Rush at Washington and Lee!
 

Ok, so it's not until January... But here at the nation's 3rd ranked Greek school (Princeton Review), that means we're getting down to the wire!

I'm so excited! This is my first year on the other side. We have 5 NPC sororities:

Chi Omega
Kappa Alpha Theta
Kappa Delta
Kappa Kappa Gamma
Pi Beta Phi (oh yeah!)

We had 198 women register for rush last Wednesday. (including 8 sophomores). Keep in mind that the size of our freshmen class (men and women) this year is 458. (And of course, that number includes those that never showed up on move-in day, or have left school already.) Typically, about 70-75% of women and 80-85% of men pledge an NPC or NIC group (no NPHC groups, though an interest group has been formed for AKA).

I'm so excited about rush!!!! The Panhel rush theme this year is "Sisters Wanted" with little VW bugs for each chapter. Are there any PNMs from W&L on GC?

Oh well! I was just so excited about the rush registration results I had to post. I'll revive this thread at some point far closer to rush and let all of you know how it goes!

Click here for our awesome class of 2006's profile

Yeah! Good luck with recruitment! Hopefully your plans are well underway and your name is all over campus. I met a great KD from W&L (class of 2001) and she had nothing but great words about your Greek system. Keep us updated on how everything is going! :)

Let us know all the details!

Sigma Nu has its biannual College of Chapters at W&L. All I can say is that is a REALLY nice campus. And all of the Greek houses are palaces.

I'd have really like to see the insides of the houses on sorority row over there behind that parking garage by the auditorium.

I hope to return this summer...

Sorority Row
 

The sorority houses are GORGEOUS. I'm living there this year. I'm guessing, though, that you can't get into them in the summer. :( I'd give you a tour otherwise!

The houses are palatial, though. If you ever have a chance to come and visit W&L in the schoolyear, you'll have to check them out.

PS. I know like the entire SNu chapter here. They all date my sisters! Well, almost. :D

Ok this forum is getting really slow!!

I am about to leave for home! Which means we come back, have one week of classes and then FOUR WEEKS of strict silence!!! SOOOOO EXCITED! ! I have about four major rush crushes and I'm so excited about my first time on the other side ! Yeah!

Any PNMs involved in deferred rush soon?

Before strict silence starts maybe I will post about some of the things we are doing for rush! :)

I really think that this a model campus for smaller, private universities. Everything about the Greek population (houses, membership, scholastics, membership rates, etc.) here makes others pale in comparison. I think we'd all love to have 70% + pledge an organization. I'm envious!

We have the VW Bug theme, too! Our Recruitment Counselors have shirts that say "BUG me about Greek Life!" We have deferred recruitment as well; it's in January. Good luck to Kappa and our Monmouth Duo sisters in PiPhi!

We actually had the same exact theme at UCF for either the 2000 or 2001 rush (not sure). That's so funny that both schools have done the same thing. :)

KKC: I'm sure Kappa will do extremely well! They are an awesome and VERY popular group on our campus! I would be astounded if they did not make quota. One of my Rho Chis was a Kappa last year and she is the most spectacular person ever! And I love your Rho Chi shirts-- I'm not sure if we even have Rho Chi shirts this year. There have been a lot of changes to our Fall Rush and to the Rho Chi process this year, it will be interesting to see how those affect rush.

KEPike: Thanks so much! I would love it if more schools would follow our lead. Unfortunately so many small liberal arts schools view Greek Life as an antithesis to their mission... But if you look at Greek GPA and involvement at W&L it becomes obvious that that is not true... BTW, The Pikes are awesome here too, I actually date a Pike... ;)

good to hear
 

It's so good to hear about campuses with strong greek communities. I don't even know how few people my school had rushing this last quarter. I do know that only 4% of our student population is Greek, and yet it hosts 80% of social events on campus.

That sounds like a pretty good rush theme. Hope you all have fun. We're starting up Winter Rush (we're on a trimester system) in a week or so, and if we're lucky we pull in 4 or 5 pledges.

Best of Luck! Can't wait to hear your story in January :)

Ok! Since this forum is still moving slowly, and since I have exams next week and will be sort of semi-observing strict silence on GC for break and rush week, I thought I'd post a little bit about what my chapter is doing each night of rush this year so y'all can enjoy that. I'll post every day corresponding to what we'll do on that day of the week.

Our first night of rush is January 6. That's philanthropy night for us. We're trying some new things. Traditionally we've painted letter blocks for Links to Literacy (one of our national philanthropies) and given them to Head Start, but it tends to get messy even with cleanup wipes and usually the PNMs go kinda slowly on them so we have to end up finishing the batch after rush. So this year we're going to do a local philanthropy and make these beautiful stuffed angels and give them to the DC Childrens' Hospital. On philanthropy night we do not do bumping, we just have PNMs sit with one active, ususally someone they know, at table with several other PNM-active groups. We have table tents about all our philanthropies and lattices with pictures of our philanthropy events (Dhall takeover, flag football tourney, etc). Our VP Moral talks a little bit about our national and local philanthropies. We are wearing white polo shirts with wine embroidery of our letters and "Pi Beta Phi" spelled out on the pocket area, dark jeans, sneakers, and optional Pi Phi hair ribbons (oooh!). For any Pi Phis that know our rush songs our entrance song is "Hello you Rushees" and our exit song is "Goodbye, Goodbye".

YEAH! This is so fun. I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL RUSH!!!!!!

i absolutely loved washington and lee and almost went there...in fact if it had been completely up to me, i would have gone there!!! hope you're enjoying it, and good luck with rush!

Skit Night
 

OK!

For skit night, the second night of rush, we are doing a New Years' skit! It is going to be MTV New Years. We have the characters in Sex and the City hosting in 3 cities (New York, Miami, and Dallas (I'm Charlotte!)) and meeting Pi Phis in each city that talk about different aspects of the sorority. In between, we do Bon Jovi, Shakira, Dixie Chicks, and Britney Spears songs with the words changed around to be about Pi Phi. The skit is supercute and bouncy and it's fun because we get to sing with it as well as act. The characters are dressing their parts of course and the rest of the "crowd" is wearing party-type clothes. :)

Sisterhood Night
 

Sisterhood Night is Wednesday for us. We have made some major changes to it this year.

For Sisterhood Night we are wearing bright colored sweatersets, black skirts, and our lavalieres. We have pictures everywhere--on the table, on the lattices--some are blown up and others are pictures we normally have framed in our room. We have a really cool sisterhood video this year, with fun music and pictures from events--social, service, just hangin' out, etc. Then we talk about some of our sisterhood traditions, specifically the Cookie Shine. We have sort of a mock CS set up (mock because our CS sheet is multi-Pi-Phi-colored and rush rules only allow for solid colored sheets---gotta love rush rules!) for the PNMs to look at and we talk about how our traditions bring us closer together. After that we just have general talking and more browsing of the pictures. I'm really excited about the changes made to this night... I can't wait to see how it goes... :)

Pref Nite
 

I'm late on this... Oh well!

I'm actually serving as a pref night co-chair this year. We've made a lot of changes and I think this year's pref night is going to rule.

We have pref singers every year that sing entrance and exit songs as well as a special Pi Phi song... I think it will be really pretty. When the PNMs come in with us we take them upstairs (all our rush occurs on the second floor, per Panhel rules), we have pairs of chairs with end tables scattered around our dining hall with a big flower arrangement/prettiness in the center of the room. We talk for a bit (working up to seriousness), and then we have the pref ceremony. It's a new ceremony--Our TGC helped us with it and we're really excited. It has candles and speaker who talk about the light of Pi Phi and how it brings forth all our best characteristics and appreciates them... And at the end, our Pres talks a bit, and then our secretary tells her story (her mother died her freshmen year, and it's very moving). Then the pref singers sing the pref song (this year it's a Pi Phi version of "Now and Forever"). Then we go back to the seats and do the final push. And as we go out we hand each a pearl and let her drop into a fountain on the way out and tell her to make a wish. :)

Ok, I think that's it. I am so excited about rush, I've been dreaming about it a lot... Exams start up tomorrow so I probably won't be posting a lot this coming week... And after that is strict silence. I'll be around but I'm going to keep it fairly quiet just in case there are any PNMs online. I'll let you know on bid day (January 10) how everything went! And hopefully have funny/happy stories!!!!

Pref sounds so gorgeous and I can't wait to hear what each of the other parties is like!

Actually I already wrote about the other nights... :cool:

PPL carnation!!! I have my fingers crossed.... ;)

Whoops, my bad! What I meant was that I want to hear about each night as rush comes along! You'll get to make at least a brief post, right?

And I want K to be our sister and I'll see what I can do to encourage that from this end while she's home! Maybe she and BlazerCheer and Ballerina need to get together!

I will post *something*. We have a very small school and a very competitive rush, so I have to be sure to mind my P's and Q's. But I don't think that will prevent me from posting a little bit each day. :) :) I can't wait!!! I can tell my life is just going to be rush that week. :D

AHHHHH!!! I just got back to school!!! Rush starts in TWO DAYS!!! We have workshop all day tomorrow.... SOOOOO EXCITED! I will be sure to post for y'all!!

OK! I just woke up the first morning of classes and.... RUSH!

I'm going downstairs to start decorating now! I am soooo busy this week trying to write job applications, decorate, paint my nails, oh, and go to class!

I'm soooo excited! Wish me luck! I'll post after philanthropy night is over!

Good luck, breathesgelatin!!! You and your chapter are going to do terrific!! And good luck getting everything finished! :)

Good luck breathesgelatin!!!!

I can't wait to hear how it goes!

Philanthropy Night!
 

Hi all! Thanks for the words of encouragement!

PHILANTHROPY NIGHT WENT SO WELL!

I felt like we really kept our energy up for all the parties and sang and rushed our hearts out! Except for one, I already knew the PNMs I talked to, so I felt really prepared and poised. The one I did not know was very talkative and asked a lot of great questions about philanthropies and seemed compatible with our chapter's values. I was very impressed by her! And all of the other four PNMs (one of which has been a total rush crush all along) I had were awesome too. I could tell some were a little nervous (one asked me three times what I did over break!) but I thought that was very understandable and actually kind of cute! On the first night sometimes it's hard to remember what you've already asked! Our new craft of the angels (for the Children's Medical Center in DC--going to two programs, one for children with AIDS and another for children traumatized by the Pentagon or sniper attacks) went very well. The PNMs got really creative with sequins and such. We had one mishap with a glitter pen but luckily that was at the last party and our superb floaters rushed us paper towels... Overall very positive feelings about it all! I have one really funny/weird story but I don't want to write about that, although I will answer PMs if you want a big laugh. :) :) :) :) :) :) I think it went well! Our chapter has had problems in the past but I think this will be a really good year for us. Positivity rules!

Also--I've never done this before, so I don't know if what I've written is kosher--please please please let me know if I've gone too far in my descriptions so I can edit if needed. I want to give you all a fun story but don't want to create any weirdness either. All you Panhellenic rush-minded people, help me out!

BTW, Fraternity rush starts tomorrow (or I guess today) here. My boyfriend is a Pike so of course I'm rooting for them but I have a lot of close friends in all the groups. So go boys! :)

Time for me to get some beauty rest!

Skit Night
 

Skit night went well. We improved our return rate this year which was exciting.

I had a variety of PNMs, not any that I was really good friends with but mostly ones I knew and a few I didn't know at all. I thought all of them were pretty nice. I had one that was the perfect PNM--she had so many questions and had the cutest clothes. We had a few problems with bumping going slowly because we have a limited space to use--just the dining hall of our sorority until tomorrow when we can use the parlor too. with the skit backdrops and PNM seating, there isn't much extra room to squeeze around. *sigh* rush rules... I felt really good because one of the PNMs we have really been rushing hard told me that she loves seeing our sisterhood and she feels like she knows everyone and is really welcome. Then she said "This is my favorite house and I love being here" and I was like SCORE! She got nervous after saying that I think she thought she "went too far"--but totally not we love her! So I hope to see her back. I also talked to two girls that we are really, really, really, really fighting for with our "rival" sorority--I'm hoping!

Our skit went really well. This year it was partially improvised onstage and I don't know if the PNMs will see that as being unpolished or as being unique and individual. I thought it was a lot of fun and our dances were really cool. I had fun, I love being in front of people.

Sisterhood Night
 

Oh my gosh y'all... I am so excited about tonight. We had a really good return rate and some super PNMs!!

I had a lot of fun. I talked to my rush crush as well as three other awesome girls. At one party I got to float for a bit so I tried to welcome every PNM I knew at the party. It was just a lot of fun to share our sisterhood stories with the girls. I think they enjoyed our video and the Cookie Shine segment went over well too. One of our moms made these GORGEOUS angel cookies that were delicious, too.

Overall I can't wait for pref tomorrow. I think that we are going to have some awesome girls return! :)

Good luck! It sounds like things are going great, and I hope you get some wonderful ladies!

AHHHH!!! We have 62 PNMs coming back for pref and quota is set at 36! I'm sooooooo excited! We start in about an hour!

Good luck tonight! It sounds like tons of fun, and you guys are doing fabulously!

Pref Night
 

Pref Night went SO SO SO SO well. I preffed a girl at each party and both were awesome and amazing and cool. I hope we get them! I'm not completely sure but I think we will get at least one of them. The ceremony was really special and I saw a lot of teary eyes. YAY!

I'll let you know about Bid Day and the number for all the chapters (guys too) as soon as I know!

It sounds like Pi Beta Phi had a wonderful recruitment, breathesgelatin! It's been fun to read your updates every day from "the other side" so thanks for sharing with us.

Good luck today!
Fraternally,
Christin

I'm so happy for you girls!!! Sounds like all of your great planning & preparation paid off :D

BID NIGHT!!!!!!!!
 

HEY!!!!!

We have our wonderful beautiful gorgeous fun new angels!!!

There are 27 of them! (Quota 36 but we think we can COB up to that, we already have a few great girls here seeing if they'd like to do that).

carnation----

WE GOT KATIE!!!!!!!!!! YESYESYESYESYESYES!!! I'm sooooo happy and it's all so wonderful! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

I'll post about all the other groups as soon as I know. I saw the Kappas running to their house and they look like they have a great group of new members too!

Fun news: We have a girl from Monmouth, Illinois... and 1, maybe 2 legacies. And 90% of our pledge class was on our original ideal bid list! Hooray!

YESSSS!!!! Yea for y'all's fabulous pledge class and double yea for Katie!!!! New sisters!!!! Yess!!!

Way to go! It's wonderful you got most of the girls you really wanted! I've enjoyed reading your thread - thanks for sharing with us! Best of luck with COB!

Yay!
 

breathesgelatin, congratulations to you and your new sisters-to-be! And thanks for letting us rush thread addicts live vicariously through you. If you have any more stories that are sharable now that rush is over, you know you have eager listeners (readers?). Anyway, we can't wait to hear about COB and what a great time you have getting to know your new angels.

Ivy

Congratulations on your new member class! :D

Hey, breathesgelatin! You can tell the gluesniffer story now!;)