A New York City Recruitment
 

19 years after I started singing Alpha Gam songs to my baby girl in lieu of traditional lullabies, Hypo will be going through recruitment over the next 5 days.

Friday, February 1 or Saturday, February 2- Philanthropy Day (all five chapters)
Sunday, February 3- Chapter Development Day (three chapters)
Monday, February 4- Preference (two chapters)
Tuesday, February 5- Bid Day


NPC Chapters on campus: Alpha Chi Omega, Sigma Delta Tau, Delta Gamma and Kappa Alpha Theta. These chapters shall be named after some of the sites she has seen in NYC so far. There’s no sense in giving a nickname to the sorority that is recolonizing their Alpha Chapter because we all know it is AOPi. AOPi will be presenting in the first round and then dropping out until after formal recruitment is over.

Chapters:
Broadway
Tom’s Diner
The Highline
The Met

Hypo was initially ambivalent about sorority membership. She is a Barnard Woman in many ways, including distaste for some of the more superficial aspects of sorority life that she sees in the media and on certain sites that rank greeks. She also found her mom’s squirrel obsession to be a little weird. However, she also grew up in a household with a mother who took her lifelong membership very seriously as a national volunteer and witnessed first-hand the lasting bonds built through sorority membership.

As with any deferred recruitment, Hypo has met sorority women from the chapters through numerous other activities including marching band, political activities, classes, volunteer experiences and work. She seems to have run into more women from one particular chapter than the others and wonders if this is a “sign” but is going into recruitment an open mind and heeding recommendations from her mother and Panhellenic to maximize her options. She is very open to the idea of the AOPi re-colonization because they are emphasizing leadership strongly and she knows how very special it is to be part of an Alpha Chapter re-colonization. Her exposure to a lot of sorority women at Barnard/Columbia has dispelled her early ambivalence. Although she has been very active on campus, she misses the “family” feeling she had in high school marching band and the strong bonds she had with her high school friends while far away from home. This is what she seeks from sorority membership.

Hypo is a busy girl and had some concerns about conflicts with recruitment activities. She was a little panicked that recruitment activities might conflict with her group RA interview on one day, but she got lucky and her recruitment group is attending first parties at a different time. She also decided to take two days off work so she didn’t have to worry about those potential conflicts. She has two jobs for the next month so she is juggling a lot, but one of the jobs ends at the end of February. She has a lab that goes until 7:10 pm on Bid Day and Bid Day starts at 7 pm, so that could be weird, but we’ll see how it plays out.

This won’t be posted in real time for obvious reasons.

Happy for her and a bit sad for you/us! Wishing her the best!

Who ever is The Highline wins. I love the Highline. Hope Hypo has fun wherever she ends up.

Had to smile when you said you sang Alpha Gam songs instead of lullabies. I used to do the same with my daughter with Kappa songs. Good luck to your daughter!!

This might be heresy, since there is a Theta chapter in the mix, but I'm kinda sorta hoping for AOII because I think it would be an incredible experience to be part of a colony - especially for an Alpha chapter. And I love my AOII friends dearly.

She has wonderful chapters to visit and I wish Hypo all the best this coming week!

I'm dancing with excitement, well not literally, that wouldn't be pretty. No rhythm...

Most of the labs I had in college were done whenever you're finished with your work, so maybe she'll be done early. I know I would be rushing through my lab work to make sure I was done early, but then Hypo seems like a more dilligent student that I was.

Oh, yeaaaa! We've waited a looooong time for this one! Best of luck to Hypo! Thinking of you, AGDee!

Can't wait!

Oh, I wish I knew who she was! Being a daughter of an active alumna make the best members! They have had a good role model over the years and will probably be involved like the mother.

Good luck to you and your daughter. I will root for AXO cause every one should have the opportunity to use the tag line of Real. Strong. Women.

How true...3 weeks into her membership, and my daughter is already talking about how fun it would be to be a traveling consultant after graduation, work for her sorority, etc. :)

Best wishes to Hypo for a happy recruitment! I'm sending lots of positive thoughts her way!

(although, if it doesn't work out this year, there IS another group coming in 2015. Just saying.) ;)

I sang AOII songs to my boys when they were babies, so I feel you on that Dee! Much love and happiness to Hypo through recruitment. May she be happy!

When I sang those lullabies, I was hoping it would actually embed those songs into her brain associated with warm, loving, happy feelings so when she went through recruitment at an AGD chapter, she would instantly feel that connection. Don't you know she picked a school without an AGD chapter...lol. As much as I would have loved for her to be an Alpha Gam, in many ways, it takes a lot of pressure off of both of us to NOT have it be an option for her.

She did say she wished the re-colonization activities happened at the same time as the rest. She's worried she will love their initial presentation but is nervous about the idea of dropping out of recruitment to only do that one, just in case she didn't make it through that process. Mom's suggestion was that she stick with formal recruitment through preference but if she thinks AOPi is more appealing after Prefs, to drop out before signing her MRABA. Mom's only other pieces advice at this point were "Have fun and keep me posted!" and "Send me the financial info as soon as you know it so I can work on the budget." LOL

She is determined to just be herself and trust she'll end up where she is meant to be, in the same way she conducted her college search.

This is exactly how I feel. I'd rather have had Gamma Phi not even be an option, than get my hopes up and find out that my daughter didn't like my sorority, or worse, suffer the blow of getting cut from her legacy sorority if she did like it.

Hope recruitment is going well for Hypo! Looking forward to hearing an update :)

:) She is very happy! Pref is tonight. That's all I'm saying!