Sophomore Rushing Fall '10
 

Hey everyone! I've read on GC for quite some time (& yall give GREAT advice by the way!) but just decided to make an account myself. I'm going to be rushing as a sophomore this year (as the title says..) at a SEC school. And I know how much yall enjoy reading recruitment stories-yes, I'm guilty of this too- so I thought I'd add mine to the mix! I think I'll probably wait until Bid Day to post most things..don't want to give away too many details & jeopardize my chances. Because of this, I'm not going to say where I attend college or give my name.

But for now a little background about me..
My GPA at the end of my freshman year of college was pretty good, a 3.7 & I had over a 4.0 in high school. I was also very involved in many different aspects from clubs to volunteer work and dance.
I didn't know much about Greek Life prior to college so I wasn't that into it. By the time I decided to give rush a chance (after arriving at college & talking with other girls) it was too late to sign up. I regret not rushing freshman year, but I still had a lot of fun. I know, or have at least met, girls in most sororities & all of them are really sweet, nice girls so I'm trying my hardest not to judge any of the sororities by the things I've heard. (yes, yes I know this is wrong to judge by the reputations but it's still hard to TOTALLY forget everything.) I really want to keep an open mind about the whole process.
Overall, I'm just really, really excited to begin rush!! I hope you like my story & I don't bore you too much. :]

I'm a sophomore rushing too, we're in the same boat!
good luck & keep us posted! :)

Happy that you are excited and wish you the best of luck.

Food for thought: if I had listened to all the "tent talk" and "things (I'd) heard" about the different chapters, I never would have ended up where I did. It's a double-edged sword, you know.

If you can, open your heart, clear your mind and shut out the negative talk.
Enjoy your recruitment experience.

BTW, I'm loving that first year GPA - congratulations. Scholarship is paramount for all GLOs.

Good luck to you too, lovely1919!!

AzTheta, thanks so much! Like I said, I'm really trying to ignore all the rumors. Recently I've met girls that are in sororities with not so great reputations on campus & they are some of the sweetest girls & becoming really good friends! I'm starting to figure out that those rumors are just rumors & nothing more. (Better late than never, right?)

My GPA is higher than all of the house averages so I'm hoping that it will help outweigh the fact that I'm not coming in as a freshman. I'm also planning on attending med school at my University so I'll be here for a while! One thing that I'm worried about is that I wasn't as involved last year as I would have liked, especially compared to everything I did in high school. (Which is one reason I want to rush, I DEFINITELY want to become much more involved in things!) I'm from a small town (we're talking like barely 1,000 people) & small high school so freshman year was really an adjustment time for me. (Main reason I waited to rush- I wanted to be sure I could handle everything.)

Do you think that this will hurt me a lot? Will the sororities even look at everything I did in high school since I'm not a freshman?

Just so you know about Med School, most NPC collegiate chapters are only for undergraduate students, once you graduate you receive alumni status. So in med school you wouldn't be able to be an active member of an undergraduate chapter.

As for activities, no one on here can tell you for sure how recruitment will go or what an individual chapter is looking for. At this point you can't add more activities to your resume so just relax and focus on that parts of recruitment that are in your control (conversation, outfits) Good Luck!!

Key word is most. Some do allow them to be active during graduate.

I'm pretty sure at my school you are given an alumni status (at least I know it's like that for the fraternities). But I know some girls that were in grad school last semester & they were still very involved with things.

Just had to second that- way to go on the GPA...that's awesome, esp since you are pre-med (I have a BS in biology so I know sciences are tough!)

Even if you aren't an active as a grad student, you will still have so many sisters around you as you go through your graduate studies if you do join...that's a great support system! Good luck!

From personal experience, medical school is very different than graduate school. The course work is so rigorous that you will NOT have time to function as an active member of your sorority. It will be nice to have sisters close by, but I wouldn't count on being at chapter meetings and every event once you graduate and go on to medical school. You really won't have the time.

Hell, one of my sorority sisters is waiting until her next rotation because right now she doesn't have the time to get food with me. Much less attend a meeting or event.

/or she secretly hates me :(

That's what I was thinking. :)

Plus, don't use that as a selling point during recruitment. Unless you have guaranteed admission, you don't know if/where you are going to end up going to Medical School. I'm moving 1,000 miles away to a school I never even dreamed of applying to, much yet attending. And yet, once application time came, it became my top choice.

Ditto to all of this. Heck, I barely have time to participate as an alumna. :(

Congratulations to all the medical students out there....my daughters both start med. school in a few weeks.
Good luck to those rushing as sophomores. Please keep us posted.

Thanks everyone! I just recently had a cousin graduate from med school and he all but gave his life away studying the entire time! So I understand that I definitely wouldn't be able to stay completely involved in sorority events (well, if I even get in to a sorority/med school!). Sorry for not making that part clear, after re-reading what I wrote it did sound like I was thinking I could stay completely involved. Anyways, I'll probably be a 5th year senior before I can even get into med school!

I have (yet another!) question for yall & I've heard different answers from everywhere...
Not sure if this is technically "allowed" but I know for a fact that sorority members basically "stalk" PNM's facebooks before/during rush at my school. Everyone has told me to make sure that my facebook is clean (delete bad pictures, comments, ect.) and I've gone through and done all that. But my facebook is set on private so unless they were my friends they wouldn't be able to see anything other than my profile picture. Should I take it off of private? I've heard that it could help because they get to see & know more about you/your personality other than just your GPA & school activities. I just don't want it to come back and bite me..

DO NOT take it off private! It's possible that active members may look at PNMs who do not have it set to private but chances are they are only going to remember the BAD things about PNMs. Having them not look at your facebook before recruitment is a good thing. You want to stand on your personality/conversations (and of course GPA, etc), NOT what an active can glean from your favorite movies.

100% agree with this ^ ^. Let them like you for who you are by going through recruitment. I think this is just a reason to find anything bad about a PNM.

Thanks sydney bristow & mittens! I'll definitely follow your advice. :]

Also remember that things you post on other peoples walls can be seen if their profile is public, regardless of your privacy settings. We had a huge issue with that one semester.

A tad off-topic but ... when I was in school, no one ever gave a second thought to a sophomore or junior rushing. In fact, some of our most fantastic sisters came in after they'd been in school a year or two. It might be because it's a very non-competitive school with a lot of commuters and first-gen students who have no clue about Greek life until they've been in college a while. Most of the actives were that way, too, so we tended to be pretty forgiving.

And grades? Grades, schmades! As long as you had a 2.0, you had nothing to worry about, although you couldn't be initiated unless you had at least that. You were allowed to hold over one semester and if you didn't make it by then, you were politely asked to leave. But that seldom happened - a 2.0 wasn't that hard to get at my school.

haha yeah, unfortunately for me, my school falls into the "not one of them" category! Although in the past few years they have supposedly changed the way that upperclassmen are accepted so there is a fair chance for everyone. Not sure how much truth there is to that...

Guess it's up to me to bring the "WOW" factor harder than all those freshmen! ;)

This is not true at even many non-competitive schools. You're at college to learn, not join a sorority. Also, many organizations do have GPA requirements that are above a 2.0.

i believe MUSK81 meant back in the day, which, if i remember correctly was in the late 70's early 80's.

Really? Wow, what a concept ... jk!;)

1980 - 1984 to be exact ... you have a good memory!:)

I think most chapters require a 2.5 or a 3.0 at least. Either way, it never hurts to be way above that!:)

At the risk of taking things even further off topic, I officially love you MUSK81 for inadvertently proving a point I have been making to my poor husband! For 27 years now I have needled him pretty endlessly about the education (or lack thereof) he received from Marshall - all in good humor, of course. I just pulled him upstairs and read your post to him. He took it with an equal amount of good humor (I may question his education at times, but not his patience), and pointed out that since the major listed on his diploma was merely a convenience, and he actually majored in track/cross country, Marshall really could not be blamed for any shortcomings.

My SIL, also a Marshall grad, is coming in this evening. I can hardly wait to read it to her since she is a Charleston south hills girl, and therefore, by definition, a bit condescending. :D

By the way, as the mother of a child who joined her sorority when she was a sophomore by credits and a junior by age (took a year off of school), I completely agree with your first point.

:DITA about the South Hills thing!

are you going to post a recruitment story? just curious! (:

haha yes! I'm sorry...I got a bit (well, very) anxious and made this thread a bit too early. Rush starts in August when we go back to school. Sorry for making this thread too early! Like I said, I just got really, REALLY excited when I started reading all the old recruitment stories! (And man, have I read a TON of them!)
All outfits are ready to go with the exception of one (pref night, ah!!) and I'm still thinking of a cute & creative "code" for the sororities!

oh no, I was just hoping you would! I can't wait to hear your story!
Isn't that the truth. Haha I'm rushing fall 2010 too and keep getting all antsy to make the recruitment story thread already. good luck with everything! you'll find a great pref night dress. p.s. anthropologie has a ton of cute ones out now! (:

Recruitment is less than a week away!! I'm so excited and a little nervous. Which will probably become a lot nervous in a week! Still freaking out over a pref night dress.. I have literally looked in every store in the mall & all the little boutiques across town. Everything is just too big on me or not what I'm looking for. There was one place that had a dress that could work but was more than I was planning on spending. Oh well, options are limited!

I'm so excited to hear your story! As for the dress, you'll find the perfect one eventually and it will look beautiful on you, so no stress :]

im a rushing as a sophmore too, but at a much smaller southern school. looking forward to reading your story! ill be posting one as well! :)

Well.......
TOMORROW IS THE BIG DAY! I'm so excited to go to all the houses and meet all the girls but growing more nervous by the minute! There are ten different sororities at my school & because of the time I had trying to find a dress I decided to use different stores as code.

1. Express
2. White House Black Market
3. BCBG
4. NY & Co
5. Steve Madden
6. Cathy Jean
7. Anthropologie
8. Francesca's
9. Forever 21
10. Charlotte Russe

(And I know that telling the number of sororities & when I would begin rush will probably be the only clues you need to find out where I go but please keep it quite for those who don't know!) :]

I met with my Pi Chi group for dinner tonight & I absolutely love them! I knew one Pi Chi before rush though..

I have no idea how I'll ever be able to sleep tonight.

oooh stores! How unique...and how amazing that tons of young shopping pnms have never thought to use stores! go Express!

Good luck!

Good luck this week! I'm rooting for Steve Madden (his shoes are my favorite!).

Day 1
We visit all ten houses for day one. (Yes, it’s a VERY long day in the blazing sun!) I was so excited when I met up with my Pi Chi group. My roommates are also in sororities and I think they were more excited about me rushing that I was! (Well, not really but they were super excited too.)

The first house I went to was Anthropologie. I had been warned that there would be tons of yelling and jumping up and down but I definitely didn’t expect to hear it before they even opened the doors of the house! Their cheer was so cute! (Yes, you’ll hear me say this a lot. I loved all the cheers!) The girl that I had was really sweet but it was her first time on that side of things. She was just as nervous as I was! We had a pretty good conversation but it was so loud in the house!

Next I went to Cathy Jean. One of my best friends was in this house so I was really excited about it. Their cheer was definitely stuck in my head the rest of the day! This house was everything I thought it would be and I loved the girl that was rushing me. We had a good conversation and my friend even stopped to tell me hey! I felt the most welcome in this house, I loved that everyone was saying my name as I walked out.
NY & Co was next up on the list. I knew two seniors in this house and they always talk about how much they love it. I talked to two girls in this house and both of them were soo sweet! I had a great convo with the first girl and laughed a lot with the second. I really liked this house when I left.

BCBG was next & to be honest, I was a little worried about it. I had a friend that accepted a bid here last year but later dropped it. Some things that she said about them & things that they had done really had me scared. But the girl I was rushed by was absolutely amazing! I loved her & we clicked instantly. We spent the entire time laughing about our tiny hometowns and other random things. This was my favorite house of the day.

Next I went to Francesca’s. The first girl I talked to was really shy & didn’t talk a lot. Then when she did start talking, she kind of creeped me out with some of the things she knew about me. (No, not the typical major, hometown, high school stuff. More of the apartment I live in who my best friend from home is. & No, they don’t know each other.) The next girl I had met once or twice before through a mutual friend. We just talked about that mutual friend a lot, since they were now roommates. The next girl was super sweet and I liked her a lot.

Steven Madden was the next house I went to. The girl that rushed me was really nice but a lot of other girls stopped by to talk just for a little bit & introduce themselves. A girl that I knew from last year stopped to talk & I was really excited to see her. Overall I liked this house a lot when I left. (And their cheer is STILL stuck in my head!)

Charlotte Russe was after that & although it’s considered one of the “top houses” that everyone wanted & was talking about, I didn’t like it all that much. I talked to two girls and they were both nice conversations but there just wasn’t anything special about it. I love my friends in this sorority but I didn’t feel like it was the place for me.

After Charlotte Russe came Express. They didn’t seem as energetic as all the other houses & just not as excited. I talked to two girls here and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get them off such “scripted questions”. It was always how was your summer, where are you from, what’s your major type questions & when I attempted to ask something about them or go more in depth with things they would change the subject back to what are your classes, ect. They did seem nice though & were probably just nervous like all us PNMs.

At Forever 21 I have a few friends in it but didn’t get to see them today. They had two PNMs to one sister (the only house to do this). I didn’t really like it and the girl I was with was a really shy freshman. I tried to ask her questions as well but she just gave blah answers. I wasn’t that impressed with this house and just had really awkward conversations.

At the last house, WHBM, I was soooo exhausted. I’m sure the girls there were as well which probably played a role in our awkward conversation. We just couldn’t find anything to talk about. It was very obvious when she grabbed another girl to help her out. I liked the second girl more and we talked about football, which I could go on & on about!


At the end of the day, we name our top 8 & rank bottom two. I had:

Express
Cathy Jean
BCBG
Anthropologie
Francesca's
Charlotte Russe
NY & Company
Steve Madden
1. White House Black Market (WHBM)
2. Forever 21

(Top 8 aren’t in any particular order)


Well I have to go get ready for my Round 3 parties so I'll be back soon!

what.