I had a frilly (though not quite as frilly as FSUZeta), prior to school, fully structured recruitment. It started 2 weeks before school, then you had a welcome week, then school started. It was great because it allowed you to be focused on just recruitment and not have to worry about school at the same time (I would NOT have been a very good student that week), plus have some time to get familiar with both the sorority and the campus before classes began.
Now to compare a bit to FSUZeta’s experience (because it’s fun to journey down memory lane a bit), we had door chants/songs all of the rounds except preference, where we piled in the doorway and screamed catchy tunes at the top of our lungs while either squatting or standing on a chair (depending on where you were placed in the door). We wore matching outfits, which were determined by the party chairs and bought prior to recruitment (the near-by GAP and J Crew loved us) – this included shoes.
The first round there was a mini skit type thing, where a small group of chapter members performed a song and coordinated dance, but changed the words to be about the sorority (songs varied each year, going from ABBA’s Take A Chance on Me to Nsync’s Bye Bye Bye). The second round was where you toured the house, and the third round was the full skit round, complete with decorations and props.
At each round we could serve a refreshment, usually water and one other thing. Sometimes it would be a pink lemonade, or iced tea, or sometimes it would be Coke – the ones in the little coke bottles to go with our 50s-themed skit that year, of course – it just depended on the round.
Preference was done pretty similarly to how the chapters at my alma mater do it now (and to how FSUZeta described it). People were called in by name individually, then we would have the party (where people would be served cute appetizers and drinks). At the end, we would walk them down the steps of our home, hug them at the sidewalk, then gracefully walk back to form a formation on the lawn while softly singing a song. Once the last girl left, we would sing one round, then walk back into the house in pairs, and close the door.
It was such a long week (well, two weeks if you count work week), but man I loved it. It’s funny to me though that about 8-10 years before I joined, it was even frillier. The skits used to have some intense decorations – including decor on the lawn and completely covering the room our skit was in with paper and balloons and flowers – even the ceiling was covered! And everyone wore
these types of dresses for pref, in magenta and royal blue and a jade green. I wish I could have seen it then.
Sorry for the slight derailment there - I get so excited when recruitment season comes around each year.