BAD CATS RETRO STORY
 

I have been thinking about posting my retro story for some time so if you guys like I will do it but be warned, it is more about how recruitment can turn your brain into lumpy oatmeal than a traditional retro story.

Please go on. We need an active story, preferably true.:)

Okay, 'bout time to read a story from someone who actually posts on these boards!!!

As long as there are no Philly references I think your story will do just fine. ;)

I was just thinking of suggesting that an established GCer (someone who has been posting here for years) write their retro. I know a lot of us are addicted to this thread and it would be nice to read a new story that's actually true (I don't know about you guys but I'm sick of this whole fake story drama). I usually don't post much, but please continue on BadCat25, I can't wait to hear how things went for you!

JUST A LITTLE BACKGROUND

If I were to describe myself in HS it would be a horse mad tomboy. I wasn’t involved in many school activities. I was so totally caught up in taking my horse over the next jump.

I am from the South and all of you fellow Southerners know how big sororities are down here. My dad was in a fraternity in college but my mom went to a school that didn’t have sororities. I became aware of them in junior high, when some of the older sisters of my classmates went through rush. By my senior year all the talk was about how girls who graduated the year before had done. How Sally made ABC, how poor June had to settle for DEF and how Emily was cut by everybody and dropped out of school. Horror stories of brutal cuts and how Southern honor required you to throw yourself under a train if your rush failed.

My parents told me they would pay the insane private school tuition only for a university with top academics, otherwise it would be the in-state tuition of my SEC school. I took a shot at the Ivy League but the closest I got was a wait list. I guess they weren’t impressed by the ribbons I won at horse shows. So after the acceptance and rejection letters I was left with four colleges to choose from. Three were Southern schools, Vandy, Emory and my SEC school, but a university in the North blew me away when I visited so when my parents gave their thumbs up I was headed for the frozen wasteland of Yankee country.

I've ridden hunter/jumpers for my whole life and still compete and it's always nice to have another horse person in greek life, so yay for your story :D

I'm liking your writing style! Can't wait to hear more!

Please continue. I want to know what happens next :)

TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY

Many girls in my graduating class did not rush. They were frightened off by the horror stories. One told me she wouldn’t pay money to be publicly humiliated. Of my only two friends who did, Susan was my BFF and was going to our SEC school. Alice went to an SEC school in a neighboring state where her parents went. I had no doubts about Susan. She had to be was headed for one of the top sororities. I worried about Alice. She was a bit shy and a bit socially awkward and I thought those girls would eat her alive.

A few days after Alice left she called me. She was heavily cut and was left with one chapter she loved and one she just didn’t click with at all and was sure her love chapter would cut her in the next round. A couple of days later another call. Alice was a new member of the chapter she loved. She was so excited and I was so happy for her.

Then I received an email from Susan. She said rush just didn’t work out. She didn’t say what happened and I didn’t press her for any details but I couldn’t believe it. I thought she had everything they could possibly want.

My college has deferred rush so I didn’t have to decide up front then if I was going to do it or not.

I agree! I've been riding for more than half my life and it's great to find another Greek equestrian. Great story so far!

UP TO THE FROZEN WASTELAND

I knew absolutely nobody at my new school but that was the case of most of the freshman as the university attracts students from all over the country. During freshman orientation I started to hang out with two girls in my dorm, Jen and Heather. Jen is super cute while Heather is wild and crazy and a total guy magnet. The college was Jen’s first choice while Heather is a fellow Ivy reject. When classes started it was obvious this wasn’t HS. They just piled on the work. Jen, Heather and I would go to the library in the evenings to pound the books but we did have time to have fun. We went to football games and cheered on our team, our student athletes against their future NFL draft picks. Heather got us into fraternity parties and found me a date to a fraternity semiformal. What a blast. I met a lot of sorority girls at the parties and they all seemed so cool that when Jen and Heather said they were going to rush, I decided I would give it a shot because the word was if you didn’t go greek you would have no social life but I decided that if things didn’t work out that would be it. No second rush and no attempts at COB. I knew I could only put myself through that once. Being from the South I thought I knew all the rules, keep an open mind, maximize your options and all the other good stuff you should do plus being on your best behavior that fall. No bad reputations. I tried to talk to Heather about this but she said if they didn’t like it they could stick it.

Ahh I like this so far... It really is a frozen wasteland up here.

I think I like Heather.

VENUS CHECKS ME OUT

I joined a club sports team when I got to the university and one of the officers of the team was Kathy, a Venus, one of the top sororities. Kathy was so cool as were all of the other Venus I met. They were everything I wanted to be. Kathy was so friendly to me and started to call me before the team meetings and events to remind me of the meeting times and then asked me to join her after the last event before rush started at a coffee shop near campus to discuss the team program. When we arrived at the shop two of her Venus sisters were there and what started out as a casual conversation quickly turned into like a job interview with the three of them. Where are you from, what courses are you taking? On my way back to the dorm it hit me, OMG, Venus was dirty rushing me. Oh to be a Venus.

those wily venuses!

RUSH BEGINS

After being at the college for the fall term I had a pretty god idea of what most of the sororities were like. Being from the South I also thought I had a good idea of what rush would be like and didn’t expect any surprises. As to recs, they told us they weren’t required but I knew enough not to fall into that trap so with my moms help I got two for every house only to find out later they really didn’t matter. As the university draws student from all over the country there were few friends from HS to take up the openings and being a legacy didn’t much matter unless it was a same chapter one and legacy mom was active in the chapter alum association. So rush at my university operated on a lot more level playing field than is common at a state university but the word was it was competitive and the previous year only about 75% of the girls who began the process ended up with bids. Talk about scary. Two things I remember as rush started. First, it was so cold with huge piles of snow everywhere. Second, no matter what happened I swore they would never make me cry.

As to my view of the chapters as rush opened:

Mercury – Top chapter, the rich and the beautiful.
Venus - Top chapter, cool and classy, the object of my desire.
Mars – Hard charging party girls, very popular with the top fraternities.
Saturn – Nothing special, just a bunch of very nice girls.
All others – Not relevant to my story.

I am not going to bore you with the endless details of who spoke to whom and what they said at every party during every round because I can’t remember most of it so here is a summary of the opening rounds.

Mercury – These girls had rush down cold, almost a professional operation, but I was surprised by them. I went in thinking they would be very snobby because they all looked like they jumped off the cover of Glamour but they were so friendly and nice I could almost see myself there. They didn’t and cut me after the first round.

Venus – The girls I spoke to seemed to know all about me. One referred to me as Kathy’s friend. On my way out the door at the last party before pref, Kathy came over and said everybody loved me and hoped I loved them. I told her my dream was to be a Venus. OMG, I was going to be a Venus.

Mars – You joined Mars to party and they talked about the fraternity parties, bars and clubs they went to. I had met some of the Mars at fraternity parties and liked them but wasn’t sure they were right for me. They didn’t either and cut me after the second round.

Saturn – I really clicked with those girls and they came within one inch of promising me a bid but I was going to be a Venus so they were just going to have to be disappointed.

Jen was having a fab rush. She was doing the cutting, not being cut. She loved Mercury. Heather was cut by Mercury but didn’t seem to care. She was very quiet about her favorites.

As to the other girls in my rush group and dorm, there were many heavy cuts. Many just dropped out. Some big time tears were shed.

This is the first recruitment story EVER where news of being cut made me laugh out loud. BadCat, you are a HOOT!

I need to give kudos to BadCat. You're a good writer; I actually believe you attend a top university. Also, a PNM that understands she's not the center of the universe and has a healthy self-esteem. Whichever GLO pledged you is lucky. (Also, a tip of the whip to a fellow equestrian.)

I love the frozen wastelaa...wait a minute, it's not a wasteland! We only freeze from about November April (or May in some years). Then again, those of you with thin blood tend to think that anything below 55 is freezing.

Just kidding, looking forward to the story!

Totally agree with all this. BadCat, I love how you write, and I love the wit that comes through. This is a fun read!

Try below 70 degrees!

Sometimes I think how great it would be to go to someplace like the University of Arizona or San Diego State where you wear shorts and a bikini top to class in January.

Tucson's warm but not that warm in January ...

I would love to live anywhere like that too, but not even in Miami do girls wear bikini tops to class. :(

I'm hooked!

Not in Arizona either. Even in 115 degree weather, women wore halters or tanks with shorts or a sun dress to class. When the temperature hits about 60, most natives break out the parkas but the out of staters are still in their shorts. :D

As a native Arizonian I can state that this is absolutely true! :D

It was pretty fun going to ASU and in the middle of December I'm totally bundled up and then seeing the people from other states walking around in shorts (and possibly a long sleeve shirt) but no jacket and and the flip flops. Great fun. :D

PREF PARTY INVITES

When the three of us went to pick up our pref party invites I was on top of the world. I was headed for Venus. Not. How could they do this? How could Kathy say everybody loved me? I was sick. Why oh why did I ever get involved in this in the first place? I went over to my RC and told her I was going to drop out. She asked to see my invite list and when I showed it to her she said I was being stupid because I had some great choices left including Saturn so I should stick it out. I really liked her and was so emotionally drained I said I would. Jen got her invite to Mercury and was ecstatic. Heather was headed to Mars but continued to be very cool about the whole thing.

OMG! I hate those two-faced Venus snots!! (I am way too emotionally invested in this thread, especially considering that it's not even live. No matter.)

This being the reason I left new england for college. Yeeeeah south west florida.

That and being anemic, i get cold wicked easy.

Ahh so jealous! I already live in the Northeast but I went somewhere even colder for college and now I totally wish I had gone to Miami or at least somewhere in FL! =)

Back on Topic...
 

Reasons I love this story:

-- Not only are you witty, you can also write in complete, grammatically correct sentences with no spelling errors. I thank you. Your high school English teacher thanks you. America thanks you.

-- Easy to remember chapters. First, you narrowed it down to only those that matter. Second, no disney princesses, characters from TV shows that I have never heard of, colors, or references to Philadelphia.

-- Different format than all the others. I love how you cut to the chase. Keeping it simple works well. Nice job.

-- Finally, it is clear that you are writing for entertainment value, NOT some starved-for-attention "look at me" vibe that so many of the others have. Keep entertaining us.

Bad Cat, I can't wait to find out where you land. I have never posted that in a recruitment story before.

You remind me of one of my friends. She was also anemic and would get WICKED cold very easily. She went from New England to Georgia for college, and is now living in Arizona.

For me, I can't imagine not being able to enjoy the height of each of the 4 seasons :)

Love this story. Keep going!

My point exactly! I am appalled at the grammatical and spelling errors in stories written by university women.

PREF PARTIES

The pref parties included the standard issue teary eyed stories of your sisters standing behind you when your goldfish died or something. I tried so hard to mask my disappointment of being cut by Venus but my heart wasn’t in it. The Saturn girls were great but they just weren’t Venus and I probably didn’t give the other chapter whose party I attended a fair chance. I listed Saturn first and hoped for the best. Our RC told us not to worry about the infamous no bid phone call because unless you did a suicide you would get a bid.

Well???
 

Please tell me that you got a bid from Saturn, accepted, and realized later what a great decision it was! :) I am hooked on this thread!

You should see their recruitment applications: they are absolutely atrocious. I keep thinking this has to be a joke. You used this kind of grammar and spelling knowing someone was going to be assessing you on it. I can’t wait to see their resumes in four years.

I received an email from the recruitment chairman this week and it was teeming with “lol” and “hahahaha.” Also, overuse of exclamation points and CAPS LOCK much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man, I’m a grouchy old woman.

I agree... but while we're on the topic, you have a run-on sentence there. :p

Well, I'll be sure to correct that.

BID DAY

Heather and I went together to pick up our bids. Jen started to hang out with some of the girls who had gone to the Mercury parties and went with them. Open your bids. Saturn. Heather got Mars, which she later told me was her first choice from the start, but didn’t seem all that excited about it. I could see Jen jumping up and down with her new Mercury sisters.

When I headed over to the Saturn house with my new sisters to get our new member tees and have the photos taken it seemed I was the only one not crazy excited to be a Saturn. They took us out that evening and all the other new members seemed so happy. I really tried but it just wasn’t in me.