A Colony Recruitment Story!
 

Hello GCers! After talking to Honeychile, I’ve decided I’m going to put up my colony recruitment story! It’s definitely not the same as formal recruitment, and I’m sure each sorority does it differently, so feel free to comment about that! I’m not going to name the other sororities involved because that’s not important. I’m home and that’s what matters.
I’m going to go chronologically otherwise I am going to forget everything and make you all royally confused. I’m also going to split this up into 3 posts to make it manageable to read. Here we go!

Freshman year was rough for me as I go to school 6 hours away from home. I knew only 4 people and I’d gone to a very small high school so throwing a little introverted fish like me into that big of a pond took some adjustment. I eventually figured out I wanted to go through recruitment and my girlfriends on the hall who were in sororities encouraged me. I found out that we would be getting a new sorority that coming fall and heard the name but didn’t think much of it.

Summer came and the new colonizing sorority created a website for our school, so I checked it out. I loved their values, the colors matched me so well (how “sorority girl” of me to say that), and I liked them a lot. But I knew that we had plenty of established chapters and wanted to pursue that first.

Fall came, and so did formal recruitment. We had 10 chapters at that point with a 5-day recruitment (2 open house days, philanthropy day, skit day, and Preference Night). I went in super excited and tried to make a good impression.
My Rho Gamma called me for Philanthropy Day, and said I’d only been called back to 2. I liked one of my callbacks a lot and had made a great connection there, but I was shocked and hurt. I did my best to put that aside and went to those houses and had a good time.
Skit Day came and my RG called and said I only got called back to one, the one I’d liked since Open Houses. I stayed positive, went to the party, and thought I’d done well and had fun.
My RG called on the morning of Preference Night and said I'd been released, and offered me any help she could give, mentioned a leadership org we have on campus I might get involved in, and also mentioned the new sorority and said I could get on an interest list for them.
I had a good cry (or three), went through the stages of grief, and had a healthy dinner of fries and a half pint of ice cream. Once I had gotten myself together, I called my Rho Gamma back and said I’d appreciated her help during that week and wanted to go on the interest list for the colonizing sorority.
Bid Day was the next day and I had to avoid Facebook to keep from seeing the happy pictures from my affiliated friends go up (I saw one photo and the crying started again and I was not going to eat any more Ben and Jerry’s!).

I knew as a sophomore my chances were going to be much different from an incoming freshman's, especially when 800+ women signed up for recruitment. I'm not the best at being uber-social with strangers so I probably came off cold or guarded. So it was just a sucky situation and I had to acknowledge both sides' flaws and move on.

About 2 weeks passed, and the colonizing sorority started tabling out on our Commons (big campus circle where everyone advertises/fundraises). I liked the two Leadership Consultants who were there and spoke with them twice, but I was still shell shocked from formal recruitment so I tried to stay guarded. I picked up the recruitment schedule and committed to trying this out. What did I have to lose? I’d spent my freshman year and all of sophomore August/September not in a sorority so I knew I could live without being Greek and my life would go on.

I will post again tomorrow the second third of the story, and the last third will go up Friday or Saturday, depending how busy my life gets! :)

I look forward to your next posts!

Looking forward to hearing your story and I'm happy you've decided to share it!

I'm really looking forward to hearing all about this! I had high hopes that someone would go through the colonization process, but I don't think she did. :( Silly girl - there was an opal pin in the offing if she had!

Looking forward to reading more about your experience!

Alright, part 2! Sorry for it being a day late, but here it goes:

The first recruitment event was an info session held in the big ballroom on campus. I went early and got to speak with members of the colonization/recruitment team, so I felt good about that but was still quaking in my boots. By the time all the girls interested had come out, the room was full—400-500 girls attended. The colonization team gave a presentation, showed a video, and spoke about the history of the sorority. The International President was present and gave an extemporaneous speech and mentioned there were the 2 previous International Presidents in the room. My jaw dropped to subterranean levels, being in their presence. She was hysterically funny and candid and I knew that night I wanted to be in that sisterhood. It felt right. It felt connected to me. But the fear of rejection had been put into me by Formal Recruitment, so I tried not to keep my hopes up.

We had next interviews called “Tell Us About You Sessions” we had to sign up for. I was nervous, but I’ve done a half dozen interviews, give or take, so at the least I showed up dressed appropriately! I chose to do mine on the first day possible because it worked for my schedule and I figured it was best to get it over with.
I walked into the room and met my interviewer at the door. We clicked instantaneously. She worked for a science company, I’m a Biology major; she did research, I just had gotten into a professor’s research lab. I don’t think she ever asked me any of the scripted questions other than how I got interested in joining the sorority. I left the interview feeling on cloud nine. I didn’t want to count my chickens before they hatched, but I felt like it went well.

Four days passed as the rest of the interviews were held. The last recruitment event was on Thursday and was a Philanthropy night. We did a craft, saw another brief presentation, and had a woman from the local “chapter” of the philanthropy come and speak about the connection between the sorority and the philanthropy. I stayed a little later and talked to more of the colonizing team.

We were told that night Bid Day would be the next day. If were not accepted to join the colony, we would receive a call from 9pm that night until 10am the next day from Panhellenic. If we didn’t get a call, at 10am we could go to a room in the Student Union and get our Bids!

I'll release Part 3 tomorrow! =)

We add a Preference Night before Bid Day. 400-500 girls sounds like a lot!!! I'd be nervous, too.

Wow 400 girls competing for one group! This is more stressful that recruitment for an existing chapter!

Even though I know how this turns out, it's still nice to hear it through your perspective! Want more :)

About 400 interviewed, so it was a lot! I can't talk about selection, but the obvious reasons for not accepting a girl are present: very poor grades, potential standards issues, etc. I think the interview was the site girls presented themselves best or worst at. I don't know what the girl's name was, but the girl who was next after me for interviews showed up in furry boots, skinny jeans with rhinestone pockets, and a very low cut shirt. Clearly that does not send the best impression to someone you'd like to be Sisters with.

PART 3!

I went back to my dorm after the Philanthropy event and tried to keep my mind off it with homework. My parents called at 10 caused a near heart attack, and the pizza delivery guy called at 11 to say he was outside with my order--I have never been more grateful to hear, “Hi, it’s Steve from Domino’s,” in my life.
I went to bed and woke up for my 9am calculus class. I’d gotten no calls between bedtime and when I walked into class. I turned my phone to vibrate, put it on my desk, and tried to stay focused on class. Our university has a clock tower with bells that go off every hour, so at 10 o’clock they chimed as usual. I hadn’t gotten a phone call. People around me must’ve thought I’d had a mental breakdown or aneurysm because I started smiling and giggling like the Cheshire cat. Class finished at 10:15 and I bolted to the Student Union.

I got to the room and walked in. (After talking to my Sisters apparently we all had the same worry on walking there: that there’d been a mistake, we had no Bid and they’d forgotten to call us.) So I was convinced I still wasn’t in until the Leadership Consultant handed me my envelope (which she couldn’t find at first!).
I opened it and still couldn’t believe. We did some forms and got our Bid Day gifts, which were: a door decoration (a cutout with our mascot and our names on it), a lettered tote bag filled with a lettered tumbler and sorority post-its and pencils, and a Bid Day t-shirt. We were told to come back at 2pm for our Bid Day celebration. Our Bid Day Celebration was simple but fun—we took pictures of our new chapter on the big steps all chapters do their Bid Day pictures at, had some free food, were taught our first song by visiting sisters from nearby schools, and had a blast!

So, after many ups and downs, I came home to…

ALPHA DELTA PI!

I am happy to say I am a member of the newest chapter of ADPi, Theta Omicron at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia! Everything that happened was for a reason and I’m so glad I came home to the right sisterhood. That summer before I just knew I’d be in white and blue! (And yes I did rhyme that intentionally.) I am actually our Scholarship Chair this semester and had the honor of being in the same room as Tammie Pinkston (our International President) again when she installed our officers and gave us our charter! This time my jaw didn’t drop but my stomach sure did!
Thank you all for reading this! If there are any other colony stories out there, I’d love to hear about yours, too!

And we are so happy to have YOU as a sister! I'm also proud to be an advisor of such a great chapter!

Welcome to ADPi. <>

Congratulations! I love reading stories of women who continued to take risks in order to find their home. :)

Congratulations on being a charter member of your chapter!