[SquirrelyDays]

Rosebud went to another COB event with Ca’ d’Zan later in the week and had a GREAT time… and then they offered her a bid. She was SO surprised. She didn’t think it could happen that fast. She thought she would be expected to attend more than just 2 events and the info table. They told her she didn’t have to accept or decline right away. She made a plan to attend a spin class with one of the members the next day, and then she called me. Over the next 3 days we had multiple pros-and-cons phone calls (which somehow always seemed to happen right as I was sitting down to order a meal in a restaurant). A summary:

PRO: She wants to be involved in something now, rather than waiting until next fall and missing a whole year. And there’s no guarantee that she would be offered a bid next year. It’s common for upperclassmen to receive a bid, but it’s not 100%. And no upperclassmen quota on this campus.

But CON: she really wanted to live in a sorority house. We have discussed that unless she receives a bid during freshman year, that probably won’t happen. If she initiates as a sophomore, then her first opportunity to live in the house would be during her junior year … right when she would be starting her upper-level courses on the specialized satellite campus which is 30 minutes away from sorority row on the main campus. She had planned to get an apartment near that satellite campus when those classes started. (Campus culture is that only freshmen live in the dorms anyway.) She COULD live in the house and commute to class, but it’s better to be occasionally late to social events than to risk being chronically late to class due to traffic, so a location close to the satellite campus was the plan. Especially because she doesn’t have her license yet and would have to rely on the college shuttle buses for transport. (Or accommodating friends.) (Or maybe just GET YOUR LICENSE, Rosebud, let's goooooo)

So she THINKS she wants to wait for spring rush. The number of organizations participating in spring rush would be fewer … and would probably still include Ca’ d’Zan. Rosebud thought it would be bad form to decline a bid in fall and then try to join again in spring. So, if she took “living in the house” out of the equation, she really felt like she WANTED to take the bid … but she still wasn’t SURE.

PRO: She likes the idea of knowing a small number of active sisters very well, rather than being in a crowd of women where she might not get to know each member personally.

Some CONs that I thought about, but did not share with her: probably lots of COB … all year long. There could be pressure from national leadership to grow, but maybe not. They might be fine with this chapter being small. Plus if she’s in an extroverted mood, meeting more new people every week isn’t exactly a crisis. It’s fun!

PRO: it’s less expensive. I had budgeted for the high end of the range of annual costs reported on the FSL website and it would be fine if she spent that much, but she’s just so practical that she took cost into consideration. And honestly, it’s not significantly less expensive because without a house they have “facilities rental fees” built into their budget since they pay to reserve locations for ritual and activities.

Ultimately she determined that she wanted to meet more sisters before deciding. I thought that was smart. IMHO, if it’s a very small group, it needs to be cohesive to survive. She doesn’t mind hard work, but she wants to enjoy the people she’s working with. If there is bickering in a group of 50 women, it’s hard to escape the one person who gets on your nerves the most – unlike a group of 150 women.

That spin class was a killer, by the way. She left gasping halfway through.