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After orientation, I went home and began getting to work on finalizing my Recommendation letters. I have a few sorority women in my family, and they helped me secure recs for American Ballet Theatre (I had 2 in this house), San Francisco Ballet, and Boston Ballet. I managed to secure one to New York City Ballet on my own, but never heard from any of the alums I contacted from Atlanta Ballet or Pacific Northwest Ballet. I wasn't too bothered by this because recs weren't make or break, and I already had my eye set on NYCB or ABT (I know, I know...I never said I was a good PNM!).
The week my recs were sent off, I got a letter in the mail from Panhellenic. The GPA that my school had calculated for my admission was .1 lower than the GPA required to participate in recruitment. I knew this couldn't be right because I graduated with a 3.0! I was quickly on the phone with the director of Greek Life, had my final transcripts faxed to their office, and everything was fixed. I was still on the road to joining a sorority.
I spent my summer shopping for recruitment outfits, preparing to make the move to my school and talking to other incoming freshman. I made friends with another girl that we'll call Laura, and she was going through recruitment too. I also kept in touch with the girl I talked to from New York City Ballet, and I was really starting to want to call her my sister. Finally, July was over and it was time for me to go!
I moved into my apartment on August first, so I had about a week to get ready for recruitment. I made a list of what I would wear on each day and planned everything down to my undies. I'm a bit OCD when it comes to my clothes.
Finally, it was the night of our Info session where we would meet our Pi Chi groups and find out everything we needed to know about how the week would progress. Emily and I decided to go together, so we'd know somebody. I dressed casual, just like they told us to. But when I walked into the Student Union, I instantly felt like I was in over my head. Apparently my idea of casual and everyone else's idea of casual was very different. I wore cute jeans, a cute top and a pair of ballet flats. These girls were almost all in khaki shorts, Ralph Lauren Oxfords and Sperrys. They all looked the same, and I was scared (I was voted Most Unique in high school, so I was never privy to what everyone else was doing).
I checked in, was given my name tag and recruitment shirt, and told where I could find my Pi Chis (we had 2). The second I saw them, I felt so much better. One of them was in jeans and a T Shirt! As silly as it sounds, that made me feel so much better. Our Pi Chis introduced themselves and told us little bit about themselves without giving away any info concerning their real identities (they had code names, mine were Sunny and Cher) or affiliations. Then they broke down the schedule of the week for us. We would have Open House round for the first two days, visiting 3 chapters each day. Philanthropy Day would be day three, Skit Day would be day 4, Pref Day would day 5 with Bid Day being day 6. Our Pi Chis then explained a little bit about each sorority to us. They told us that this year was the first year American Ballet Theatre was participating in formal recruitment since they had just come back to campus from a break. Rumors were flying about why they had left in the first place, but I tried to ignore them.
I knew one of the girls in my Pi Chi group, we'll call her Ashley. Thank goodness for her, because I was incredibly shy and too scared to talk to many other girls, even though they all seemed nice. Over the summer, we had figured out we had the same birthday thanks to the Facebook group that was out there for our class. Ashley and I decided that we would ride together to our parties the next day. We were scheduled to meet around 9 the next morning with parties starting at 10:30 or 11 (I don't remember haha). I went home to get some sleep, which didn't work very well because I was very, very excited!
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