Trying to feel comfortable in new sorority
 

Hi! I have been reading these forums for a while now trying to help my daughter get ready for sorority recruitment. She had a pretty good recruitment until the last day. In the end, she did not get her first choice and doesn't feel comfortable in her new sorority. Yes, she rushed at a very competitive school and should be happy with any bid, but she really loved one and went to their preference party and got her hopes up for that one. She is still talking to the girls in that sorority, texting, etc. She just wasn't high enough on their bid list apparently. Anyway, she wants to love her new sorority, but doesn't. Have any of you been in a similar situation and what made you grow to love your sorority? What do you love about being Greek? Thanks for your advice?

I don't know what others might say but I would turn this around 180 degrees.What is it about her that made THEM want her? Made THEM love her? Made THEM think she could contribute something special to THEIR chapter? Made THEM put her high enough on THEIR list? What was so special about her to THEM? And what should she do to honor that? Love takes time. She should focus on getting to know them enough to like them and get to know them.

She is NEVER going to be happy in the group she got as long as she is focusing more attention on the group she didn't get. Put it to her like this: imagine a guy asked you to the prom, you accepted, and then spent the whole time talking to another guy. That's what she is doing. No one said you can't have friends in other sororities. But now is the time when she should be getting to know the girls in HER sorority. The girls in the other group, especially if they're upperclasmen, should back off and let her do this as well.

Mom... how many days has she been a new member of this chapter?? It takes TIME! She has no option to go join another group for at least a year, so she might as well focus on her sorority. I hope you will tell her to appreciate what she has. Her sorority wanted her!! The other chapter... not so much.

I hope it won't come to this, but she might as well get to know her new sisters and participate for the next 6 weeks. If she wants to, she can depledge before initiation and try to rush again next year. Understand that it would be a huge uphill climb to be offered another bid next year.

The choice is likely the sorority she is in now or no sorority at all. I can't tell you how many women come to love their 2nd or 3rd choice and realize that it was the perfect place for them after all.

Read this thread.

I didn't get my first choice. It gets better.

Wise counsel from all my Panhellenic sisters. I want to reiterate that as long as she continues in contact with her friends in her top choice and lusting after that chapter, she will not be happy with the sorority that did want her. Her best bet is to concentrate on HER chapter, specifically her pledge class, which at a competitive U, will have a big enough mix of girls to find a friend, no matter what her interests are. Walk with some pledge sisters to the house, invite them to study, or go get coffee or ice cream with them. Go to the house for her meals, or sit with sisters in the cafeteria. She has to make a concerted effort to even begin to feel comfortable in any new situation. New members do not automatically feel a part of the sorority in the beginning. Some girls are just better at faking it until the true feelings develope.

Thank you all for your responses! I think that is all very good advice. I hope she will find people she will click with in her own sorority. I really hoped we wouldn't be in this situation at the beginning of her college experience and it is hard to be so far away. Her roommate got her top choice (she was a legacy) and she is having so much fun with her sorority already. They had their first exchange last night. Meanwhile, my daughter's sorority is spending their time doing COB, so they haven't done anything yet that will strengthen or grow their sisterhood. But you are right, it has only been days since bid day and there is a lot she hasn't experienced with them yet.

I agree with her that the majority of the girls in her sorority are not like her, but with such a large group of girls, surely there are some that are. I'm just worried about her right now and hoping she finds her place soon.

This sounds very much like my daughter's early experience. She accepted a bid from her second choice and was lukewarm from the start. Her Bid Day experience was difficult because girls were ecstatic and she was still pining for the one that got away. Additionally, she was a bit overwhelmed getting settled with college classes, a big campus and lots of other new things - she just didn't have much emotional energy for falling in love with her sorority.

Every phone call home was full of doubt and I just kept advising her to hang in there, attend every single thing that she could, accept every invitation to join sisters in activities and to quit comparing herself to those joyous, gushy pledge sisters because to be honest, she isn't the gushy type about anything!

Bit by bit, she began to love her sorority and made dear life-long friends! She never did gush - that isn't her style, but she can't imagine her life without her sisters.

I think that sometimes the talk of "I found my home" and "I love my sisters!!!" is just too much hype for young women that are more reserved or slow to warm up. Help your daughter by keeping her expectations realistic. Hopefully, she will settle in!

A big hmmmm? to the statement in bold.

As others have said, your daughter needs to dive head first into her sorority. She needs to make an effort. I know she's your daughter and you want her to be happy, but life is going to throw disappointing situations her way, and she won't always get her first choice, but she needs to find a way to make her own happiness. She needs to give her chapter a chance.

Tell her to look at COB as a great opportunity to a) work with her new sisters, b) help grow the sisterhood, and c) find potential members that she likes and wants to be part of her chapter.

Being part of a sorority is hard work, and I don't just mean in terms of building friendships. There are going to be challenges to overcome and disputes to settle. It's not all ice cream cones dancing on rainbows. And I know from her perspective, it looks that way when she sees members of her top choice around campus. But I promise you, they're not perfect. They have their own problems. And on top of that, they didn't pick her to be their sister.

Your daughter needs to try to connect. And if she truly makes an effort and after six weeks, she's still not feeling it, she can drop before initiation. But she should keep in mind that this may be her only opportunity to be a part of an NPC sorority.

Try to get her to look at the positives and make friends with her new sisters.

Good luck to you both! :)

The hard reality is that first-choice sorority had a chance to invite your daughter to join, but they did not. As with life, things don't always go as wanted or as planned. Like everyone else, after graduation, this experience will likely be repeated again and again when she starts a career. What is important is that she got her bid invitation on her own merit. She has been given a great opportunity with her new sorority and should be encouraged to make the most of it.

I do caution her not to pine about or hold out hopes for the sorority that passed her over. My wife had a roommate who kept going through rush in an attempt to get a bid from this one sorority. The roommate had "friends" in the sorority who kept encouraging her. This girl went through rush three times, never got a bid and never did join a sorority.

Almost.

If they invited her to pref, she was *somewhere* on their bid list(s), just not high enough to match.

No need for her to stop keeping in touch with the friends in the first-choice group, but she needs to see them as "friends" and not as a symbol of something she does not have.

Thank you! I appreciate everything you all have said. I am trying to get her to focus on the one she got. I don't think it's true that her 1st choice just passed her over. With bids being guaranteed to both legacies (who put it down as 1st choice) and those who only had that one party to go to, it doesn't leave as many spots for everyone else. They did invite her to preference, so they did see something in her that they liked. I think she is wishing that she had let her 2nd and 3rd choice know during the 3rd round that her heart was somewhere else. Then, maybe they wouldn't have invited her back for preference and she would have gotten her 1st choice. But, we didn't know how it all works and she was open to everyone. Plus, I don't think she could have done that. Now, it is what it is and she needs to keep an open mind about the one she has.

I have done some research on it and it is very strong nationally. Maybe if she gets more involved, she can help contribute to making it a stronger sorority at her school All of the girls I met were so sweet and seemed truly happy to have her there. She is not ungrateful for what she has. Just sad for what she didn't get. I want her to love her sorority. Otherwise, it's not worth the time and the money. My husband and I have stressed to her that sorority membership is for a lifetime, so to look at the whole picture and not make a decision to drop without some serious thought.

Thank you, DGTess. I think that is actually what helped make her feel better. Knowing that the girls who rushed her in that house really did want her, but there just weren't enough spots. So, it isn't really a rejection. It is just a disappointment. And hopefully she'll meet some great friends in her sorority. I just hope it happens soon, so she can be happy and start thinking about something else!

Another thing for her to be cautious of (because she is still talking to members of her top choice): if your daughter ultimately chooses to drop her current sorority, don't let it be because of anything members of her top choice said to her.

In other words, make sure no one is promising her that if she rushes again she'll get a bid from them. I don't know the membership selection practices of other sororities or chapters, but it is safe to assume that one member does not make the final membership selection decision by themselves. There are many things that factor into the process, and the last thing your daughter would want is to drop because someone told her she's "guaranteed a bid", only to have her end up disappointed on bid day.

If she drops, the only guarantee is that she'll be taking a risk.

First off, not all groups have a legacy guaranteed bid policy - even if they are at pref - so unless you saw that written on a website or policy handbook, I wouldn't assume that was a factor.

As far as girls with only that sorority left "edging out" your daughter because of guaranteed bids, that doesn't sound right either. Someone on here more versed in dealing with guaranteed bids and QAs will be able to explain that far better than I can.

At her school, if you go to preference and rank all of the sororities you have at preference, you are guaranteed a bid. If that is the only party you have, you are guaranteed a bid to that sorority.

My daughter wouldn't have felt comfortable telling her 2nd and 3rd choice that she wanted to be somewhere else. I just know she's been replaying what she could have, should have, would have done. She also is wondering if maybe she should have put her 3rd choice 2nd. No matter what, it is over and she can't turn back time. The reasons she wasn't high enough on the bid list don't matter anymore and we understand that. But she can't help but wonder what if.

Everyone says that it is easy to get lost in a really big school if you aren't part of Greek life, so maybe she will stay with it. In the meantime, not only is she trying to concentrate on getting to know girls in her sorority, she is looking at other things on campus that she can get involved with. She is used to disappointments and always seems to handle them well. So, hopefully this will end up with a happy ending too!

As I said, someone better versed in QAs than me will explain that. Suffice it to say it's not like a rollercoaster that can only hold x amount of people.

I understand that. But if she had only had that one sorority at preference, she would have been guaranteed a bid. Either way, she didn't get it, but she did get a bid to a sorority that had her higher on their list. And I'll keep my fingers crossed that she feels like she fits in with them soon!

HappyMom2 is correct in her understanding that if her daughter had only only invitation to Pref she would have been guaranteed a bid to that house - either as part of primary Quota or as a Quota Addition.

The flaw in the daughter's thinking is that she could have controlled having house 2 & 3 release her. Unless she was planning on being downright rude about her desire to be elsewhere, hinting that she had found her home elsewhere would not get a pnm released from most chapters. Especially when those chapters saw something in her that made them think she was perfect for their sisterhood.

A lot of new members don't get their first choice and grow to love the sorority that chose them. The year I was President of my collegiate chapter, two of my VP's were girls who were in TEARS on our freshman Bid Day because DG was not their first choice. I vividly remember them on Bid Day. They got over it & bloomed where they were planted :)

Mom, I would encourage your daughter to put all her effort into immersing herself in the chapter that choose her. If there are not enough sisterhood events going in her opinion, she should round up all the new members who live in her dorm and go to dinner or coffee or whatever together. She is a member of a BIG group now and will need to understand that the sorority's purpose is not to entertain her and fawn all over her...she has to take responsibility for getting involved and putting herself out there to meet people.

If she still isn't feeling it, remind her she has two options: continue with this chapter or not be Greek at all. A bid to any other house - especially the one she didn't get - is not even a remote "guarantee" and may not even be a possibility.

<3
 

I've seen this many times!! People on campus hype up the top chapters and talk down on the "lower tier" houses.. But there are phenomenal women in each house!

I hope she makes an effort to get to know her pledge class and older sisters. When both sides make an effort to get to know each other, she's bound to find her best friends.

Also, she is going to be a collegiate sorority member for 4 years max- and an alumna for so many! I actually had a little more fun as an alumna since I lived in the big cities.

This.

Plus, older sisters will graduate and a new class will come in during the next round of recruitment. Chapters turn over and change quickly, and next time, she'll be on the other side of recruitment and will have a say as to who gets to be in the chapter.

And again, nothing says she can't have friends in other sororities! That's one of the other great things after you graduate - I find that I've made so many friends who don't wear my letters. In school, there can be a lot of division, but afterward, you don't really care. You end up meeting sorority women everywhere, and you get excited when you see ANY letters. And even though you're not sisters, you're all sorority women, and you "get it".

In addition to the thread that ComradesTrue already posted...

... I would also encourage you and your daughter to read through these threads. We're all sorority women, and all sororities have great things to offer.

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=37621

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=87973

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=21716

Please see 3rd paragraph and share with your daughter. She has the opportunity to add girls she might have made friends with during rush to her sisterhood. Great girls who, for what ever reason, did not receive a bid. What a rare gift, as most new members don't have the ability to affect their chapter so early in their membership.

That is a very good way to look at it! I really appreciate everyone's input and advice!

One of my dear PH friends got her second choice and was not happy about it at first. She eventually came to love her group, was a collegiate consultant for them her year after graduation, was a Greek adviser and eventually served as a national Vice President on her group's Council. It can turn around!

Let's say that there were girls there that only had daughter's top choice as their only choice. OK, them being guaranteed a bid to their ONLY pref chapter would not necessarily have edged her out. If they were ahead of her on the bid list, they would have been placed ahead of her regardless of whether or not they only had the one chapter. (The bid list isn't built by the chapter based on the chapter knowing the PNMs only had the one Pref.) The single-Pref girls would not have edged our daughter if they were lower on the bid list, but would possibly have ended up being quota additions themselves.

Bottom line- if quota was 60, and daughter was not in the top 60, then she didn't get a bid (of course, depending on how many of their "first bid list" the chapter took). Other women only having one Pref didn't affect daughter's bid.

Ok. It doesn't matter either way. Without going into too much detail, she knows without a doubt that the ones she met liked her and knowing that has made her feel better. Now she's just hoping to make friends in her sorority like she has in the other one. I know she's not alone and I will pass all of this on to her when I get to talk to her again. Sounds like getting involved is the key. I hope she will!

I noticed she put her sorority letters at the top of her Instagram bio! That's a sign that she's settling in. I think she's starting to make some friends already!

:)

Good luck to your daughter. I hope she is meeting more sisters in her new chapter and is feeling more at home.

Honestly, sometimes I feel like we could just draw names out of a hat and match PNMs to any chapter on a campus and things would work out 90+% of the time. All of our NPC groups are so similar in our values and passion for academics and philanthropy.

So called "tiers" and social status with some fraternities are the only things that separate most chapters. And I know that is very important to an 18 year old but not so much for a 60 year old (with much wisdom).

Great! She may need a few gentle reminders that she's only been in her sorority for a week and it probably took her months or even years to make her bff's from home. :)