I can almost guarantee my daughter will not post her own journey. She is just not that type of gal.

But getting her ready really has brought back all my rush memories!

Hers will be interesting. She is going to a state school with a small greek system. But the student population is more like MIT than Alabama. It is only 3 days and allegedly very "chill." We shall see.

Chill and recruitment don't seem to go hand and hand in my mind.

Well good luck to her!

Thank you for finishing this story! It made my bad day a whole lot more bearable!

Was it the “pine?” I couldn’t resist.

yep! And the title of your thread - the forest - I just spend too much time with my Tri Delta friends, I think :D plus I love your open motto. Seriously love it. Now hoping your daughter will also find a home for a lifetime.

I literally laughed out loud at your description of how clueless you were when you went to the Panhellenic tea. My husband asked me what I was reading. LOL!

I guessed Tri Delta when I read Pine. Most people won't use that terminology unless they are a DDD.

Really enjoyed reading your story and always happy for a Tri Delta ending!

I hope she enjoys it. My recruitment was *so* chill I didn't even know I was being rushed! But I know I would not have even gone through a formal rush as today's; I might have pledged informally with these ladies later, but I barely knew what a sorority was. Only one member of my extended family had gone to college, she far away, and it didn't even cross my mind until I got to school.

I'll take chill every time <grin>!

The 70s seem like such strange times in a recruitment sense (assuming you went through recruitment in the 70s?)

I was just talking to some Miami OH chapter alumnae about how it was for them. There were 25 NPCs on campus (deferred recruitment) and it was a reasonably regular thing for girls to go through, attend 3 prefs and not receive a bid.

...and I thought the pre-RFM early 2000s were bad. Most people DID get bids then, but it was normal to attend a full slate of Philanthropy Round parties (all 6) only to be cut down to 2 for House Tours. Or the most common story: having same strong/high return chapters on your schedule through House Tours, only for them to cut you after that (Pref was next day.) Lots of tears and dropouts back then just out of pure shock because you were under the impression all week that Kappa loved you. (Because they kept inviting you back.) I also heard a lot of "XYZ promised me a bid" back then. Moreso than now. Kappa has no room to fake promise you a bid because they have to cut 65%.

There are lots of RFM gripes but I appreciate that it forces the stronger groups to "rip off the bandaid early" so to speak.

/hijack

It was the 80s - but a smaller school without a huge greek system, so it was behaving more like the 70s. We got rush Rho Chi groups before I graduated. They also tried out an "informal" fall rush - where you had to have at least 20 or 24 hours to go through. This was an effort to combat the fact only freshmen were getting pledged.

So things were really in flux.

Once I was on the other side of things - I really appreciated what my sorority did to try to prevent quota victims. Our nationals made us make deep cuts leading up to pref. And whatever the number Panhellenic said you could invite to pref (I don't recall what it was - it may have been double quota) we always invited significantly less than that number.

Our nationals made if clear, having 20 or 30 girls say they were a quota victim of ABC and XYZ did not make the chapters any stronger and it was not a bragging point. Our nationals had something called "Rush Honor Roll.' Where a certain percent of your pledge class came off of your 1st bid list. We made rush honor roll consistently. That meant nationals dictated that your second bid list was not a full bid list. Because if you are only taking 5 people off that list on a regular basis - the other 35-40 would be potential quota victims. I'm sure other groups had similar policies. It's like they were working on a system similar to the computer system of today - but without the technology.

And because we were one of the two chapters with much higher GPA standards than the posted minimum Panhellenic GPA to rush. We made deep cuts round one. It was not uncommon to have a deep first round of cuts only be for grades.

I'm glad you got a laugh! It's so funny looking back at what my mom and I thought with the Panhellenic party hostess called to say that she was unable to find a DZ in our small town. My mom thought she was trying to say that it must not be a good/popular if there were no alumnae in our town. My dad went to UT and they did not have them there either.

I really want girls going through recruitment to understand that this is a lifelong sisterhood. A wonderful thing.

As an alumnae I've been involved, not hugely active constantly the past 30 years. But always a part of me.

I already have my hotel booked for my chapter's 50th. It will be the first time have have been in our house since 1989. I'm looking forward to reconnecting.

(And I'm getting ready to have my youngest daughter go through recruitment in the PNW. I'm so not ready.)

Good luck to her! Hopefully she'll find an amazing home.