|
ROUND TWO:
I arrived at our meeting room, and was given a schedule for my day. I’m not going to lie, I wanted to cry when I saw that both Harper’s Bazaar and Nylon had cut me. I thought things had gone really well at both parties, so to think that they would cut me meant I had done something wrong? Maybe? I wasn’t sure. But I was also really lucky: I’m not someone who has always had a good time getting to know people, especially on a first-impressions basis like it seemed like recruitment was, so to think that I had a full schedule (all five other sororities had wanted to see me again) was definitely something that made me feel a little bit better. Some of my friends had gotten full schedules, some had been cut by one or two, and there were a fair amount of people who for some reason had only been invited back to one house. It was heartbreaking to see how upset those girls were, but most of them pulled themselves back together and promised to continue to go through recruitment. A few did, however, drop today after only getting invited back to one or two that they felt they would not like and by dropping out, were eligible for fall informal recruitment or rerush again in the following spring.
I don’t have my actual schedule, and I’m pretty sure I had a break at some point because I had the first and last slots for parties, but I do have the order I went in.
Vogue was first, much to my initial disappointment. I was extremely surprised to see this house on my schedule, because I had not had a good time at that party and thought the feeling was mutual. However, they completely changed my mind today. Their theme was beautiful and their skit was extremely well-done and very fun. I only spoke to two girls today, and they were both really easy to talk to and I totally enjoyed myself. Also, the one girl who I did have a good conversation with the first day made a point to stop by and give me a hug and say she was happy to see me back. I left knowing that this house was going to move way up in my rankings at the end of the day.
Up next was Marie Claire, and I was excited to be back. This had been my favorite of all the houses I had been invited back to, so I was really happy to be there. I know I commented a lot on the decorations the day before, and they continued with their classiness today. However, the first two girls I spoke to, the conversations were very awkward and stilted and I was not having nearly as good of a time as I did the first day. The skit was kind of sloppy compared to the one I had just seen, but they were obviously having a good time doing it. The third girl I spoke to, who had just been in the skit, totally saved the day from me. I felt an instant connection to her and was genuinely sorry to have to stop talking to her when we had to leave. They were probably going to move down in my rankings, but luckily the last girl had made it totally worthwhile.
InStyle came next, and their party was fine but nothing special. I didn’t have a crazy connection to the girls I spoke to, and while their skit was adorable it wasn’t anything exciting or new. I really just don’t have a lot to say about this chapter, sorry (though you might like it after my excessive descriptions of others, I wrote a lot in my recruitment book and I tend to have a pretty good memory).
After InStyle came Glamour. This party was very memorable because one, it was in a very dark room and two, we stood up the entire time instead of sitting like at other parties (though now that I think about it, Vogue had everyone stand too). But it was just pairs standing around the room, so it was kind of weird. Their skit was a total and complete mess, but they were silly and definitely having fun, though I have the feeling they did not volunteer to be in it and therefore were a lot less into it than other girls at other chapters. I absolutely loved one of the girls I spoke to, and we had a really good time talking about shared backgrounds. I was sorry to leave our conversation as well.
Last but certainly not least was ELLE. Their room blew me away. It was so intricately decorated and it was obvious that they had spent a ton of time making sure the room was gorgeous and each table had a unique setting that still went with the overall theme. I spoke to a few girls, one of who shared my love for theatre, and had to actually leave in the middle of our conversation to go perform in their skit. And their skit was incredible. It was by far the best I had seen yet and they were all extremely talented, plus you could tell how much each girl had wanted to be in the skit and loved performing in it. I left and knew that I would be ranking it as my number one.
For preferences day, we could attend up to three parties. After a lot of hemming and hawing, I eventually decided to rank:
1. ELLE
1. Marie Claire
1. Vogue
2. Glamour
3. InStyle
I ended up doing this because I had really liked Vogue that day and was confused by how different my opinions of them had been. So I decided that I would rank them third because I wanted to give them another chance to give me a chance so I could make an educated final decision. What rush was teaching me so far was that you really couldn’t just rely on first impressions, and that recruitment was an incredibly crazy experience. I went to bed hoping that things were going to work out the next day.
|