Cold feet
 

To preface this, I received some comments when I posted before that I shouldn't have chi o in my username unless I am a member. I accepted my bid so I'm assuming it's ok now... please correct me if I'm wrong :)

---
I was so excited that Chi Omega was colonizing at my school. The alumni in charge of recruitment were a lot like me, very "sorority girl" and girly. I made great connections with them and I knew Chi O would be a great fit for me.

I was completely set on pledging and so incredibly excited until the colony version of pref night, when I actually met and talked to other PNMs. Most of the girls were extremely odd. There were a few that I connected with, but if I had a dollar for every girl who dressed in ripped jeans (dress code was DRESSY), said "I never wear makeup," or "I don't like socializing," I'd have about $50. I won't go into the attractiveness of everyone... because I'd get a lot of hate and I think you get the point.

I know all of that sounds incredibly superficial, but I will be the first to admit that I want really fun and friendly sisters who care about their appearance and are willing to embrace the traditions that come with being in a sorority. A lot of these girls didn't seem to care a whole lot, but many said they would accept their bid if they got it. The part I really didn't like is how the alumni made it sound like everyone was going to get a bid... I agree that "Democratic rather than exclusive" is important, but it seems a little impersonal to let anyone that has a couple grand to drop join.

I know there will be at least a few girls who I will really identify with, but it's unsettling that I was SO onboard with the whole process until pref night. A lot of girls say that bid day was the best day of their lives, and all I'm feeling is lukewarm. I accepted my bid because I want to keep an open mind and I do really want to make this work.

I've been thinking about this all day- I've never really had friends who didn't care about superficial things and money... and it scares me to get away from that, even though deep down I'd rather have REAL friends/sisters who don't care what you do/who you're friends are/what you're wearing.

Whew that was long! If anyone has a similar experience or any advice to share it would be greatly appreciated. This was pretty much a confused venting sesh... and I'm genuinely sorry if I am offending anyone here, it's just my honest feelings.

College is a time for personal growth. You wrote that you have never had friends that didn't care about superficial things and money. Maybe this is a good time to expand your friendship base. I think your writing makes your feelings sound worse than they really are. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are just a normal, young person who is hesitant about making a commitment without some guarantee of the result. I think it is absolutely normal to be cautious about pledging a group that seems very different from you. Colonies often have an identity problem, because they are the only sorority new members who are not chosen from the chapter, so they often encompass a lot of different "types" and lack a cohesive personality until they get going and have a few recruitments under their belt.

I would think long and hard about giving up your bid. You have a while until initiation/installation. Give it a chance. Maybe you can be a good example of taking care of your appearance and pushing a positive image for your sorority. Maybe your colony sisters can be a good example to you to let go of such an attachment to the superficial. Anyone who says the superficial doesn't matter at all is lying, but certainly it can be over emphasized. Maybe your colony will be able to strike a good balance, and maybe you can help make that happen. If you go into this thinking you are better than the other colony members, this will never work. Don't think of it as needing to "change" your new sisters. Think of it as learning from each other.

Keep in mind that even though the alumnae involved may have seemed very girly and frufru, they are NOT looking for women whose only interests are boys and partying. A colony is a lot of hard work. I've no doubt that the women who said they didn't care about social things were partly playing to that, how true it is who knows.

Thank you for that! While I am bittersweet, I do feel like this could be a life changing experience where I become a better person... the person that I want to be. I do feel that I, while not dominant in a normal social setting, could make a great leader in this group. I don't necessarily think I am better than the other members... just that instinctually, I want something very different than what I've seen so far. But I am going to stick with it and adjust before thinking about dropping.

How long until initiation? I really hope that you can resolve these feelings before them and develop some good friends without your pledge class.

While I'm not a Chi Omega and I don't know anything about their membership selection process, I can pretty much guarantee you that no NPC group bids every woman who comes along. If these women received bids to the colony, that means that they attended several events with the alumnae and were sufficiently impressive as to be chosen for Chi Omega.

No group is going to set up shop with a bunch of women who are apathetic, anti-social, or otherwise unlikely to be able to form the basis of a thriving chapter. In fact, in recent years, more than one NPC group has cancelled a colonization when there were not a suitable number of women meeting their membership standards. Perhaps these women weren't as outwardly impressive as you would have liked on pref night, but I assure you Chi Omega is not taking just anybody.

My campus routinely had a small number of students who signed up for a dorm room but then never showed up to claim it. For that reason, they regularly would "triple" some of the dorm assignments (assign a third person to a two-person room) for the first week of class. As they confirmed the no-shows, they would move the third person into that open space. I was the unlucky "triple" when I first moved into the dorm, and slept on a mattress on the floor between the two beds of the permanent residents. We knew it was just for a week, so we were all extra accommodating.

My two temporary roommates couldn't be more different. One was a polo-and-pearls super-prep, her hair cut in a smooth beige bob. Everything about her was tightly controlled from her schedule to her voice to her food. The other was a grunge rocker chic with long wild curly hair. She wore ripped jeans and a studded leather jacket, roared with laughter at her own dirty jokes, drank like a fish, and rode around town on the back of her boyfriends motorcycle. I was somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.

By the third day, each of them had approached me privately to beg me to stay in the room and help them move the other one out. But that was not in the cards. I got my permanent room assignment at the end of the week and moved out. But I stayed friendly with both of these mismatched roommates and saw the strangest thing happen: as they got to know each other on a deeper level, they grew to appreciate each other and became quite close. The prepster loosened up a bit and the rocker chic polished up a few rough edges. They didn't morph into identical twins, but they each evolved a little and found a lifelong friend.

Immerse yourself in your colony sisters, especially the ones that you don't think you have much in common with. You may get a fabulous surprise. :)

What a fabulous & inspiring story! really enjoyed it :)

Here's my thought: yippie, you are focusing on the negatives, the differences between you and others - and that's what humans do, all too often. Look for the similarities. You are now a new member of an NPC sorority which, if you're lucky, you'll enjoy for your lifetime. Read the Chi Omega Mission Statement, Values, and Symphony, especially the first line of the Symphony. Reflect on what you can bring to this new chapter. You can get the superficial and material things elsewhere. What you've got in that new member badge/pin is a promise from Chi Omega and you have promises to make (and keep) to your fraternity as well.

There might be a little bit of regret in what you're feeling, because your formal recruitment didn't go as well as you'd wanted (paraphrasing your own words in another post). You probably have some preconceived ideas of "sorority life". Let that go too. Put your effort and energy into making this colony successful! Trust me, you'll be very grateful that you did, especially when you are as old as I am.

Wishing you much happiness, and please let us know how it goes for you and your colony.

I pledged "that" sorority. I didn't click with most of the members. My chapter resolved in my junior year. Not a really great start!! However, the few I clicked with are lifelong friends, my four daughters followed in my footsteps and we are also sisters, by serving in a volunteer position I have wonderful sisters/friends all around the country, and as my husband pursued his military career, there was always a place to connect in my new community.
Today, I work with chapters and although they are new to me and I've only met them on the phone, they are my sisters! I really could care less about how they look and money would just not come up.
Yesterday, I saw an outpouring of love from not only my sisters, but other members of the greek community when one of our chapters suffered a horrible fire.
So many times in college, I played the "what if" game in my head. What if I had pledged somewhere else? Today, I KNOW that this is where I was meant to be. It's so much more that my collegiate chapter.

Hi Yippiechio! I have a feeling I know exactly which school you're talking about as I am an advisor of another chapter on a campus where Chi O just had their colony bid day yesterday, and I highly doubt there would be two in the same day. With that I'd like to tell you my story and hopefully it'll give you some perspective.

When I rushed I did so in the spring through COB (13 years ago, yikes!). My "bid day" was not a traditional bid day at all. Myself and another girl accepted our bids and went to dinner with the sisters. I met the rest of the 6 person pledge class in our first new member meeting. I thought I'd made a huge mistake. Same thing as you, they were completely non-traditional sorority girls, didn't wear makeup, didn't dress like they had any self-respect, I was shocked and had serious doubts.

However, immediately I got involved in chair positions in the chapter, had so much fun with Sigma Chi's Derby Days and got to know a lot of the older members and by the fall of my sophomore year, I felt so much better. Really long story short, it was the best decision of my life. I met great friends through my sorority, I met my husband through my involvement with my sorority, and some of my best friends in the world I met through my sorority, many of them I met as an alumna, but that truly shows you the reach of a wonderful organization. And Chi Omega is a wonderful organization!

Keep a few things in mind: "The alumni in charge of recruitment were a lot like me, very "sorority girl" and girly. I made great connections with them and I knew Chi O would be a great fit for me." These women are made to recruit colonies so just cause you connected with them, doesn't mean you won't connect with your class. They recruited you all for a reason, and saw something in all of you.

"Most of the girls were extremely odd. There were a few that I connected with, but if I had a dollar for every girl who dressed in ripped jeans (dress code was DRESSY), said "I never wear makeup," or "I don't like socializing," I'd have about $50. I won't go into the attractiveness of everyone... because I'd get a lot of hate and I think you get the point." Like I said, this was my experience at first, to a T! It gets better!

"it seems a little impersonal to let anyone that has a couple grand to drop join." As much as we all hate to admit it, a sorority is a small business and the financial aspects of it are very real and important. So, it is important to note during recruitment, especially of a colony, that members will be able to commit to the sorority financially.

Yippie Chi O, the whole purpose of the pledge period is to make sure that you can commit to Chi O for life. So give it your all, really try to connect and get involved with the sorority. If you come to initiation and find that it's not for you, there's no shame in that. But I recommend you really commit yourself to it now and see what happens. Good luck!

Hi Yippiechio! I have a feeling I know exactly which school you're talking about as I am an advisor of another chapter on a campus where Chi O just had their colony bid day yesterday, and I highly doubt there would be two in the same day. With that I'd like to tell you my story and hopefully it'll give you some perspective.

When I rushed I did so in the spring through COB (13 years ago, yikes!). My "bid day" was not a traditional bid day at all. Myself and another girl accepted our bids and went to dinner with the sisters. I met the rest of the 6 person pledge class in our first new member meeting. I thought I'd made a huge mistake. Same thing as you, they were completely non-traditional sorority girls, didn't wear makeup, didn't dress like they had any self-respect, I was shocked and had serious doubts.

However, immediately I got involved in chair positions in the chapter, had so much fun with Sigma Chi's Derby Days and got to know a lot of the older members and by the fall of my sophomore year, I felt so much better. Really long story short, it was the best decision of my life. I met great friends through my sorority, I met my husband through my involvement with my sorority, and some of my best friends in the world I met through my sorority, many of them I met as an alumna, but that truly shows you the reach of a wonderful organization. And Chi Omega is a wonderful organization!

Keep a few things in mind: "The alumni in charge of recruitment were a lot like me, very "sorority girl" and girly. I made great connections with them and I knew Chi O would be a great fit for me." These women are made to recruit colonies so just cause you connected with them, doesn't mean you won't connect with your class. They recruited you all for a reason, and saw something in all of you.

"Most of the girls were extremely odd. There were a few that I connected with, but if I had a dollar for every girl who dressed in ripped jeans (dress code was DRESSY), said "I never wear makeup," or "I don't like socializing," I'd have about $50. I won't go into the attractiveness of everyone... because I'd get a lot of hate and I think you get the point." Like I said, this was my experience at first, to a T! It gets better!

"it seems a little impersonal to let anyone that has a couple grand to drop join." As much as we all hate to admit it, a sorority is a small business and the financial aspects of it are very real and important. So, it is important to note during recruitment, especially of a colony, that members will be able to commit to the sorority financially.

Yippie Chi O, the whole purpose of the pledge period is to make sure that you can commit to Chi O for life. So give it your all, really try to connect and get involved with the sorority. If you come to initiation and find that it's not for you, there's no shame in that. But I recommend you really commit yourself to it now and see what happens. Good luck!

Give yourself a chance to get to know your new sisters. (It doesn't happen in one day. ;);))
In a new colony, there will be so much diversity with women being invited to join for their accomplishments and strengths in many different areas. A new colony will never be like "Legally Blonde".
With 90+ women in your charter class (ahem), it will take weeks or even months to find the sisters you have things in common with (besides Chi Omega).
BE THE ONE to build those relationships!

And remember, CHI OMEGA IS A LIFETIME!

Bump???