![]() |
20something's BRUTALLY HONEST Retro Recruitment Thread
Hi there! I'm a GC poster who has decided to anonymously post a retro recruitment thread.
I went to a smaller school in the south with a very competitive recruitment. There are five sororities at my school. Recruitment is deferred until January so you go in knowing a lot of sorority members. I plan to post about all my adventures fall term as well as the actual recruitment week (because frankly, what happens in the fall is as important or even more important than recruitment week). I will be calling the sororities after characters from the immortal television show, One Tree Hill: Nathan Lucas Peyton Haley Brooke I will also be speaking a little bit about the experiences of some of my close friends from freshman year: -20something roommate -20something hallmate -20something floormate -Girls in the dorm across the street LOL. I crack myself up. I will come back later today and post about my overnight visit to my college my senior year. |
OOH good, brutally honest! Should be fun!
|
I remember the "brutally honest retro recruitment" story we had last fall was really good. Go Brutal!
|
yay, yay!!
|
i am excited, i love brooke!! i wonder why =)
|
Go for it!!
|
My first visit to my college was during a scholarship weekend in the spring semester of my senior year of college (I applied there at the last minute at my mom's insistence, so I never went on the junior year visit). I didn't know what to expect when I went there. I knew very little about Greek life other than pop culture stuff.
When I got there, I was staying with two women. One was a Brooke, and one was a Lucas. My official host was Host Lucas. Host Brooke also had a scholarship prospective to host, which was cool. I immediately hit it off with the other freshman being hosted in the room and I felt like we would be BFFFFFFFFFFFF. I liked the girls I was staying with for the most part. Host Lucas seemed really cool to me especially. We shared the same political views and the same favorite band (rock on!). Host Brooke and Host Lucas were both going through their sorority new member periods. I thought it was cool because even though they were 100% BFFs they joined different sororities. It didn't seem too cliquish to me (HA!!!). They also had cool pledgeship gifts from their big sisters and sorority gear and decorations all over their room, which was cool. However, I couldn't figure out why they joined different ones. Host Lucas made some slightly annoyed reference to the "Host Brooke switching out at the last minute" that I didn't quite understand. The Brooke seemed a bit more standoffish to me than my official host, the Lucas. I met one of the Brookess pledge sisters, who lived two doors down from my hosts. She took me to breakfast one day when my two hosts didn't want to/couldn't go... I told her I didn't drink. Two Doors Down Brooke immediately responded that this school was not a school for people who didn't drink. Anyone who didn't drink would be uncomfortable and probably not get into a sorority. She actually flat out told me I should not choose to go to this college. That made me feel really bad. I decided already right then that Lucas seemed way more cool than Brooke because maybe Brooke was all about drinking. In fact Host Brooke had illegal alcohol in her dorm room (it was banned in dorms at my college) and told me all her strategies for doing that and even demonstrated some. Then a bunch of other girls on the hall (in the bathrooms getting ready for bed, no less) mentioned to me that Two Doors Down who commanded me not to go to this school was a "shacker." I didn't know what this meant. They explained that it meant she always slept in boys' rooms... I guess her boyfriend's?? To this day I don't know if she had a boyfriend at that point or not. It really shocked me (wow, I seem so prudish to me now). One night we were there we went out to some fraternity parties. We went to an off-campus party hosted by "Soccer Frat" and one hosted by "Skinny Awkward Funny Southern Frat." At the Soccer Frat party, my hosts immediately left me and started drinking. I didn't think much of them leaving me because I had other people I knew there. I joined a big group of other scholarship students, most of whom also didn't drink. That made me feel more comfortable, although I got the sense that some of the college students thought we SHOULD be drinking. Whatever. I did meet a few belligerently drunk scholarship students. That really surprised me from my high school experience because I assumed that good students from nice families didn't drink (uh yeah, was I protected, or what??). I ended up meeting a guy from Soccer Frat that really liked me and kept flirting with me. I ended up going back to his fraternity houses with a bunch of other people. I immediately got very uncomfortable because there was a big group of people smoking pot in the group once we got there. I'd never seen that before. I didn't participate, but I didn't comment on it either. I was trying to be cool! I wanted to be cool so bad! I ended up making out with him in his room for a while, until his roommate came back home. When I got back, Host Brooke and Host Lucas were surprised I'd hung out with Soccer Frat guy. They seemed really supportive and raved about what a cool guy he was, though. I'd told them I had an on-again, off-again long distance HS boyfriend... eeeeeeeeeeeep. Looking back on this, I cringe. Not necessarily that I made out - my HS boyfriend definitely "dated around" a bit too - but that I told them this. BAD CALL. The other hosted student had also made out, but with another prospective student. FLASH FORWARD SIX MONTHS!!! Based on my fun experience at the visit (and the fact that I won a scholarship), I decided to go to this university. Based on the other scholarship students I thought it would be OK if I didn't drink. I wasn't totally sure if I would join a sorority. My parents were opposed to it. I was sort of attracted to it because Hosts Brooke and Lucas talked it up so much, but I was worried about Two Doors Down, who'd insisted you couldn't get in if you didn't drink. I ended up requesting to room with the girl who was also hosted by Brooke & Lucas, and I'll now refer to her as 20something Roommate :) A few notes about the fallout from my college visit. I don't know how much the making out thing reflected on me back then. I do think Host Brooke and Host Lucas were extremely nice and welcoming to me on the visit but were not interested in rushing me once I enrolled. They never really spoke to me once I got to school. It quickly became apparent to me that they and their sororities probably had little interest in me, because having hosted me was an obvious "in" if they'd wanted me and these girls seemed to avoid me like the plague. So immediately I had a so-so impression of both sororities, and a borderline negative one about Brooke, because of the drinking and "shacking" from Two Doors Down. For a while if I met a Brooke or Lucas I would say "Oh yeah, I was hosted by your sister Host Brooke or Host Lucas!" Then I LATER found out that a girl who'd stayed with them later in the year - during accepted students day, which was after scholarship weekend - evidently had sex with a Lucas member's boyfriend! ACK! So I still wonder if some people thought I was *that* hosted student. EEP! To top it all off, the Soccer Frat member I made out with was going through a weird time. Evidently, sometime in the spring term after I met him, he was sexually assaulted by his RA (a male). The RA was kicked out of school. I believe the Soccer Frat member eventually dropped out of school. But it was weird because I'd called him when I got to school (which he'd told me to do) and he was distant and seemed unhappy. Whatever! I didn't care too much. I did talk to 20something Roommate about the situation as well as some other freshman, which again, I think was a bad idea. I'll pick up tomorrow with a post about the events of my orientation week!! :) |
Lol wow! I love how all of this adds up to recruitment. Crazy!
|
wow! this reads like a teen soap opera script.
|
I love this! I think it does an excellent job of demonstrating how vastly different a high school senior and a college student's experiences, expectations can be.
Keep it coming- one of the best I have read! |
anxiously waiting.
|
Quote:
|
I love this thread... you remind me of me in HS.... totally naive:)
|
It's time for.... orientation week!
I moved in with 20something Roommate and things were going great! My ID photo looked good and I was good to go! I started hanging out with a bunch of girls on my hall as well as my roommate, including a girl I'll call 20something Hallmate. I had an RA who was Greek but was serving as a Rho Chi so I didn't know which org she belonged to. I really, really, really liked her right off the bat though. She gave a brief introduction to Greek Life the first night in the dorm and said that she had joined the perfect place for her but a really unexpected place and people had trouble guessing which one it was, but it was the perfect one for her. We went to a bunch of parties during orientation week - basically all the frat guys come back early and throw illegal parties during the evenings of orientation week. One of the big events of orientation at my college is "University Big Brother/Sister" day. You get paired up with someone from your geographic region who takes you out for dinner. I met my University Big Sister when she came to my room during move-in day and chatted with me and my parents. But when I showed up to Big Sister dinner, she wasn't there! I felt really stupid. I later found out that she'd emailed me to ask if I wanted to do anything that night. I never got the email because my computer hadn't been set up yet. I was to find out much later, when I was a University Big Sister, that you're always supposed to show up to the meeting spot anyway and not email your person because they usually don't have email ready yet. :mad: I also found out that my Big Sister was a member of Brooke. Strike Two (or was it Three?) for Brooke! However, another person adopted me during University Big Sister night! My Unofficial Big Sister was definitely not from the same geographical region as me, but she was a badass and quickly became like my FAVORITE upperclassman woman. She had a hilarious and off-the-wall sense of humor and I couldn't stop laughing when I was around her! She was a member of Peyton. I didn't know anything about Peyton from my college visit, which was a mark in their favor. Already on meeting and starting to hang out with my Unofficial Big, I really felt that I would love to be a part of Peyton. I felt that she would love for me to join too! She talked a lot about her sorority activities right off the bat. A big part of what upperclasswomen do during fall term is try to encourage freshmen to rush, and she did a great job of that! I also found I was meeting a lot of Peytons at parties. First off, I should state that I tend to make friends easier with guys. So I had a big group of guy friends that I met during orientation week that I would go around to parties with, along with 20something Roommate. (20something Hallmate was even more naive/conservative than Roommate and I and refused to go to parties.) I quickly became familiar with the fraternities they were looking at and started ranking my favorite places to hang out. The primary places we hung out were: MOR Central Frat - pretty much what it says. A lot of northern guys and southern guys from smaller towns/high schools. Probably bottom-mid tier or top of the bottom and the "coolest" place I was hanging out at that time. Hippie/yuppie Frat - I know this sounds weird, but it was a bunch of pot smokers and really preppy kids from Connecticut. Go figure. Oh yeah, and my RA was dating a brother. Nerdy Campus Leader Frat - This was traditionally considered one of the "bottom" fraternities but had made a lot of leaps in recruiting campus leaders and had grown a lot in recent years. They still had a bit of a complex about being just above just plan Nerdy Frat. As you can probably guess, I wasn't necessarily Ms. Popularity. I wasn't going to the big houses and not even a lot of the mid-tier houses like Soccer Frat. But I didn't care because I really liked my friends. I found that during orientation week I was meeting a lot of Peytons at the houses, especially at MOR Central, which was quickly developing into my favorite place. Most of my guy friends wanted to join there initially too. It was just a cool place that had a variety of guys and still liked to party. The Peytons seemed to be all up in MOR Central! As well as Hippie/yuppie frat, though a weird mix of girls from other groups also hung out there. (I later found out that this was because it was a pot-smoking type place.) At Nerdy Campus Leader Frat, there were more Haleys than Peytons probably, but somewhat of a mix. During orientation week, a guy from MOR Central starting pursuing me. He even sent flowers to my dorm room the day after meeting me! So before too long, we had DTRed and I had an upperclassmen boyfriend! This was considered a big accomplishment and help in rush at my college. He also had a bunch of friends from his class who were Peytons, which was cool. Through him I met a bunch of girls from the dorm across the street, who all wanted to join Peyton. That was cool! 20something Roommate and 20something Hallmate weren't quite as "social" as me, so I was hoping that knowing girls across the street would help me in recruitment.... As an aside, I hadn't started drinking at all yet, so that wasn't an issue for me yet. So that's the important stuff about orientation week! Next I'll make a general post about what happened during fall term/informal recruitment, and the girls I met through the organizations I joined on campus. :) |
I LOVE this!
|
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 07:38 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, vBulletin Solutions Inc.