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Day 4 - Preference Night
A lot of things happened in between Philanthropy day and Pref. A word of warning: dirty-rushing is fairly prevalent at my school. Not to the extent of promising bids (usually) but let’s just say strict silence isn’t always observed.
So that night, I was feeling pretty confused. My rush experiences with Bill and Ginny had not been like I expected going into recruitment and I now was unsure of what should be more important – my experiences at rush or my experiences throughout the past year. I had been reassured that there were girls in Bill that didn’t party, but would I still be part of a tiny majority? And I had found girls that I clicked with at Ginny, but others that really threw me off. I decided I needed to talk to someone who wasn’t in a sorority or rushing to try to sort out my feelings. I texted a fellow Young Life leader who was a senior and had a good head on her shoulders, and we made plans to meet the next day.
That night, I received a private message from Katie Bell. She wrote in it that she knew that I had been upset earlier today, and that she understood because rushing as a junior, she had also come into recruitment thinking she knew exactly what she wanted and having preconceived notions. She advised me to try to clear my mind and really take a second look at the chapters that had invited me back – they clearly saw something in me that they thought would be a good fit for their sorority. She wished me good luck and asked only that I give Bill fair consideration if their reputation was the only thing bothering me, since the executive board was trying to turn their image around and I could be part of that if I wanted and it worked out. She added that the same went for the other sororities – reputations had often been earned years ago and were no longer accurate, so I should try to ignore them in my decision.
I know some of you are probably horrified at this, but it was exactly what I needed. Knowing that someone wanted the best for me and wanted me as part of her sorority helped to ease the rejection pain from Fred and her advice was what I needed to hear. I felt so much better after her message and was touched by that and by all the efforts she had been making for me throughout the whole recruitment process.
I promptly rushed across the hall to Parvati’s room to tell her. I started talking before I noticed the other girl on her couch…crap. I couldn’t stop without being really awkward so I tried to tell her about the message in the most neutral way possible, emphasizing that Katie Bell had in no way told me I would be going back to Bill and had put in special effort to tell me to consider all the sororities I had been asked back to. The girl on the couch, who I’ll call Fleur, gave me a dirty look nonetheless. She told me she was in Ginny and what Katie Bell had done was horrible. She told me she had been sick and hadn’t been on the rush floor since the first day, which was why I hadn’t seen her. I explained to her about leading Young Life and she asked me incredulously, “You lead Young Life and you’re considering Bill?!” Parvati glared at her and insisted that that was ridiculous, that I should ignore the reputations, etc. I agreed with her but I felt like I shouldn’t show partiality to Bill because I had already dug myself into a hole with this girl. She proceeded to interrogate me about my experiences with Ginny and insist that all of my unfavorable impressions were wrong. It was basically the most uncomfortable conversation ever but at least in having it I was assured she wouldn’t tell on Katie because she was also breaking the rules by talking to me.
The next morning I went to meet my friend, Molly, and we went for a walk together. I told her about my dilemma with Bill and she assured me that she thought being a leader and joining Bill wouldn’t be a conflict of interests. I didn’t realize she had actually rushed her freshman year. She told me a story about her rush experience that I think was meant to make me feel better but instead terrified me. It went as follows:
Freshman year, Molly and all of her friends rushed. All of her friends really liked Fred and ended up putting down Fred on Pref night. Molly, however, had liked Ron all week and girls in Ron had told her that they could see her in a leadership position in their sorority. Molly also had connections to Percy, though, so she ended up attending both on Pref night. She didn’t suicide but wasn’t planning on accepting a bid from Percy. Bid day, all her friends received their bids from Fred and she opened her card to reveal…Percy. She was absolutely crushed. Later, some Rons told her that they didn’t understand what had happened, that they thought because she was a legacy at Percy she had been put so high up on their list and the computer put her there…(keep in mind I’m not saying this is true or even possible, this is just what they told her). The moral of the story ended up being that even though Molly was really upset, so many things worked out in her life that wouldn’t have happened had she been in a sorority, so even though she didn’t end up Greek, she ended up where she was supposed to be. I went home feeling better about Bill but terrified of a similar situation happening with Percy.
Pref night, the rush group had noticeably thinned. The nervous chatter was strained until we got our slips. I opened mine to reveal:
Percy
Bill
I felt a curious mix of emotions. I was a little hurt I hadn’t been asked back to Ginny, but I had kind of known after Philanthropy day. At least I wouldn’t have to make the choice between Ginny and Bill. I honestly wondered how anyone ever got dropped from Percy; I had been careful not to be rude, but I wasn’t engaging at all and my discomfort had to have been palpable. I knew I would need to be respectful during their Pref ceremony, though, because many of the girls who attended their Pref ceremony (rather than dropping out) were going to be the girls joining. That was wonderful for them and I wasn’t going to ruin it for them.
I don’t want to go too much into detail about the Pref ceremonies in case I give anything away, but I’ll briefly sum up:
At Percy, I was pref’ed by the one rusher I had clicked with best, who was also pref’ing one other girl. The ceremony was pretty but I felt completely out of place. I once again expressed uncertainty. For some reason, the topic of going to parties was brought up by the girl pref’ing me which I thought was inappropriate for Pref night. I think she might have just been trying to show us that the girls in Percy weren’t socially inept, but that wasn’t the best way to do it.
Katie Bell pref’d me at Bill. The ceremony was beautiful, and I even teared up a bit. The majority of the Bills cried as well. I left knowing that although I knew some girls there fit the stereotype, I was willing to give Bill a try if they would have me.
I debated about suicide bidding for awhile, but Hermione told me she would hate for things to get messed up because of that, so I filled out my bid card:
1. Bill
2. Percy,
went home, and hoped for the best.
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