All women were also required to attend Panhell information sessions, and all students interested in a Greek house were required to attend a attend a Greek Letter Organization and Societies pre-recruitment education session, which focused primarily on the College's hazing policy and students' rights during new member education practices, Cai said.
Panhell updated the women's rush single preference policy so that women who express interest in rushing only one sorority on preference night, known as "suiciding" a house, and do not receive a bid from their preferred house in the fall may not participate in the rush process until the following year, Cai said. Previously, women who indicated a single-house preference and did not receive a bid in the fall could rush during the following term's recruitment process. This, however, negatively affected women who were off campus in the fall and wanted to rush in the winter for the first time, according to Cai.
"It's a policy that's been in the works," Cai said. "It's part of the broad Panhell policy that everyone has the right to be affiliated, and the new policy will expand their opportunity to join a sorority."
For the first time, Panhell will now include information about financial dues in the informational booklet that will be emailed to potential new members this year, according to Cai. Distributing the information before rush will allow potential new members to focus their attention on more engaging and memorable discussions with sorority members during the recruitment process, she said.
"Philanthropy is substantive and important for executives of each sorority to talk about," Cai said. "But when someone was talking about dues, people wouldn't retain the numbers."
Eliminating the dues portion of the session extends the amount of time that women participating in rush have to communicate with sorority members at the rush sessions, according to Sigma Delta sorority president Heather Beatty '13.
The Panhell information sessions, which all interested women were required to attend, covered scheduling, rush jargon and the rules of the formal recruitment process. They were no different from past years' meetings, according to Cai. Panhell was not involved in designing the mandatory GLOS meetings about hazing and safety precautions, she said.
Panhell's installation of equal budgets for all eight sororities' rush parties aims to ensure equity between local sororities and national sororities, which tend to have more funds.
"The spending cap's policy goal is to keep houses at relative parity in terms of spending," Cai said. "That way, no house is at an advantage."
Sigma Delt will not be greatly affected by the policy as their budget naturally falls within the spending limit, according to Beatty.
"Hopefully this type of cap will create a more even playing field," she said.
Alpha Phi sorority will host their rush process in their physical plant at 2 North Park St. for the first time since the Dartmouth chapter's 2007 inception. Alpha Phi previously held rush events in the Collis Center's Fuel venue.
The number of women who will receive bids this fall will most likely be in line with previous years' figures, according to Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority president Hannah Decker '13.
Sorority members encouraged women interested in rush to remain open minded over the course of the five-night process.
"Make sure to make your decisions based on your experience, not based on ones that could be influenced greatly by your friends, because it's about you," Beatty said.
Some women opted for an alternative to the formal rush process. Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority held an early rush event on Friday night, during which interested women had the opportunity to "shake out" and declare EKT as their primary-choice sorority, according to EKT president Carla Galarza '13. Galarza declined to give the exact number of women who accepted early bids.
Last year, approximately 75 percent of the 401 women who registered for fall rush received bids at the conclusion of sorority recruitment.
