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Day 1: Open House (all 13 sororities)
The morning started bright and early for these girls after being roused from their sleep by football players running up and down the halls of the dorm while blowing air horns. My daughter (who I’ll refer to as “Sunny”) is NOT an early riser so didn’t find this as amusing as her suitemates and roommate did. The girls met their Recruitment Counselors at 8am, got their schedule for the day, and headed for the bus which would take them to their first house. I was kicking myself yesterday for telling Sunny to keep her phone behind, only to find out last night when she called that the PNMs are not allowed to have phones (or watches) with them at all during the day. I never thought I would be the anxious mom, but here I am.
Sunny and friends visited 4 houses, had a break for lunch, visited 6 houses, had a break for dinner, and then visited the final 3 houses. Preferences were entered at 930p, a brief meeting with the RCs at 10, and then back to their rooms at 1030 (when I finally got the update).
She couldn’t contain her excitement when talking to me about her day. I had a big grin on my face just listening to her as she talked through the notes she took on each chapter. She really liked every place that she visited and definitely thought it was hard to find something to help her with her rankings. Sunny is a very bubbly, outgoing girl who can converse easily with almost anyone she comes across and she loves meeting new people, so I think she was really in her element today. She finally decided to rank her bottom three based on the conversations feeling more “interviewy” or “a little awkward” and less “totally random… like talking about Shark Week!”
She really found something positive to embrace about each place, and even with her bottom three she said “I just think maybe the girls were nervous or not very good rushers, so I totally want to give them another chance if I get invited back.” One thing she did tell me was at one house she liked, the conversation turned to guys that the rusher was asking her if she knew. Sunny said “Mom, I wasn’t sure what to do, since we’re not supposed to talk about boys! But I told her yes I knew them and then kind of moved the conversation to something else.”
At the end of the night, her favorites (though she liked them all) were:
Liberty Memorial
Oklahoma Joe’s
Power & Light
Westport
She ranked (though she wouldn’t mind going back and meeting new girls):
1. Boulevard Brewery
2. The Fountains
3. Hallmark Cards
I asked how Roommate and Suitemates enjoyed their day and found out that they all had a blast. Apparently the 4 of them made an agreement to not discuss their feelings other than very generically so that they wouldn’t influence each other’s choices. What a mature group of young women!
Other random notes about Day 1:
Sunny said that she had a great time just meeting a lot of girls in her dorm and in other groups today. I was glad to hear that she was looking at the big picture and not getting caught up in “what did you think about XYZ” etc. It’s not too hard to hear KU tent talk around here, but to me it seemed like she did a very nice job thinking for herself and not letting that influence her in any way. She actually ranked a house that is considered very desirable, and really liked a house that is considered not so much. Her words: “I don’t care, the girls were awesome and I felt very comfortable in their house.” The RCs told the PNMs that it’s very rare to receive a full schedule of 10 parties for Philanthropy Day (which I think made Sunny breathe a slight sigh of relief, as she wouldn’t mind a break or two during the day!). She said she’d be happy with any number of invites and I’m pretty sure I believe her.
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