registration opens at the end of the Spring semester every year, and closes the Sunday before school begins in the Fall semester.

Participants in primary recruitment must be full time enrolled undergraduate UK students. The cost to register for recruitment is $150.

While there is not a GPA requirement to go through the Panhellenic Primary Recruitment process, some chapters may have a minimum GPA requirement. Panhellenic uses unweighted GPAs to verify grades to send to the chapters. 

Be sure to check out the Panhellenic Council website for full details about the recruitment process.  

Continuous Open Bidding (COB) begins after the conclusion of primary recruitment and continues throughout the academic year. COB is recommended for anyone who chooses not to participate in primary recruitment or did not match to a chapter at the end of the process. Participating sororities will contact women directly to invite them to attend their membership activities or will post information about their COB events on social media. Keep in mind, not all chapters participate in COB.