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Events overlapped chronologically, but I’m grouping these notes by organization.
Yay, Casements!
It’s funny how we’ve gone from “Mom, what should I wear, what should I say?” to “this is what I’m going to wear tonight, what do you think” to “this is what I wore yesterday” to …. crickets. Again, this is a good sign of growing confidence, a part of the process, but I’m aching for details! I’m getting them days later, with a lot of yadda yadda yadda, instead of the really thorough calls from earlier in the school year.
Rosebud’s Casements roommate Tammy helped her get ready. The recruitment chair sent out a message to all guests with a collection of “inspo” pictures, which was useful. They ended up choosing a cotton sundress with flowers embroidered in a color that matched those favorite hi-tops. Super cute ensemble, but I’m sure she was cold. I can’t imagine what jacket she wore over top. Based on event pictures of Casements active sisters on social media, she fit right in fashion-wise.
At Casements they split the guests into 3 time slots of about 40 minutes, scheduled one after the other within the same evening. Sounds just like regular rush parties, even though this is basically COB. This formality was unexpected. It’s interesting that this could actually be good practice for the newly initiated sisters to help them get ready for the structure of fall recruitment. When she arrived, Rosebud was paired first with her roommate Gina’s bid day Buddy from fall recruitment. She knew she wouldn’t be paired with either Tammy or Gina to give her a chance to meet more women. She and the bid day Buddy really hit it off! As it happened, it seemed like every time Rosebud started to say something about herself, the Buddy would say “Oh yeah, I remember; Gina told me about that.” Rosebud reminded the Buddy that she had been at the grab-a-date back in September, and the Buddy thought that was awesome.
After talking with the bid day Buddy, Rosebud was paired with another sister who was a COB initiate last spring. They did not click half so well as the previous match up. Ah well. Can’t be everyone’s cup of tea. And that was it. There was no house tour at Casements, which was logical for such a short visit. Rosebud was told to watch her email for either an invite to the next round of recruitment, or a “thank you for your interest” rejection message. Hopefully she will get to go back for the house tour.
It really does seem like Rosebud has some sisters in her corner when it comes to decision time. In addition to her roommates, there is Tammy’s grand-big who is a recruitment committee chair. Plus, she was told that at least one of the older initiated sisters from that movie date way back in August had completed an info form about her. (Maybe that is the new version of a rec?) And now she has met Gina’s bid day Buddy. This is great!
At the end of the day, back in the suite, the roommates chatted about their experiences. Of course, the information that the roommates could share with Rosebud was limited, but one of Tammy’s conversation guests was a total name dropper. Tammy felt like she didn’t get to know ANYTHING about the girl herself, because every other word she said was talking about a Casements sister that she knows, or one she wants to know better. It will be interesting to see if she moves on to the next round. (Update: she did not.)
The style of the Casements badge is more familiar to me, and the symbols/mascot are super common, which is good for shopping. Well-known philanthropy. Comfort of already knowing several sisters. Lots of good points.
However, before the end of the week, Rosebud learned that she would not receive a bid to Casements. So, as many other women have found out: knowing several sisters before recruitment is not a guarantee for a bid. Bid day photos showed 14 happy women, one of whom could have been Rosebud’s twin. Her roommates were surprised by this outcome. They think it was detrimental that the Buddy didn’t learn anything new about her during their chat. Rosebud knew she didn’t “click” with the other hostess, so that was no help. She shared this with me during a quick phone call (“I only have 10 minutes, Mom! Gotta go!”). Very busy with band performances and TBS events.
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At this point my Alpha Gam sisters were worried about her mental state after 3 rejections, but Rosebud was not distraught. Frustrated, but not upset. She was more distressed after the rejection from Whitehalls in the fall, but more self-assured in the spring. She’s re-evaluating her priorities. She commented that “everything is just really clique-y” at college, even in the band, even in TBS in a way. I’m not sure what has been happening to prompt this reaction, but she does have a good core group of friends to get her started on the right foot at college, so hopefully this will pass.
I’m realizing that her high school band experience sheltered her a bit more than I grasped at the time. She was a big fish in a small pond, welcome everywhere she chose to go and happy with her lot in life. Unconcerned with the popular crowd and what other groups of kids were doing. Trying to cross over into a new pond is testing her.
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