Donned in semiformal attire, roughly 180 women participated in the annual sorority recruitment held over the last week.

Though sorority recruitment used to occur during an intensive three-day period, this year sororities stretched recruitment events over a five-day period from Wednesday to Sunday. The change in the schedule, an initiative that the Yale Panhellenic Council first approved last year, resulted from an effort to reduce academic stress and to allow participants to meet their other commitments during the rush period.

“A lot of it stems from the fact that members going through recruitment were having trouble meeting academic obligations and other commitments,” said Amanda Salvesen ’14, president of the Yale Panhellenic Council.

The official recruitment process, which is facilitated by the Yale Panhellenic Council, includes three main events — introductory parties, philanthropy parties and preference parties. The longer recruitment period allowed sorority members and potential new members to take a day off in between each of the events, Salvesen said.

Salvesen said extending the recruitment period has enabled the Panhellenic Council to accommodate scheduling conflicts of potential new members easily. In past years, if a potential new member missed an event, the council had difficulty providing time to make up the missed activities due to the short time frame, she said. But this year, the extra days provided more time for the council to schedule a make-up period for the absent students interested in recruitment.

Alyssa Navarro ’14, president of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, and Kelly Payne ’14, Kappa’s membership coordinator, said in an email to the News that the extra time between events helped them better consider and identify which girls would be the best fit for their organization.

“The new schedule allows all the chapters to refresh before going into the next recruitment event,” Navarro and Payne said. “We seek girls who will support one another and who look forward to every moment they can spend with their Kappa sisters.”

Four potential new members who participated in the recruitment process said they think the extended recruitment days made the process smoother.

Julie Lowenstein ’16 said she found the longer recruitment helpful because it provided her with more time to think about which sorority was her top choice.

“It gives you a lot more time to reflect,” she said. “For me, it took a lot of the pressure off.”

Mackenzie Lee ’16 said she thinks Yale’s recruitment process is more relaxed and friendly than at other universities, adding that she did not feel participating in recruitment activities caused her any additional academic stress.

Potential new members were informed of their bids Monday night to conclude this year’s rush process officially.