Day 3 - Video Day
Going into today, I was starting to notice some negative effects of tent talk.
The night before, I had walked home with a girl,
Petunia, who had told me that going into today last year, she had been dropped from every single sorority except
Percy. She told me this before we met up with another group, who then proceeded to discuss the likelihood/unlikelihood that we would have full schedules tomorrow. One girl said, "Well, I wouldn't be too worried...I mean, you'd have to be a total social (r-word) to be dropped completely the first day, right?" I glanced at
Petunia in horror, who quietly admitted that that had happened to her. Now, the thing about
Petunia: she was drop-dead gorgeous and, if you wanted to put it that way, seemed like what at other schools might be termed "top-tier material." (Just writing that phrase made me cringe, I just don't know how else to put it that it would seem very bizarre that she would be cut so heavily). The others expressed shock and dismay and all of us, I think, commenced worrying. (I later would find out that
Petunia made a very bad first impression on a lot of people freshman year and had since turned that around.)
Other problems with tent talk emerged the next day. Since we had to be there waiting for our schedules for almost a full hour beforehand, it was inevitable that people would be talking. I noticed that it especially hurt
Percy. I think girls who normally wouldn't say bad things about a house felt like it was okay to mention how turned off they were by having girls from other chapters rush them. Then, their negative attitudes towards
Percy and its less-than-awesome rep would come out. I saw several rushees who reminded me of girls that I knew and loved in
Percy who now seemed reluctant to put down
Percy on their slips. This really made me sad, that they might miss out on a sisterhood that was the right fit from them (and honestly, full of really great girls!) and
Percy might miss out on them because of some stupid tent talk. I vowed to be relentlessly positive and tactful when discussing sororities, even ones I didn't think were a good fit for me (Note that I didn't think of just stopping engaging in tent talk altogether
)
Anyway,
Parvati and I instead turned to discussing where we thought our Rho Chis were from. Since she was a junior, she also knew where
Lily was from, so I was glad I didn't have to tiptoe around that. She suggested
Bill for
Hermione, and I immediately thought she was right, though I hadn't originally thought of it. She disagreed with me about
Luna being in
Percy, since she had been discussing it with
Luna yesterday and
Luna told her most people were surprised to learn her sorority because she wasn't as involved as most girls were in that sorority. When
Parvati replied that must mean she wasn't a member of
Ginny or
Percy, since they were considered "lower-involvement" sororities, she sort of winced, having given away some information. This was a relief to me, since I would have felt so bad for
Percy Rho Chis having to deal with our Recruitment Group. We both were sort of stumped as far as
Cho went.
Finally, after what seemed like hours of anticipation, we got our schedules back. I unfolded mine to reveal:
Bill
Percy
Fred
Ginny
Ron
I felt the bottom of my stomach drop out. No
George? How could my good feeling have been so wrong? I quickly recovered, though. If I wasn't supposed to be there, this just made my ultimate decision that much easier. I still had
Fred, which I had felt almost equally as good about, and four of my top five in all. But
Percy? Where was the mutual selection in that? I had dropped them, I thought that was it? I was starting to realize that the recruitment process wasn't quite as perfect as I had believed. I still thought it would work out in the end, but I wasn't anticipating the kind of smooth sailing I had originally expected.
Of course, PNMs immediately began comparing to see if they would be visiting any groups together.
Lavender ended up with my original top five, minus
Ginny and plus
Charlie. I tried to squelch any envy I felt, because I was honestly learning that although I liked
Lavender, I didn't think we belonged in the same sorority. She had started becoming close with a girl I'll call
Pansy, who was in love with
Charlie because of its reputation. I found
Parvati with a strange look on her face, and she informed me she had been invited to
Percy and
Ginny. We both knew things were tough for juniors, but we didn't think they'd be this tough first cuts. I hoped she didn't drop out, because I honestly she'd be happy in
Ginny.
Petunia was going back to
Ron (which she seemed especially excited about),
Ginny, and
Percy. I was feeling very grateful for my full schedule all of a sudden.
Then, the parties began. I headed off to
Bill where I had a bunch of girls sit with me and introduce themselves. Being at the end of the alphabet and therefore the line meant I generally would get more than one girl rushing me. One of the girls and I clicked more than the others, though, and I talked with her mainly. The video had technical difficulties since we were the first party, and I felt bad for their president as she struggled with it. I was relieved to find that most people continued talking while the video rolled. I really liked the girl rushing me first, but it was clear from the video that these girls were crazy and fun. The question was, was I crazy and fun enough for them? Even though the video didn't show drinking since that isn't allowed, I found myself wondering. I wished there was a way we could find out about that sort of thing during rush.
In the line on the way over to
Percy, I talked with a few other older girls. Two of them made it clear that they wanted either
Bill,
Charlie, or
Ron because they wanted to party and it seemed these sororities had arguably the best social life. One expressed her distaste for my beloved
Fred because it seemed like they weren't into partying. This girl, who I'll call
Millicent, told us she "didn't even try at
Fred...I would never, ever accept a bid there." I wrinkled my nose at her rudeness but agreed aloud with her that it would be nice to be able to find those sort of things out about sororities during rush. (I'm a non-confrontational person in general). Her story about
Fred made me think: although she was handling it very rudely, at least the girls in
Fred wouldn't be wasting a spot on her. I thought maybe, while remaining absolutely polite!, that I should disguise my discomfort a little less at houses I felt uncomfortable in. I'm a little too good at acting and I didn't want to, for some reason or other, end up with places I wouldn't feel comfortable in. I thought of it less as "not even trying" and more of "really being myself" although I knew it would be a fine line. Looking back, this is one of the things I cringe at, but my reasoning was coming from a good place: I didn't want to lead girls on. So at
Percy, I started my new, honest policy: with girls I got along with, I still got along with them, but girls I was uncomfortable with, I tried less to conceal this. (This was easier since I was double-rushed a lot here: I just let the other PNM take the lead on the conversation). I was honest when they asked about today ("Emotional") and how I was feeling ("Unsure"). The one dishonest thing I did was that I made it sound like I was unsure about joining a sorority in general, rather than unsure about joining theirs. There was absolutely no reason to be insulting, rude, or to hurt their feelings by insinuating it was just them I didn't want to be part of. Even though I tried my hardest to be nice, I still look back and feel awful for the girls rushing me; even if I disguised it with politeness, I was still kind of being a brat. The thing was, in line, I had actually met girls who really liked
Percy and wanted to be a part of them. I'm not saying that I have this amazing, sparkling personality (it's very clear from this thread that I'm not perfect!) and all the sororities would want me, but I would hate it if by some fluke I ended up taking the spot of a girl like that at a sorority I didn't feel comfortable in. Overall, I had basically the same experience at this party that I had the day before: a lot of rushers from a different chapter, a lot of girls from my school that I didn't click with, and my rusher that I liked from the other day stopped over to say hi. They were definitely all very nice though.
I went to
Fred next. Their video sealed it for me: I wanted to be a
Fred. There were all these pictures of the pledge class sleepover and different activities that I so wanted to be a part of. The difference between the girls I talked to at
Fred and the girls I talked to at other parties was this: when I would share different organizations I was involved in or my plans for after graduating or whatever, everyone would say, oh, that's great and ask to hear more about this organization or that organization, but the
Freds I talked to shared a lot of my goals, experiences, and interests. For example, after I graduate I want to spend a year working with an organization called Youth with a Mission. Everyone I talked to about it thought it sounded cool, but I met a girl at
Fred who shared the experiences she had already had with them and told me how much I would love it. This party made me feel so much better about being cut from
George; if I was meant to be in
Fred, then my decision was just made easier for me by not having
George in the mix.
Ginny continued to be a mixed bag for me. I loved some of the girls I talked to but couldn't see myself as a sister to some others. Not that I didn't like them, just that I didn't feel that connection. I felt like each party at
Ginny was making me more confused rather than less, but I still felt good enough about them that I'd like to visit again.
Ron was the last party and a bit strange in the way they did it: all the pnms sat on the floor in the middle of the room to watch to video, with all the sisters standing in a circle around the edges of the room. We watched the video in complete silence. After that, the girls did a little thing where we got to see all the different activities they were involved in, which was a ton. This made me feel like I could probably find a niche here. My conversations didn't go as smoothly, though; during one of them we ran out of things to talk about and were reduced to talking about Silly Bandz! I realized from meeting some of the sophomores that I either didn't know or didn't click with a lot of the
Rons in my year.
When it came time to make my rankings, I was torn.
Fred was in there, of course, and
Ginny too, but I couldn't decide on my third one. I just didn't want to put
Bill if I was going to end up sitting by myself on weekends or being a DD all the time. I needed to know about that aspect of
Bill, and didn't know how I'd find out.
Parvati confided in me that one of the PNMs had seen
Hermione in the
Bill video (oops!), and asked me if I wanted her to try and find her and bring her over. I replied yes and
Hermione sat down with me. I confided my concerns, and she told me that while they were certainly valid concerns, she "was friends with a lot of
Bills" and the executive board was really trying to turn around that reputation. This was the first I had heard of this and so was pleasantly surprised. She told me that the pledge class the year before had been very different from years previous and that a lot of them didn't even drink. While there would certainly be partiers, that was true of most of the sororities, and I wouldn't feel left out at
Bill. If that was my only concern, I shouldn't worry. She made me realize that if I were to go strictly off my experiences at rush, then I would have put
Bill down easily. I was still concerned about the reputation attracting the wrong kind of pledge class, but I knew I wasn't a
Ron and was willing to give
Bill another chance. Once again, we ranked only the bottom two in order, but my ranking sheet would have went:
1.
Fred
2.
Ginny
3.
Bill
Bottom:
4.
Ron
5.
Percy