A California Recruitment Story!
 

Hello! As you can probably tell from my thread title and username, I'll be rushing at a California university this fall. From the small amount of information that I've been able to gather about my school's recruitment, it seems as if it is relatively noncompetitive, with few girls having recommendations. Hopefully this will somewhat work in my favor, but I still intend to secure recs for most, if not all of the houses (I'm still debating whether to get recs for the houses that I know I have a snowball's chance in H*ll of getting into, but I figure it won't hurt). Recruitment doesn't start for another 6 weeks, so I'm getting extremely anxious to begin, but at least it will give me time to get everything together and choose attractive outfits and mentally prepare!

A little about me:
I'm not the first in my family to go to college, but I'm definitely the first to consider going Greek. There was a time when joining a sorority was "everything I was against" (typical teen angst :rolleyes: ), but the more I grew up, the more Greek life seemed to interest me and seem like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I'm coming into my school as a junior transfer, which apparently is less of a disadvantage here than at other schools (I believe I heard somewhere that last year quota was 45 and 10-15 of the girls some sororities took were juniors), but I still realize that it could potentially count against me. The good thing, however, is that I'll be the same age as most of the freshman PNMs, so at least it'll help me relate more with my pledge class (if I get a bid, of course!)

I spent a good week scouring GreekRank and other equally disreputable sites before realizing it was all negative, depressing, trash talk and that little to none of it is accurate. I believe I'm going in with an open mind, and am actually following a "I'll be lucky if I'm good enough to get a bid at all" philosophy. Hopefully this mindset won't make me reek of desperation, but rather will help me stay open-minded to all of the wonderful groups on campus!

Anyway, enough with my novel. I have a couple of questions about potential outfits for each round (I haven't bought ANYTHING yet!), but I'll save those until later so that this doesn't become a 2-page post.

I was going to do an LA-themed recruitment, but after reading a disastrous thread with a similar them, I decided against it. So instead, I chose to use car brands to represent each group (Sadly, I don't own any of these, or even drive for that matter! :) )

The 12 groups on campus are:
BMW
Lexus
Honda
Infiniti
Mazda
Audi
Bentley
Nissan
Lincoln
Toyota
Ford
Buick

It's probably painfully easy to figure out where I go to school, so I'll most likely reveal it at the end, and delay my posts by a day. I'm not planning to say anything mean or negative, so it shouldn't be a problem! :)

good luck (:

Are you coming in as a junior because you have AP/IB transfer credits from HS or because you entered college/a community college early?

Good Luck!!

best of luck :)

Girl, get you some shoes and get them broken in - NOW!

and good luck, love SoCal stories.

Definitely a Toyota ending.

I am attending school in the Southwest area myself! I didn't get into a particularly prestigious college out here that I had my heart set on, so I'm going to try to find my home at the school I DID get into instead. Your story/situation sounds really interesting! I'm excited to read it. :)

I'm coming in as a junior because I went to community college early. :)



Yeah, I'm probably going to do a good amount of shopping around mid-August, so hopefully that will give me plenty of time to break in any heels I buy!

Thanks everyone for the support!

Getting recs is smart, even if few girls have them. And even though you think you have a snowball's chance at certain houses, you may be exactly the kind of sister they want, so get recs for those houses too!

Good luck and have fun! I'm excited to read a California story.

Thank you, that's a good point. Maybe it will be worth it to get recs for those houses as well, just to see what happens!

Welcome SoCalVeg! I'm also looking forward to reading your California recruitment thread. Best wishes for a successful conclusion!


.....Kelly :)

Thank you, navane! [:

Good Luck and GO BMW!

So I actually have a couple of questions about what to wear, and I was wondering if anyone could help me!

The first problem is, my school's recruitment website tells us to wear something along the lines of "an evening sundress" for one of the rounds. I'm sorry if I'm missing something, but what exactly would be an evening sundress? Can anyone please explain this to me?

My second issue is actually the opposite: Our pref round is early in the day (before 2 pm), yet it tells us to wear a cocktail dress. So will I look strange wearing iike, a dark or strapless cocktail dress with heels in the middle of the day? I mean, I know the other PNMs will be wearing almost the same things, but is there away to pull the cocktail dress look off during the day?

Thanks to anyone who can help me answer these questions!

I love the oxymoron of evening sundress. I can't actually answer that one, but my guess would be a sundress that's at the fancier end of the spectrum.

I believe the guideline to use for a day preference party is the same as you'd wear to a day wedding, maybe fancy but in a lighter/brighter color.

Best of luck. I'm just sorry my sorority isn't represented on your campus.

So, I'm assuming that this is a UC campus. I can tell you from three of my daughter's friends who rushed at different UC campuses their recruitment guides are like limburger cheese...they stink. One friend wore cutoffs and flipflops to the first round because the book said they could/should. Don't. During the day wear something weather appropriate, sundress etc. Pref advice ^^^ excellent. Nice outfit, with heels, that you might wear to an afternoon wedding. Leave the glitz at home and bring (and I know you will) the class with you.

Good luck!