[rileykae]

Round One: Open House

Rounds are done in 25 minutes with breaks in between. Dress attire is ‘snappy casual’ - this meant I wore dressy dark jeans, the orange/peach drape top with a black cardigan and my white slip on sandals. For jewelry I just wore my claddagh and a trinity knot necklace. Makeup was simple, a dark pink lipstick with a light brushing of brown eyeshadow. After check in, I sat in the gathering room waiting to meet my Gamma Chi. Since check in was a 6, the rounds didn’t begin until 7.

Sam: When my group went in to talk to Sam’s girls, we were greeted by them singing and then paired off. I got to talk to a total of five girls, all of whom seemed eager to hand me to their sister to talk to me, so I got to meet alot of people from the chapter in such a short time. These girls were very easy to talk to and it was comfortable being in a room with them, as fast paced as the conversations seemed, the atmosphere was still calm and personal, I felt like I could have talked for hours with these girls. We talked about local sports teams, different leadership opportunities we’d had and what the sorority could do for us and the usual what’s your major/what clubs are you in ect.. the bonus for this round is that one of the girls I talked to actually recognized me from the few events prior to recruitment starting!

Dean: When my group went in to talk to Dean’s girls, it seemed less put together. The girls all sang and then grabbed one of us to form a conversation group. This way I was able to talk to five girls at once along with three other PNMs, though I didn’t personally get to say much of anything. I felt like they really summed up why they went greek/some of their philanthropy events/and their roles in the organization without truly getting to know us. The atmosphere seemed a lot more laid back with this chapter, and maybe it was because of that that I didn’t feel as strong of a connection, aside from the fact I felt like they were talking more at us than with us - though they seemed genuine interest, I felt like I really didn’t get to let them know ‘about me’ and such. Although I liked the philanthropy from hearing about it, I don’t feel as connected to it at first like I did with the others. I really want to learn more about their philanthropy and see if it would be something I’d be interested in supporting, and to really get to talk one-on-one so I feel like Dean at least recognizes me as an individual and not just another girl going through recruitment.

Castiel : When my group went in to talk to Cas’ girls, this started out much like Sam; with his girls all singing and pairing up with us. We were lead to chairs to set where a brief explanation of the principles and philanthropy were given, then we stood up and walked to different corners of the room to talk to the girl that we had been paired up with. Over the course of this round, I talked to three girls one-on-one. The atmosphere was warm and inviting here, and the sisters were eager to talk to us. The one thing I didn’t like is that at one point two of the sisters that were trading me off began a conversation and seemed to forget I was there for several minutes. The high point was when the last girl I talked to pointed out how I had drawn on my name tag, as I was the only one in my PNM group that had done that (hopefully it would help me be remembered.)

After each round, we got to talk to our recruitment counselors and to take notes on the different chapters as the night progressed. I said I’d be going into this with an open mind, and I still am even after the first night, with two more to go. I haven’t picked one over the other because I feel like I don’t have enough information or impression in order to make the choice quite yet. Basically, according to my Gamma Chi, the next round we go to the three sororities again and then select two of those to attend on preference night. In addition, we learned there is no cap on the number of bids in formal recruitment at my university. Although we didn’t have to rank the groups tonight, if I had to rank Team Free Will, I would rank Sam first, Dean second, and Castiel third.

I’ll update again after the second round is finished.