[FuzzieAlum]

This isn't my story but the story of a friend down the hall, "Linda."

We had both talked about rushing, and we went to the sorority open houses in the fall and were pretty excited. This girl was everything you want in a sister, and she ended up in exactly the house she wanted - which was at that time definitely the top house on campus. Well, that's hardly rush gone wrong, right?

A bunch of us right in a row all went Greek - I was an AXD, my neighbors were an ABC and a DEF, and then there was my friend Linda who joined GHI. Unfortunately, her roommate, who she could not stand (the feeling was quite mutual) ended up in GHI as well.

Both "Linda" and another pledge classmate ended up depledging. Fortunately, Linda found a home in ABC and her friend went DEF.

I guess the point is that even a perfect formal rush story doesn't guarantee a happy ending. Don't be discouraged - the long route, like my sister "Melissa" took can work, too.

Melissa rushed her freshman year, and I remember that our chapter loved her. But she ended up dropping out of rush. Fast forward to her junior year, when she was the RA in the building we were housed in. She knew a lot of us not only from being her residents but also from classes, and this time, when we informally rushed her, she accepted a bid.

It took Melissa two years to figure out what sorority was right for her.

I know other girls who waited a couple of semesters to get a bid from the chapter they wanted. It must have been agonizing to wait, but they ended up where they wanted to be.

There are a lot of ways to get to sisterhood, including frosh formal rush, informal rush, rushing as an upperclassman and alum initiation. Formal rush doesn't work for a lot of people - they're not ready at the beginning of the year for it, they don't know what they want, they're just shy, they're overwhelmed, etc. If formal rush didn't work for Blazercheer and she's still interested in Greek life, she can find a way to get there. And in the meantime, she has the opportunity to observe the chapters as they are day to day rather than in the bustle of rush and take her time to think them over.