A recruitment story with a bittersweet ending.
 

Let me start off by saying that i come from a long line of greeks. My great-grandmother, 4 aunts, and my mother were KKGs. My grandfather was a FIJI, my grandmother a AXO, and my dad is SAE. It was always presumed that I would rush one going into college and I wanted to anyway. I was originally going to attend a large Southern school where the greek life is huge, but decided against it and chose the school where all my local friends would be, which was still 400 miles from home.

My school is medium sized, and the greek life is not very big. I should mention that the sororities that I would have been a legacy of, KKG and AXO are not at my school. There are 5 sororities at my school.. all are great nationally, but their reputations on campus all differ. Like other recruitment stories, I will be using code names for these houses.

Pink
Blue
Red
Green
Purple


Even before going to school I knew what house I wanted, Pink. They were known as the popular girls that all the frats wanted to hang out with. This is also the same sorority that all my friends wanted. I went into rush very confident. I had always been quite popular, and I was very accomplished academically and in my extra-curriculars.

Being over-confident and already making a judgement about what sorority I wanted even before rush was my first mistake.

Rush was held the second week of school.. the first night was house tours, then Philanthropy night, skit night, and pref night..dropping a house each night.

I'll update with more later.

yAY!!! I love these :)

Can't wait to hear it! I would root for pink, cause it's my favorite color, but by the way you're talking I have a feeling it doesn't end well with them...So go green!!!

Can't wait for this yay

The first night was house tours. We would visit all five houses and then at the end of the night, rank the houses and drop our least favorite.

Pink: My first party. I was picked up by a very nice girl at the door, who I had a lot in common with. I assume this was because this sorority is very big on matching girls to PNMs according to the info they filled out on the applications. I loved meeting all the girls and I kenw that this was the house for me. I left that first party irritated that I had to go to four more houses that night, because I already knew Pink was the one for me.

Purple: I felt uncomfortable at purple. They were a newer sorority on campus and I kept getting passed on to different actives while there at the first party, which resulted in me having to answer "what's your major" like four times. The house which they were in, which was the biggest and most beautiful had only been giving to them because another greek organization had to leave campus. It was their first formal recruitment in the house. I felt a lack of tradition there.

Green: Green was the smallest house on campus. The girls were nice and the theme they had for the first night was cute but I was unimpressed by the fact that they lacked a house mom and cook, which meant no chapter dinners and all meetings would be held in the living room for lack of space elsewhere. The girls seemed to agree with everything I said which was quite annoying. It was almost like they were trained to do so.
Red: I liked the girls at this house a lot. This was the first sorority on campus and had a lot of history at the school. It was also great nationally. I wanted to like this house but I still felt disconnected at Red. I felt like the conversation wasn't quite there. I could have tried harder at this house if I didn't have my mind set on Pink.

Blue: I was so tired by the time I got to blue that it was kind of a blur. The girl that picked me up at the door was very nice and peppy and easy to talk to. It wasn't the awkward conversation that I had experienced at other houses. I loved the house, and it was the most beautiful inside. She told me about the great traditions they have at Blue, and I was intrigued by that. I liked this house, but I had heard bad things about it from all the other PNMs that I was rushing with. They had told me that this house wasn't well liked and all they did was study. Studying was important to me but I wanted to join a sorority to make friends and be social, so maybe Blue wasnt the house for me.

At the end of the night I ranked them:

1.Pink
2.Red
3.Blue
4.Green
5.Purple

I dropped Purple that night, but in retrospect I wished I had dropped Green. I guess it didnt matter at that point though because I definitely knew I didnt want to be at either of those houses.

The next night was Philanthropy night..check back for more : )

Woooo sad about purple. they're my favorite color.

keep going....plllease

I have a feeling you won't wind up at Pink but I'm still rooting for them.

Philanthropy night:

I came back this night with an invite back to all of the houses, except for purple which I had dropped the night before. I felt really great about it because it must have meant that i made a good impression, especially when some girls only got one or two invites back, or none at all.

Green was first for the night. The craft was coloring and puffy-painting coloring sheets for little kids. I was uninterested in the house so I focused my attention on the craft. I was once again unimpressed by the conversation at this house.

Blue: I had high hopes for blue. The craft could have been more creative. The conversation was quite awkward because since there were so many of us in the room, the PNM sat in a chair doing the craft and the active had to kneel down behind the PNMs chair to try to talk to her. I just didnt click with this girl at all. I liked blue way less than I did the night before.

Red: I didnt click with the girl at all. I felt like I was struggling to come up with something to talk about with this girl while doing my craft, which was coloring once again. The showed a film about their charity, and a lo of the other PNMs cried. It was quite moving and I did feel like maybe I could find my place in red, and I felt myself wishing I had a better conversation with the girl earlier in the party.

Pink: Pink was my top choice but I was least moved by their philanthropic efforts. The charity that they worked with was one that all of their chapters work with, but compared to the efforts of Red, I was unimpressed. I had great conversation here though. I talked to three different girls and the conversation was friendly and not forced.

I ranked them this way:

1. Pink
2. Red
3. Blue
4. Green

I wanted to drop green this night and I still knew Pink was my top choice.

I always seem to pick the ones that the PNM never likes, lol. Poor green :(

Go Pink! But have a feeling thats not where you'll end up going off your title. Can't wait for more!!

Skit night:

The next day I received a full schedule of invites back to the houses, but not necessarily the ones I wanted. I anticipated having Pink, Blue, and Red but after receiving my schedule I found out that Red had dropped me and Green added me back! I was a little upset about Red because I did like the house, but I wasn't completely surprised since I knew the last party didn't go as well as it could have but I was still upset because it was my first experience being dropped by a house.

My schedule was like this:

Green: The skit was funny, and the girl I was paired with wasn't so bad but I still wasn't clicking with the house. This night was better than past nights at Green but I still wasn't convinced this was the house for me.

Pink: Pink had their house and their girls decked out for skit night. The skit was hilarious and I had a great time here once again. The girl I was paired with even told me the activities they had planned for bid day.

Blue: I loved the theme and the skit idea at blue, and the outfits they had were so cute! The first girl I was paired with was great and we got along quite well, but then they switched and I got paired with another girl. This girl was not personable at all. I was sitting there trying to talk to her and she would just sit there with a blank stare never smiling or trying to contribute to the conversation. This irritated me.

Heres where I made another mistake:
I ranked them:

1.Pink
2.Green
3.Blue

I still don't know why I ranked Green above Blue..i consistently liked blue more than green every night but I guess I was just irritated by the last girl I talked to, especially since I had a great conversation at Pink right before I went to Blue.

Check back for pref night : )

Please continue : )

More please! :)

ah! i want to know who you got :)!

Pref night!

I received two invitations back for pref night, the most you can have. They were green... and pink!! i was ecstatic. I figured if I got an invite back to pref night then I definitely have a good chance of being in pink. As for green I was not so happy..I wished I hadn't gotten dropped by red, and maybe I should have even kept blue. Oh well I had pink and thats all that mattered!

Pink: My first for the night. I was picked up at the door by a girl I had never met before. She said she had heard so much about me and she had to fight with the other girls because they wanted to pref me too. I thought that was a little strange because I was told that we would be preffed by a girl we had clicked the most with during rush. I was the complete opposite of this girl..we didnt have a lot on common. She asked me if I had a boyfriend, which I did and still do, and she said "oh does that mean you would never hang out with us then?" Of course I said no, it wasnt like that at all. She was still nice but I had a weird feeling about it. If they had been matching me all along with girls who were exactly like me, why would they pair me with someone on pref night who I have nothing in common with? I tried to be positive about the situation but now I was very nervous. Pink was very nicely decorated for pref night, and I enjoyed the ceremonies and songs they had. I still knew Pink was the one for me..but was I the one for Pink?

Green: Their pref night activities were nothing compared to pinks, and other houses from what I hear. I really liked the girl I was paired with but once again it was someone I didnt know, with the same story of "I just heard so much about you and wanted to meet you." Can anyone tell me why both houses did this to me? Anyways, I really clicked with this girl, but I hadn't with any of the others during rush so that still swayed my opinion. I wasn't moved at all by the girls who told emotional stories about how much Green meant to them. I knew that was a sign that Green could never be for me.


Then walking back to the student union, I made a very hard decision. I decided to do the thing that all my Rho Chis told everyone not to do...I suicided. Instead of putting down my first choice as Pink, and my second as Green, I put down only Pink and prayed for the best. I thought about it this way, if something happened with Pink and I didnt get a bid, but got a bid from Green and declined it, I wouldnt be eligible for rush until the next fall. I figured if the worst case scenario happened and I didnt get a bid from Pink, then I would still be eligible for COB and formal rush the following year if I wanted.

I was nervous the whole night after that..I couldn't sleep. I was dreading the possibility of getting a call from our greek life advisor, telling me I didnt get a bid. I waited anxiously by the phone....

Cliffhanger... these recruitment stories are WRECKING my nails. Can't wait to hear the rest! :)

I don't know about the size of your campus, or what chapter total is, or how many PNMs come through, but usually, it is just a logistical/numbers thing, not something personal.

The sororities themselves have no say in who comes to which preference party. Maybe one of your "rushers" was already paired with someone for preference conversation. Often times, the officers in charge of recruitment (sorority members, not panhel) will pair up PNMs with sisters who they think WILL hit it off/have things in common, even if they haven't previously met, because the sisters that the PNM had previously spoken with are already set to speak to another PNM. I'm trying to explain this without revealing membership selection processes, but please know that it is NOT something personal, or that the sisters you spoke to in pervious rounds don't want to preference you.

I did sister-PNM preference matching for recruitment for two years, and it really is hard to keep everyone happy! It really is a logistics/numbers situation, nothing personal.

Sometimes it is that the sorority wants you to meet girls that you don't know (or wants girls who don't know you to meet you). Ideally, this happens before pref night, but sometimes things happen. I also know one year someone dropped out of pref at the very last minute and our entire pref line got off by one, and the entire sorority basically ended up preffing someone they didn't know for 5-10 min until we could sort it out. It was kind of a disaster, although I think we worked it out in the end.

I woke up the morning of bid day feeling good, but still anxious. It was about 9 am, and bid day activities were supposed to start at noon. I got ready, and finished at about 1045. I was so happy because I hadn't gotten the call and figured I would have by then if it was going to happen. I walked in the other room and came back to a missed call and a voicemail from a number I didn't recognize. My heart sank. I called the number back and it was my greek life advisor telling me I didnt get a bid. I was stunned and beyond upset. I had felt so good about Pink the whole way through rush, but at pref night I had that gut feeling telling me that something wasn't right. I cried for an entire day about it..and a few times after that. Im not usually an emotional person but there was something about that hit me really hard. To make things worse, all of my friends made it into pink, and instantly uploaded all of their bid day pics onto facebook that day. I just wondered why this happened. Was it because of the boyfriend thing? Was it the pref night girl just not liking me? Or was it just that I wasn't Pink material?

I still didnt regret my decision to "suicide" on pref night. I know I would not have been happy at Green. And I'm very glad because later in the middle of the year, Green was having a lot of internal disputes, which led to a lot of girls dropping and they may be losing their charter if they cant get quota. The girl I liked on pref night at Green, the only one I ended up clicking with there also dropped at that point.

The first few weeks were really hard at school, everyone had their new sorority clothes that they would wear around campus, and fun socials that they went to. To make matters worse, my boyfriend was pledging the frat that Pink was paired with for everything. The whole experience left me with feelings of jealousy and hurt my self confidence a bit.

One day I was walking through campus and happened to see one of the girls I really clicked with at Pink. She pulled me aside and told me she was considering dropping Pink, and proceeded to tell me what happened on pref night. After all was said and done, the actives at Pink met to discuss and privately vote on the girls they thought were Pink material. Before they voted, the girls discussed each PNM's strengths and weaknesses. There was a girl I went to high school with who was an upperclassman in Pink. I hadn't thought much about the fact that we didnt like each other in high school, and I figured that was long ago anyway that it wouldnt matter. Appearantly this girl told the other actives ugly lies about me and said she wouldn't tolerate it if I was in the house. of course the actives would listen to their sister and believe her, especially since they dont really know me.

This didnt surprise me much, the possibility entered my mind. I will never know if this is really true, but based on the things she said it sounds plausible. It made me feel a lot better knowing it wasn't my fault, it wasnt me or my personality, and it could have just been some silly high school dispute.

I was still upset though and so sad about how rush turned out, especially since I had been planning on being in a sorority for as long as I could remember.

Then one night I got a call.

It was one of the sisters from ___ inviting me to a COB event they were having. I was quite happy about that call. I figured it would be a second chance at one of the houses and I could give it a try. I figured even if I didnt like it, it was still worth going to.

Anyone want to take a guess about which house(or color!) gave me the call?

I guess blue!

I understand that you appreciate knowing what may have occurred. Just keep in mind that there is no way for you to know if this is the truth, especially considering the source. This person is considering resigning, therefore must be unhappy with her org/sisters and obviously has no qualms about violating the confidentiality of the organization she pledged herself to for life.

Regardless of whether she told you the truth, a fabrication, or embellished, it sounds like she is purposely trying to create drama for that chapter on campus -- a parting shot if you will. Being unhappy is no excuse. She has no sense of loyalty, committment, or honor. The organization and her sisters are entitled to her loyalty and in this case her continued confidentiality even if she does resign. If she doesn't, I hope her org takes action through their standards process.

You know, I agree with all of this, but I can't help but wonder how true the story is. Do you think a sister who really didn't want a PNM in her chapter would wait until after pref to try and get rid of the PNM? That would seem like the worst time since no matter how low on the list that PNM goes, there is still a chance that she will get a bid since she will be on the bid list. It may make this PNM feel better about the way things turned out, but I'm not buying it!

Depending how Pink's MS works and the number of girls going through, it is possible the sister just didn't realize the PNM was still on the invite list until pref day; prompting her dramatics—going all out to make sure she was as far down the list as possible. Or the girl preffing the OP just felt awkward when she ran into her and embellished/made up a story.

To be fair to the OP, she stated it was plausible, but had no idea if it really happened.

I don't think the OP made up the story...I agree that the girl who told her was trying to stir up some drama. With 5 chapters at this school, I find it hard to believe that the sister wouldn't know that a PNM, who she knew in HS that made such an impression on her that she would throw a big fit about not wanting in her house, was on their lists for prefs.

!! I hope you go Red.

I often wondered the same thing. Why would she wait until the last night before she finally said something? It is true that maybe she didnt know I was going through rush until the last night. But regardless, I wish they had dropped me sooner because then I could have spent my time concentrating on the other houses, instead of just blowing them off because they weren't pink.


And yes like I said before, I will never know if the story the girl from Pink is completely true, but like I said it sounds plausible. This girl from pink would have never known that the other girl and I went to high school together and that we didnt get along, this is something the girl from pink would have had to hear that night from the other girl.


I will update with more later : )

I'm guessing Purple!

Yes. Purple. The very first house that you cut.

Actually the call wasn't from Purple...







or Red...







or Green...







it was Blue!



I went to the COB event at Blue and had a great time getting to know the sisters. it was a much more relaxed setting than the parties during formal rush. I left with a great feeling about Blue, and accepted the bid they gave me the following week. I jumped into the pledge class that had been given bids through formal rush and was initiated with them a few weeks later. It was hard though because I felt like since I came in late, I didn't get to establish that bond with my pledge sisters that they had from the beginning. Until this day I'm still not as close with them as I would like, and sometimes I feel like we just have nothing in common. I have become friends with a lot of the older girls, including my Big who I'm very close with. I love Blue as a whole. It is a great sorority with great ritual and traditions, and it is very hard to get a bid from Blue at other schools. There is a long line of famous Blue women, and the house is well known and great nationally.

It is still hard because I feel like I would have been much closer to the pledge class in Pink than I am with mine in Blue. I know that everything happens for a reason though, and I know that Blue will be a great experience if I put effort into it. I plan to move in the house my junior year, and I would love to hold an exec position. I also want to make more of an effort to hang out with my sisters outside of Blue meetings and events.

Im proud to call myself a Blue, but sometimes it is just a little bittersweet!

I would bet that that "bittersweetness" ends up becoming the sweetest thing you've ever tasted.

I received a bid from my second-choice group, after seriously considering suiciding during recruitment (my recruitment story is posted here as well). I took an office in my second semester in-house. Becoming a sister in Alpha Chi Omega became the best decision I made during my freshman year. You may not realize it right now, but give it a semester or two. You'll see it. :)

Because she's really twisted and hated you with every fiber of her being, and because if she'd said "alexa is this and that" the first night, it wouldn't have sunk in as much, and because she wanted to lead you on during rush and make you do exactly what you did, suicide. However, that is on a Cartman making chili out of Scott Petterman's parents level. I seriously doubt anyone hates anyone that much.

More likely, the girl who told you is stretching the truth - it's possible the girl from your hs said "I went to hs w/ alexa and I'm not nuts about her, but whatever." If she's dropping out of her sorority and it's the least acrimonious, she's going to make an effort to show them in the worst light as much as possible so she looks like the poor wronged little lamb.

Don't worry about not being close to your pledge class. It's really overrated. If the sorority's small everyone gets to know everyone and pc is not an issue, and if it's large and classes are mainly by class year, you'll get to know them better over time.

I would say its about medium sized. We have about one hundred girls, and there were about 35 in my pledge class. I figured that living in the house would help me to get to know the girls better.

1. I totally guessed it was Blue! Yesssss!

2. Do we get to know what chapter Blue is?!

Congrats on blue! Great story by the way, it has a lot of meaning :) Do we get to know what blue is?

Yeah, I wouldn't worry at all. You'll be fine. :)

I can say that there is someone who replied to my story that is also a blue, but i think she may be an alum. I wasn't really planning on revealing my code, but if anyone wants to take some guesses you can message me! I know that half the fun in reading these posts is finding out the code, so im sorry..but feel free to guess!

in your case, i think it is wise(and honorable) to not reveal the code. let everyone guess in pm's to you if they want. i know the last thing you want is for one of your new sisters to figure out who you are and that you are in your second choice.

FSUZeta, i completely agree with you. I was not planning on revealing my code over his thread. And my sisters in Blue do know about my experience and they are very supportive, but I still would not want to name it.

I'm glad your story ended with a happy ending.

I literally had a "Pink" during rush and ended up with a "Blue" haha. Not in the same way as you did though, I put blue down as my second after pref and ended up loving my "Blue" more than I would ever love my Pink. I look at the pledge class that went through pink and I really can't see myself in there now that I look at it. Good for you for finding a new sorority!