[LegallyBrunette]

In 2002, fall informal recruitment at Merrimack was structured as follows:
On Monday, there was an Information Night where Panhel would present an overview of the Greek system & the informal recruitment process in general and answer any questions that the prospective rushees had. Members of all the sororities were present wearing their letters. I don’t remember forming any particular impressions of the groups on that night since I was most focused on the Panhel reps (who were not wearing letters) and what they had to say. I remember the sisters of the various orgs more of sitting on the perimeter. However, I had formed impressions of the groups before Recruitment started since it was the third week of school and I had seen members around campus and already had a chance to interact with them in classes and such. I’ll explain my impressions of the groups in a bit.
On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday each of the groups would have a party in the Campus Center (none of the sororities at Merrimack are housed). Ron Weasley was Tuesday night, Hermione Granger was Wednesday and Harry Potter was Thursday. Rushees could attend whichever parties they wished, but were strongly encouraged to attend all three. There were no bid cards to be filled out and no limit on how many bids a rushee could be given. Bids would be given out on Friday. It wasn’t indicated what time bids would go out.

I attended the Info session with a few other ladies from my hall. Their presence and opinions shaped my experience, so I’ll provide a bit of background about each of them (names changed).

Caroline: Transfer from a school in the south where she had been offered, but denied, a bid from Pi Phi. Was initially only interested in Ron Weasley, despite the fact she categorized them as “leftover dorks” at her old school. From an extremely wealthy family, but very nice and down to earth.

Allison: Transfer student from a state school in New England. Also very wealthy, and not afraid to talk about it. Partied A LOT. When she introduced herself to me she said “Hi, I’m Allison and I was the first girl to get alcohol poisoning at State U. last year.” Yikes.

Megan: Transfer student also from Umass (although we never knew each other)who was also in my major. Was mostly going through recruitment because the rest of us were. Had a rocky first couple of weeks at Merrimack due to a really bad roommate situation. She was a little nervous about the prospect of Greek Life because she didn’t party much and was concerned that’s what it was all about. A bit naïve, but very sweet.

Melissa: Transfer student from another school in Massachusetts where she had been a new member, but then de-pledged from Alpha Phi because she was transferring. Was super nice & hysterically funny. Because of her experience with Alpha Phi, I think she had a better idea of what she was looking for.

Also, because recruitment was the third week of school, as I previously mentioned, I’d already formed some opinions of the groups before attending their parties. However, none of the chapters at Merrimack are also at Umass, so any experiences I had with sorority women at Umass really didn’t impact my views on the individual groups at Merrimack.

Ron Weasley: I had met a few of them the first weekend of school when Megan and I had gone out to some parties on campus. Megan had gone to high school with a sister from Ron Weasley. They seemed to know how to have a good time and were very visible on campus (always wearing letters). The sisters were usually very put together. The ones I had met at the parties were very friendly when I saw them around campus.

Hermione Granger: When I received the info about recruitment over the summer, I noticed one of the pictured sisters of Hermione Granger was a girl who I had gone to high school with (now graduated from Merrimack) and really liked. Also, there were two Hermione Grangers in one of my classes, Nicole and Jenn, one of whom was my presentation partner. They were both really down to earth and friendly. Nicole and I had spent a lot of time together before recruitment during class and such. She was excited when I told her was I going to recruitment, which made me feel really welcome. Melissa’s RA was a Hermione Granger, and she really didn’t like her, so that kind of turned me off and neutralized how much I was interested in them because of Nicole.

Harry Potter: I didn’t know any Harry Potters socially or from class (unusual given how small Merrimack is). I had seen a couple of girls wearing letters, but it was usually the same two girls. They were definitely not as visible as either of the other two groups. They had a chapter at a school where my good friend from high school was in a local, and my friend had advised me they weren’t very strong on her campus. This definitely shaped my impression of Harry Potter.

Parties will be in the next update…hopefully this afternoon.