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Before I get to the first day of rush, question/answer time! Even though this was tongue-in-cheek, unless you live in apartment-style housing or off-campus, you are required to purchase a meal plan. So, yes, Donner purchases a meal plan and eats in dining halls with the rest of the dorms. Secondly, only half (now less than half with Alpha Phi) of the sororities are housed because only the first three sororities to return to campus were offered the option. Stanford kicked all sororities off campus in the 1940's. When this happened, all the sororities were forced to sell their houses to the school. Furthermore, Stanford owns all on-campus land, and as part of the founding charter, they CANNOT sell it. Sometime, Stanford created a rule that only 10 GLO's can be housed at once. Because fraternities were never forced to disband, all the fraternities that were able to maintain membership numbers and avoid disciplinary issues were able to remain housed. However, Sigma Chi remains the only GLO to still own their house. 7 fraternities were housed when Title IX forced Stanford to allow sororities back on campus. The first 3 had the opportunity to have a house. The remaining 4 were not.
Now, night 1 of recruitment! The night started on Friday after classes at 5:30. The dining halls only opened (back then) at 5:15, so a mass of women rushed to the dining halls to make PB&J and then we all walked/ate our sandwiches as we walked together to Tresidder. Rush is held in a series of rooms all over the university. ISC assigns the rooms and makes sure that room assignments are equal.
1) Twain: I was so overwhelmed when the doors opened and the women and Twain started singing and clapping. The first woman I talked to was the rush chair for Twain, which made me both nervous and excited. About 5 minutes in or so, we all sat down and watched a video that the women had made about their chapter. The rush chair had played a central role, so we had a lot to talk about. I generally liked the women I talked to.
2) Donner: Donner's video was very well-made, and the women were so energetic and excited. The room they were in was really loud, and it was kinda hard to hear. One of the girls that I talked to was a little...over-exuberant and made me feel slightly uncomfortable because she was a little bit in my personal space and overly familiar (she gave me a nickname after talking to me for 1 minute). However I really liked everyone else I talked to and my best friend was in love with this house, so I came away with a positive impression.
3) Larkin: Poor Larkin. They were triple-rushing. It was hard to stay in the conversation with 3 PNM's competing for time and trying to make an impression. Their video was also not as well-made as the two I had seen before. I did not really want to come back to Larkin.
4) Cedro: Their video made fantastically, but was a lot about partying which kind of put me off. One of my rushers was in a class with me winter quarter that we both LOVED and talked about that. I also told one of the rushers about the funny birthday party we had just thrown my best friend. I thought it had went well.
5) Serra: At Serra, some girls were double rushed. I was relieved that I wasn't after my experience at Larkin. The video was okay. Honestly, I was really hungry during this round and wasn't really paying attention.
6) Burbank: I was really happy to finish up the night at Burbank. Luckily, my Rho Gamma gave me a snack before the party so I had a lot more energy. I walked and walked past one of my friends who gave me a wave and a smile, and even though I was tired as all get out (it was nearing 12AM at this point), it gave me the encouragement to fake the energy for the rest of the party. The girls I talked to were really sweet. This party enforced my previous impression of them.
At the end of the night we were asked to rank our bottom two. Mine were:
1) Serra
2) Larkin
Day two of rush arrived. We got to the party and picked up our schedules. I would be going back to Twain, Donner, Serra, and Burbank. I was a little disappointed that Cedro hadn't invited me back, since I thought I had some really good conversations with the women in that house. However, I wasn't too frazzled as I kind of had the impression that I wasn't really crazy enough to feel comfortable with them anyway.
1) Burbank: I was happy to have them first instead of last this time. The women performed a really cute skit based off of a Christmas Carol with a PNM as Scrooge and cute things Burbanks do as the Ghosts. Again, I loved the girls I talked to, and a girl I had had a class with came up to me to tell me she was really happy to see me there.
2) Serra: I ended up in the back during their skit and had trouble hearing. However, I had a really great conversation with one of the women who told a funny story about a spring break trip she had just taken with her sisters. I really liked the girls that I talked to.
3) Donner: Their skit was soooooo funny! I laughed my head off. I had some amazing conversations with the women about some of my anxieties about living in a house of all women. They were so down-to-earth. I really liked them.
4)Twain: My voice was so tired when I got to Twain (I seriously don't know how the big schools do it). Their skit was a little off-putting to me. They had a couple of parts that involved the women dancing kinda sexily in kinda few clothing. The women I talked to and I didn't really click.
At the end of the night, I was asked to rank my bottom chapter. I ranked:
1) Serra because I still wanted to housed sorority and the remaining houses I had left were all housed.
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