[SquirrelyDays]

New year, new plan. On to spring COB!

Deering is hosting spring recruitment events. Their house is university-owned and used to be a fraternity house – in fact it was occupied by the fraternity that Rosebud’s dad joined. She could live in the same house as her dad! Awww! And this confirms my guess that there may be behind-the-scenes things affecting spring recruitment. Deering was not on my list of 9-out-of-12 chapters that might have room for more members because of sisters graduating. So now we are at 10 chapters who might have spring rush.

Princess Place is hosting spring recruitment events, too. I hope Rosebud likes the sisters, because I bet she’d like a lot of things about this group. Pretty, trendy colors, pretty badge, very common symbol that’s easy to find on merch, very popular philanthropy. (The merch aspect feels oddly important, lol. Merchandise with squirrels is really only in the shops two or three months out of the year, so I’d be happy for her to have more readily available stuff to celebrate her sisterhood. Or she can just shop online I guess, like all of GenZ does.) The Princess Instagram makes them seem a little more fashion-forward than Rosebud is, but I know that social media showcases just a tiny portion of their membership, so she might still fit in there. She never attended a Princess event, though. I’m not sure why. At this point, I don't want to dig for more information. Cannot go back - must go forward.

Casements are hosting spring recruitment events. It appears they graduated out a bunch of seniors in the spring, so even though they were overfull last fall, they have space to fill this year. (Hard to predict accurately when relying on public data that is a semester behind.) I know that just because her roommates are both Casements that doesn’t guarantee a bid, but Rosebud was also at several extra social things with the group in the fall, so IN THEORY they know more about her already than the Average Joe-Anne coming in off the street. Don’t know if her roommates would be allowed to participate in the decision about whether or not to offer her a bid since they were just initiated a month ago, but maybe! Casements is really pursuing COB sisters enthusiastically. In addition to publicizing their interest form repeatedly, they posted a collection of photos on Instagram that showcased 9 sisters who joined through COB in previous years, with their comments on how joining through COB enriched their lives and provided them with the same sisterhood as those who joined during primary recruitment.

Ca’ d‘Zan is hosting spring recruitment events, which we totally predicted since they are the smallest group on campus. Her spin class friend reached out to her personally to invite her to their activities. Rosebud is torn, because she definitely LIKES all of the members that she met, but she wants to live in a sorority house. She feels it is likely that Ca’ d’Zan would offer her a bid because they already did in the fall. She doesn’t know how to reply to her spin class friend in a way that would put her off a bit to see if she might be offered a bid from a housed chapter first while not out-right declining the invitation. As it happens, her TBS event schedule prevented her from attending some of their events, so her attendance was delayed organically with no subterfuge needed.

Mangoes are hosting spring recruitment events. She’s still pretty sure she isn’t interested in Mangoes. I’m feeling like beggars can’t be choosers, but what do I know? Mangoes does not have a house either, so I know that impacts her interest.

Villa Vizcaya is hosting something that MIGHT be a recruitment event? It’s not clear. Deering and Princess Place and Casements and Ca’ d’Zan and Mangoes all have a link to a recruitment interest form on their Instagram accounts. Vizcaya just has an announcement about a craft project and a link to send an email to the VP Membership to RSVP. Is this recruitment? Is it a sisters-only event? Not sure. We learned that the Pan VPR from the fall is a Vizcaya, per their IG, and that quickly cooled Rosebud’s enthusiasm. She did not exert herself to discover if this was a COB event. About 2 weeks later, 2 moms of Vizcaya sisters posted on Facebook that yes, they were recruiting, but still nothing definitive showed up on their Instagram. Stealth rush, I guess.

Capen-Showalter is hosting a faith inquiry and sharing night, open to all. Maybe that’s foot-in-the-door for COB? We’ll never know because Rosebud is NOT interested in doing that. In fact, I’m pretty sure she has not darkened the door of a church since the first week away from home. Sigh. I thought that might happen. I did the same when I was her age, and I think many teens do. Just gotta wait to see if she will boomerang back in the future. And pray about it.

She thinks MAYBE she filled out an interest form for Casa Feliz. She hasn’t heard anything about events, though. I never saw an interest form or event list posted on their social media. Not sure. Sounds like she’s losing track of info and not being as methodical as her Type-A mother would be. She definitely did not message any of the other orgs (which the newly elected Pan VPR had recommended to everyone) to see if they have any COB events coming up that were not publicly announced.

(If you’re keeping track, that list contains 5 out of the 6 organizations that I included in my revised predictions for spring COB.)
Casa Feliz did pick up around 10 new members, and so did Villa Vizcaya and Princess Place.
Mangoes picked up 16 and then continued to COB.
Nothing on social media about Capen-Showalter results, so I guess that wasn’t a COB event after all.


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Suitemates update:
You might recall that shy Shelly thought she would participate in spring rush. Well, there was some Dr. Phil-level drama among the other girls in the suite AND THEIR MOMS during the second month of the fall semester and it’s best not to mention the third roommate to anyone, at any time. Like touching the third rail. Suffice it to say: they’re definitely NOT going through spring recruitment together. Shelly’s probably not participating in any of the parties at all, would be my guess.