Originally Posted by ringpop
Informal Recruitment
Following formal recruitment, I got word from the infamous Greekrank that many of the chapters had failed to meet either recruitment quota or total quota. In fact, every chapter but the two strongest recruiting chapters were in need of members and would be doing COB of some form or another. At my school, Labrador and Newfoundland had traditionally done additional informal recruitments during both the spring and the fall. This year, Great Dane would also be organizing an informal recruitment in the fall because their graduating class had left them below chapter total quota (they were looking to take another 20 girls!). Allegedly, Corgi and Greyhound would be doing invite-only/closed COBs but would be keeping them hush-hush because doing informal recruitment is somewhat looked down upon at my school.
I signed up for the Great Dane and Labrador informal recruitments but decided not to sign up for Newfoundland’s. I still felt guilty about leaving during pref night when I could’ve found a home in Labrador, and it was only fair for me to give them a real chance, but I had never felt like Newfoundland was the place for me.
Both of the informal recruitments were quite awkward, to say the least. I got the sense that both of the chapters remembered me from formal and were not enthused that I had withdrawn from recruitment, although I might’ve just been overthinking it. However, I still tried my best to present myself as well as I could, and I certainly felt more comfortable chatting with the actives outside of the intense atmosphere of formal recruitment.
I went through the Great Dane informal recruitment with one of my other friends, another sophomore who had withdrawn from formal recruitment very early on. On the final day, we both got an email asking for a screenshot of our college transcripts. Our grades were almost identical. She got a reply offering her a bid, I did not. Somehow this hurt me more; at the time I just couldn’t wrap my head around why I was “good enough” to be offered a snap bid, but not “good enough” to be offered a bid during informal recruitment. Not to mention the fact that many of the girls at the Great Dane informal recruitment had been released from Great Dane during formal much earlier in the process than I was. It was a hard pill for me to swallow, and I’ll never know exactly what went on behind the scenes, but at the time I felt like Great Dane was dangling a bid like a carrot just out of my reach.
The Labrador informal recruitment decisions would not come out until a while later, and in the meantime my Rho Gamma (who ended up being a Corgi) texted me asking if I’d be interested in doing COB with Greyhound. I said yes immediately. I attended a coffee date with some of the Greyhound actives, and from the start, the conversation was so easy and laid-back that I didn’t have a hard time being myself and holding a conversation without awkward pauses.
That weekend I got a bid from Labrador, which I held off on accepting until I heard back from Greyhound. A few days later, the Greyhound recruitment chair contacted me with a bid, which I accepted; I politely declined the Labrador bid, although at that point I realized I could've fit in just as well in either organization.
I’ve been in Greyhound for a year now and it’s definitely funny to me that I ranked them first on day one, without knowing much about them at all! I immediately felt at home there from the start, so much more than everywhere else, and I guess everything just fell into place even though for a while it seemed like my recruitment experience had gone to hell in a handbasket. As for which organization Greyhound is, I’m proud and honored to call myself a member of...
Kappa Kappa Gamma!
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