[sherrybaby]

Open Houses - Day 2

First off, I'll be really honest and say how glad I am that our first cut is a max of 5 sororities. Having to put down five, in no order, quashed the temptation to sort of discount this day. I am so glad it did because I needed to stop being so judgmental. Nonetheless, the fact that I had already had good parties made this day less nerve-racking for me - all these sororities could blow me away and I'd have a hard choice to make but know there was a place for me, or they could be less-than-stellar and I'd still have places I'd like to be asked back to. I also was extremely optimistic since there hadn't been cuts yet - I believed wholeheartedly in the mutual selection system. Since our Greek life is comparatively small, it isn't as competitive and so I thought most cuts really would be mutual - if I didn't feel at ease at a party, they'd sense it and cut me but I wouldn't be surprised, I'd probably have cut them too. I expected the parties I'd love to have felt the same click I did and ask me back. Since I wasn't really concerned with tiers (and really, how many tiers can there be with only 7 sororities?) I would honestly be ranking sororities I felt comfortable with, not ones that were really "prestigious" or anything like that, so I wouldn't have to worry about being "good enough" or any of that, right? (: Bottom line, I was very naive, calm, and confident that rush would work out perfectly going into this day. I think this helped me put my best foot forward on the rush floor.

Today's chapters were Charlie, Bill, and Percy.

I had Bill first. I don't remember our specific conversations, but they were very outgoing, fun girls who bumped me a lot. Every time I would mention an activity or interest, they would say, "Oh, you like ____? Let me introduce you to my sister, she loves ______." It made conversations flow really well and assured that there was always something to talk about. The only problem with it was that double rushing would happen sometimes because of it, but I feel like they handled that well. Overall, I was surprised at how much I liked the girls but thought that I might be a little shy for this group. I also was realizing from talking to other PNMs that being known as the party house might be attracting a certain type of PNMs, so that even if this reputation wasn't totally deserved, the new pledge class might end up making it so. This made me very cautious.

Next was Percy. Because they were a smaller chapter, they had girls from a close-by chapter helping them with rush. I felt a little weird about that, but I didn't know, maybe they really did hang out with the other chapter a lot? I tried not to discount them because of that. I liked one of my rushers who seemed pretty personable, but the rest of the party wasn't too good. I was bumped by a girl from the other chapter who didn't seem like she wanted to be there at all. I tried not to let this bother me since she was one girl from a different chapter than I would be joining, but it made me hope that the explanation I had thought of for their presence wasn't true. The other girls rushing me were okay, but I didn't have any in-depth conversations and didn't see myself as one of them. Overall, the party wasn't exactly negative, but most of the conversations felt forced and I didn't really like that they had other girls rushing that weren't even part of the sisterhood at my school. I understand their logic in doing it - I mean, they honestly didn't have enough girls otherwise - but I didn't like having to take my experiences with a number of the rushers with a grain of salt. How was I supposed to learn about the sisterhood on campus if not through rushers? Also, Percy has a very different reputation on campus than they do nationally. Even if I loved Percy, I was going to have to deal with the reputation, and I wanted to know how other sisters dealt with it/whether I loved them enough for it to be worth it. I couldn't find either of those things out from these girls from other chapters.

Last, I had Charlie. They seemed to have drawn the short straw as far as rooms that night because this was definitely the loudest/hottest. They were also kind of at a disadvantage being the last group and my stamina running out, but I tried my hardest to put aside these negatives and see what they were really about. Since I didn't personally known any Charlies, tonight's party was going to be my main source of information. I didn't talk to a ton of girls here. The conversations were decent, but nothing earth-shattering. I mentioned my Charlie cousin but we didn't really discuss her. Overall, I liked these girls but didn't love them.

Ranking for me that night was mostly easy; I knew I liked all the sororities from my first night the best, it was only my fifth I needed to make a decision about. All three had reputations I was concerned about, so my decision was basically which of the three I loved enough to look past that. I wavered a little between Charlie and Bill, but finally decided it was Bill. I just didn't feel a big connection at Charlie and since the thing I knew about the pledge mom providing alcohol was actually true and not just a rumor or reputation issue, I wasn't sure I could deal with that. Even though she wouldn't be my pledge mom, if that was something a lot of Charlies were okay with, I was probably not going to fit in. For a dry campus that holds its GLOs to strict alcohol policies, this is really a no-no. (I later would learn of at least one girl who chose on bid night between Fred and Charlie, so I might have actually found a niche there, but at the time I didn't know this, and I don't regret my decision since I believe everything happens for a reason. Just thought I'd let you know that I don't judge Charlies as harshly now.)
An important thing to note is that when I was ranking, I was under the impression that I might see back my second-to-last group if they wanted me back, but ranking a group as bottom meant I didn't want to see them again and even if they wanted to see me, the computer wouldn't match us. I later would find out this isn't true at all, but I thought so at the time, so that says something about my rankings.

Even though we were asked to just rank our bottom two, at this point this was what my ranked list would have looked like:

1. tie between George & Fred, though maybe with George edging out Fred ever-so-slightly.
2. Ginny
3. Ron
4. Bill

And bottom two:
5. Charlie
6. Percy

Walking back with my RA (who I realized I should name - she's Parvati from now on), I found out she had put Ginny and Percy at her bottom, in that order. I was beginning to realize that while not nearly at the level of disadvantage of Percy, Ginny wasn't a super popular choice with PNMs either. I decided I didn't care though. I went to bed feeling very happy with my choices.