what did you not like about rushing?
 

When you were going through rush, was there anything that a house did that turned you off? I don't mean obvious things like the girls were bitches or anything like that but subtle things like being bumped too soon or not being introduced to enough (or too many) sisters. Just ideas of things you didn't like that sisters can avoid doing in the up coming rush season.

hmmm, I only went through informal recruitment, so my experience may be diff from others. All I know is I would've liked to know where all the info parties were. It was Phi Sig girls who told me to check the other soror. out too, unfortunately i didn't find the room they were in (although i now know i wasn't too far away lol).

So, for informal recruitment - be explicit in directions [eg rose room in lower Vanier hall - southeast campus (near res)]

I remember being at a GLO that I knew I wouldn't fit in with, but I was still trying to get to know. I was sitting at a table with a couple of sisters and a couple of rushees doing some kind of arts and crafts...the girl that picked me up wasn't very talkative and one of the other sisters was ignoring her rush guest in order to double up on a girl they obviously liked. If I didn't like them before, I would have dropped them for how they treated other PNMs.

I remember talking to a sister at a house (i'll call it CD) and i told her that i enjoyed singing and performing in plays in high school, and that i was still involved in a community theater group back at home. Suddenly two other sisters materialized and all three of them started talking about how great i would be for airbands during Greek Week if i was into performing, and they pretty much forgot i was still in the room. it was a really uncomfortable feeling, and I was happy not to be asked back to CD for the next round of parties.

All groups have things out and they usually don't mind if you touch them or what not and I saw this scrapbook so I touched it or something and the sister was like nooooooo you can't look at that and was kinda ick about it, and I'm thinking why put out something if we're not "allowed" to look at it??

what is coffeehouse snapping? i've never heard of it before i came to GC.

coffee house snapping
 

If you've ever seen the movie "Heart of Dixie" they do it - they are having a sorority meeting and snap to show their approval. It is pretty obnoxious. You can also see it in the Laverne & Shirley episode where Shirley starts hanging out with the "beatnik" crowd.

She probably realized there were pictures of that chapter's Rho Chis in there and didn't want you to see them. Still, they should have worked that out before the party! That's rude.

I hated being put in a chair and having 4 or 5 sisters sitting in a circle at my feet. It made me feel like a Kindergarten teacher or something. I was ready to whip out a copy of "Goodnight Moon" and start reading to them!

HAHAHAH

Good night moon -- Jeez that's funny!

Of course, ye olde school librarian would think so!!

Lizz (PNAM tinydancer)

Turn-offs...
 

Feeling like cattle. I didn't know anything about rush going into it. The whole "rushing" aspect felt forced and false to me.

And this is individual to my experience: I didn't like looking around and not seeing any cultural diversity reflected among the chapters. Luckily, things have changed since I went through rush 15 years ago.

the whole one-on-one interview where they grilled me about my history
i was extremely uncomfortable and i knew what they were doing(asking me about my family)

so, i lied. . .made up this story about my dad being a neurosurgeon. i kept dropping 'oh, my car is still brand new so if we do road trips we can take mine' and 'my parents pay for everything' rountine

what's so funny is i got invited back to the party the next day
they kept asking me the same questions
however, i had dropped out of rush before pref night started
i had had enough of the grilling. . .
extremely big school sororities are sometimes superficial

My first rush party, the sorority did an MTV thing (only their letters instead of "M") and three of the sisters did a rap. It might have been cute if they had (a) not forgotten the words and (b) just ended up laughing through the whole thing. There were other things about them that were a turn-off, and the rest of the week they were flawless, but I got the feeling that they felt like "we already know everyone likes us so we don't have to try too hard tonight." Don't get me wrong, I didn't choose DZ b/c of their skits (although they were terrific), but that being the first night left a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the week.

What really got on my nerves was at one house, I asked a girl to tell me more about study hours since I didn't really understand what they were, and her answer was something to the tune of, "Oh, yeah, like, we do study hours, and like, they help so much!" :rolleyes: All right.

I also didn't like the fakey-ness of some of the houses...they must've had to put Vaseline on their teeth to hold their smiles through the whole darn rush party, because I felt like I was in the middle of a beauty pageant. Everywhere I looked, I saw teeth. Now, smiles are great--who wants to be around people who look like they hate the world? But you could so tell that these girls just had their smiles plastered on and to me, that was a turn-off. I cut that house first.

I absolutely hated all of the screaming!! I mean, it's one thing to do a chant or two, but for like 2 minutes at the beginning of every first round party was too much. I also hated that groups didn't have stuff to drink...we're traipsing around campus going to parties, at least have some water for us! And yes, on our campus, you can have water at every party.

long list of peeves!
 

I hated feeling like just a number. Now I understand that rush is even longer for the sisters, but I hated feeling like 'just another PNM.' At one house, the girl kept having to look at my name tag... right as we were leaving the house... she said "Bye...(looked at tag)...Christy!" It was sooo OBVIOUS! At another house, the girl was holding back her yawns! :rolleyes:

And I hated the painful silences--but I think I would prefer the silence to the forced conversation sometimes. Or the one word answers from the girl rushing me. Again, these things happened at houses that I didn't really care too much about to begin with...where I didn't hit it off with the girls... BUT it was still annoying! And what I didn't understand is how I kept being invited back to these houses even though the entire 15 minutes was PAINFUL! :mad: (they finally cut me before prefs!)

Or how about when the girls all line up outside of the house before taking the PNM's in... and all the girls look the SAME! Now I don't mean wearing the same clothes... but physically! They all had the same "look." It was definitely INTIMIDATING! (being a brunette and all! :p )

And how can I forget... rushing in Florida... in mid-August is HORRIBLE!! By the last house, my hair was frizzy and gross... and how about trying to avoid sweating when walking from house to house in the HEAT?! It's nice that the houses offer cold water for the PNM's to drink... but then you'd have to use the gross porta-pottys planted in the middle of sorority row! (trust me... NOT fun!)

Alright... that's all I can think of for now... but I'm sure I'll think of something else b/c Rush was not fun for me!

about the snapping!
 

...and the coffee house snapping.... it freaked me out when I saw that during rush, but I'm used to it now. :p I remember kneeling on the floor of the Kappa house during their skits, and the sisters were snapping. It was weird to me at first, but now I understand... you let people know you agree with them without clapping over what they're saying.

It's funny b/c we'll snap at chapter and during announcements after dinner... but sometimes I find my sisters snapping (i don't know how to snap!!:() at non-Kappa events, and it'll catch on!

Re: long list of peeves!
 

Tell me something, everyone. Why is it so awful if a PNM asks to use the bathroom? When I rushed, our Rho Chi stressed that we were NOT supposed to ask to use the bathroom at any of the houses we visited, but why? Bladders don't know that it's rush week and they have to behave, so I've never thought anything of it when a PNM asks me to take her to the restroom.

Re: Re: long list of peeves!
 

Not that it's right, but
1) it can screw up the rotation
2) it can come off as if you are uninterested and you want to get away

Couple things that I disliked while rushing:

In one party, I was sitting next to a beauty queen (seriously, she had won a big pageant recently), and both my rusher and hers were both latched onto her every word. I was ignored and basically had to either a) listen to their conversation or b) stare into space until a floater finally noticed me and came over to chat. I cut that house as soon as possible. I suppose that my advice to rushers would be to stick with your girl -- no matter who is sitting next to her.

Also, in a pref party, my rusher had me sitting in a chair while she knelt at my feet, held my plate, and tried to feed me tea cakes. I mean that she literally tried to feed me -- like a mother holding a spoon for her toddler. Even though the girl was perfectly nice, the situation was weird, and it made me really uncomfortable. I would much rather sit eye-to-eye with someone and make conversation rather than having someone kneeling at my feet like they're my own personal servant.

I know a lot of people don't like being rushed by someone who's sitting on the floor while they're sitting in a chair or on a couch. I thought it was awkward too. But, our PX explained to us that most houses did it because PNMs might not know they would have to sit on the floor and may have worn clothing in which it would be difficult to get up and down from the floor. After she explained that it made a lot more sense.

Re: Re: long list of peeves!
 

my Rho Chis encouraged us to ask to use the bathroom if we needed to. Not only that, they told us which houses had the prettiest bathrooms in advance so that we would ask in the houses that had really really nice bathrooms.

I did not like that the sororities lied to me about how rush worked. They should just say they discuss each girl and vote! Please, it's easier to know the truth. Also, I wasn't told by my Rho Chi all my options, that peeved me a lot too. She was trying to be positive and steer me in the direction of her house, and withheld information. Thankfully it backfired (I got this feeling she wasn't telling the truth and cut her house), but please tell the PNM's the truth! They can tell when you are not genuine.

Re: long list of peeves!
 

LOL!!!! HA HA HA I know which house you are refering to!!! I can see where what your saying would be true, but I can also see for some that theyre like ooooh....I look like them....I'll fit right in!!! And you are right about the hotness oh my lord!!! We about sweated to death!!! But rush is good in the sense I got to meet great people like curlygirly!!!! :D

The noise. I couldn't hear anything for a week. I think I spent my classes with the "Just Smile and Nod" technique.

Professor: "Bethany-how was your weekend?"

Me: http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung...smiley-045.gif

I did not like people kneeling on the floor in front of me. It makes for very awkward conversation. I would prefer to be seated and the rusher be seated.

So after reading some replies... I agree!!! I hated how the Pi Chis (Ro Chi... whatever you want to call them!) weren't very up front about recruitment. I remember asking them how they the sisters would be able to remember us (and several other rush questions), and their standard answer for everything was "Each house does it differently." When in reality, there are some very basic similarities. How else are they going to give you a bid, if they don't discuss you?!

PNM's don't need to know the EXACT procedure but don't skirt around the issue. Fortunately I had someone (KDonline) who gave me advice and answered all my UF rush questions honestly.... b/c if I had gone by what my Pi Chis said, I would've been so lost. Also, (UF56...you'll remember this) DZ colonized at UF this year and our Pi Chis were basically discouraging people to drop from rush JUST to rush DZ (we attended an info session during Round 1). It seemed as if they wanted to girls to try for DZ only as a last option. I even remember one of my Pi Chis saying to another of the Pi Chis that if girls were dropped from their "top" houses during rush, they probably wouldn't get picked for DZ. They definitely didn't give them a very good chance.


I hated kneeling on the ground... or sitting in a chair and having a sister kneel in front of me. It's just awkward.. and how are you supposed to kneel in a skirt, and then "gracefully" stand up?!:rolleyes:

Rush was fun in the sense that I got to meet people (UF56!), and I still talk to girls from my rush group around campus. But then there are others that joined XYZ and are "too good" to talk to you.

Alright... I've said enough!!! Looking forward to everyone's responses! :D

When I rushed...
 

There were only two houses, so it was clear that there was a rivalry between them. The one thing that really turned me off about this sorority was how they kept complaining about the other sorority. "Oh the other sorority hazes!" "You'll get fined if you ever miss chapter, we never fine here at XYZ." "The other sorority doesn't let you go to chapter, because they don't think you're important enough to go to chapter. We let all of our members go to chapter, and you can even vote." Needless to say, I wasn't very impressed. After I joined the other sorority and went through rush practice, one thing that they always told us is that the name of the other sorority should never be mentioned when a girl is at a rush party in our house. We have only a short amount of time to convince them to be Chi Omegas. You should only focus on the positive aspects of our sorority. It works for us.

Dirty rushing never works out in the end.

About the whole snapping thing... funny that you should mention it because almost all phi sig chapters snap, my chapter HATES IT... so we don't do it... it's painfully obvious when we are at events as a division and we are the only chapter that doesn't snap... just thought it was funny that it turned off some of you as rushees at first... I guess that could be a plus that we don't snap :)

At one house I was constantly asked "So, do you have any questions about XYZ?" I ran through my pre-planned questions pretty quickly, which led to some awkward pauses.

At another house I got quite the cold shoulder. We had a round of formal rush called "informal rush" which is the only round where you can go outside the student center. So, two sisters, another PNM, and I went to Boston Public Garden for a swan boat ride. The swan boats have benches - so I sat down on one bench, and the other PNM sat down behind me. One sister climbed in next to the other PNM, and the other sister, instead of sitting next to me, sat in the row behind me as well. None of them talked to me for the whole ride. :rolleyes:

One sorority sprinkled confetti all over the floor of their rush room, and then expected the PNMs to sit on the floor during a skit. Spending the rest of the day trying to surreptitiously brush glitter off your new black pants is NOT fun. (Also, every year they got charged with a rush infraction for giving gifts, because PNMs tracked confetti out of the room.)

Over and above all that, though, formal rush just struck me as massively fake, and I wound up dropping out and finding my new home via COB the following week. :)

"Sooo, do you have any questions?"
 

God, that gets old after every 5 minutes. I feel stupid asking the same questions over and over to different girls. Should they be asking us questions about ourselves? Soo, why did you choose that dorm, why did you choose this school, what did you do this summer, just something to find out about us maybe.

I'd also like to see the groups use the things they bring a lot more. Like we won this at greek week because our skit was yada yada and I was involved, or I watched and something. Like show your group off, not just show a pic and mention what it is, but really explain what it is!

Chi Delta doesn't participate in formal recruitment but I will share my formal recruitment story because I did sign up for it initially but dropped out.

I didn't even make through the information meeting. Not saying that what was presented to me was awful, it just wasn't for me. First of all, the Rho Chis just didn't seem like my type of girls to get along with. I actually went into the formal recruitment meeting to find out about Chi Delta. I asked someone about it and basically told me that Chi Delta wasn't participating but pay my recruitment fee now and I can participate in the week. Now, that just didn't seem right. She just seemed so overly concerned with getting my recruitment fee than actually helping me find my potential house (which actually wasn't there to begin with). Maybe that's just the way things were.

At the info meeting, they did a fashion show on what to wear to pref night, theme day, etc. I remember thinking in my seat, gosh, I didn't really bring anything cute like that to wear from home. Do I have to go out and buy a new lil black dress and 4 different skirts just for that week? Then of course they added at the end, well, we are here to get to know you, not your clothes. :rolleyes: (of course now, I could probably get away with recruitment cuz I have done a lot of shopping lately. ;))

And looking around at the PNMs that were with me at the meeting, they also weren't me. Based on looks alone, which is bad I know, they looked like the people that picked on me in high school.

Luckily, I found my home with Chi Delta. I couldn't be happier.

WOW, you guys are a tough crowd!

They didn't tell you that because it is simply not true. Only some sororities operate that way. Furthermore, each sorority's selection/voting process is secret, not for public discussion.

Exactly! I've experienced Structured Recruitment as a PNM, a Sister, a Rho Chi, and an alumna helping a different chapter, and it's not so cut and dry. Each GLO, sometimes even different chapters of the same GLO, do things differently.

I understand that every house does it differently... but at the same time, it just frustrates girls when Pi Chis spit out rehearsed answers to each question.

What did you want her to say then?

this is funny because when i mentioned my new car at one of the sororities' party. they started droning on and on about what kind of car it was and how some of the sisters had gotten new cars over the summer. i didnt really care though. i had so seen through their inquisition and wasn't planning on joining their sorority anyway.

HAHAHA... THAT happened to me too. No joke. Which is funny because I'm not that big of a dmb fan. I don't know how the subject came up but it didn't leave for a long time. Then another sister came over and started talking about it. Oh, then another came to. So really they were just talking and I was standing there. I was like well this neat.

That happened to me, too, only it was about curling irons! Somehow I got on a convo about my curly hair and how I don't use curling irons but did back in the 80's. Well, the first girl came to rotate and I got introduced and they used that, "We were just talking about curling irons and 80's hair" so she and I started that whole conversation again, then the next rotater came and I got the same introduction and, thus, the same convo. My roommate was in this house, though, and I knew they had bad rush skills - she even said so. But all I could think was, if I join this house will I have the same horrible conversations over and over for the next 4 years?!?! I didn't have the heart to cut them until right before Pref (b/c of my roomie) but every party there was painfully boring!

One of the worst things a sorority can do is focus on a few select rushees and ignore the rest. I have seen this at several schools...I mentioned here a few months ago that when I rushed, there was a girl in my Rho Chi group who was going to be the Orange Bowl Queen that December and boy, were the sororities competing for her. Other rushees were left alone while 6-7 of their prettiest girls were falling all over her. (She pledged, flunked out, and was never initiated.)

Anyway--all rushees should get the same attention.

This is true, and the same goes for you NM's. Every semester, tehre is one "cute" NM that everyone fawns over, and I have NEVER seen that girl do anything useful for our chapter.

My rush crush was not chosen for looks at all, but she was still on the top of our bid list, out of respect for me. Three years later, everyone knows I was right.