A ~bejeweled~ re-rushing story

[peachgirl]

I've been reading stories on here for a while, so I finally decided to share my own! I’ll be sharing my experience of rushing as a freshman and then re-rushing as a sophomore. I’m going to be posting my story in four installments. Hope you enjoy!

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My story begins the fall of my freshman year. Although I grew up in the South and my mom had an amazing experience in her sorroity, I had never personally given much thought to joining one. This was mainly due to the fact that I had always planned on attending NYU, a school with almost no Greek presence. But my plans changed suddenly and I ended up at a very academic/research-oriented public university in my state that had, to my great surprise, a decent-sized Greek population.

I decided to register for recruitment. The more I learned about Greek life, the more I thought it would be perfect for me.

There are seven NPC sororities that participate in formal fall recruitment at my school. For the sake of this story and the “bejeweled” theme, I’ll call them:

Diamond
Ruby
Emerald
Pearl
Aquamarine
Topaz
Amethyst

The first day of recruitment should have been my first exposure to these chapters, but unfortunately in the weeks before school started, I had allowed myself to be influenced by others’ opinions, stereotypes, and rankings. I decided, for whatever reason, that I really wanted to be a Diamond or Aquamarine. Along with Pearl, I had been told that these chapters made up the “top tier” at my school. Rule Number One if any PNM is reading this: know that forming opinions based on shallow rankings will set you up for an unhappy and disappointing rush experience.

I will spare you the details of the first day of recruitment, which consisted of visiting all seven houses. I thought everything went well. I really wanted Diamond and Aquamarine to like me. All day, I was more focused on how I looked, and was constantly fixing my hair between rounds and making sure my recruitment tee shirt stayed smoothly tucked into my brand-new Lilly Pulitzer shorts (that literally ten other PNMs were wearing…)

Looking back, I realize that my conversations didn’t go past the surface level, and I was more worried about impressing the girls than making a genuine connection with them! At the end of the day, we had to rank our top six chapters we would like to go back to. The one that I “cut” was Ruby.

On the second day, Philanthropy Day, we could return to up to six houses. I opened up my schedule that morning and stared at it blankly. I only had THREE houses. All around me, it seemed like the girls in my Pi Chi group had full schedules. I felt like such a failure. I had been cut by Diamond, Aquamarine, and Pearl (the “top tier” I was so concerned with) and Emerald, the house with the reputation of extremely smart and involved girls. Left on my schedule were Topaz, Amethyst, and Ruby, who had called me back even though I had “cut” them the previous day.

I’m not going to lie, I stared at my little slip of paper for a while trying to hold back tears, wondering what had gone wrong. I wondered why Diamond and Aquamarine, the two houses I really liked, had cut me. But I didn’t have too much time to be upset because that day’s parties were about to start, so off I went to my first party of the day: Ruby.

At Ruby, I didn’t really feel a connection with the girls I talked to, and there were a bunch of awkward pauses in our conversation. They seemed like a sweet bunch, and I could tell that they cared about their philanthropy. I wanted to like them, but I just couldn’t see myself in their house. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was because I knew that they had the reputation of being the “bottom” house on campus.

After my party at Ruby, I had a long break, and so I had the option of leaving the student center ballroom where all the PNMs stayed. I walked around campus, feeling somewhat hopeless about the situation and even considered dropping out of rush. But I decided to stick it out, and after my break, I headed to my next party, which was at Topaz.

The conversations I had with the girls here were more natural, and I liked how involved they were with their philanthropy, even though it wasn’t one I was super enthusiastic about. One of the girls I talked to told me how competitive they were about Greek Week and Homecoming and how they always beat the other sororities, which kind of threw me off since I am about the least competitive person ever. I still left with an overall good impression of this house, though.

My final party of the day was at Amethyst. I was really interested in their philanthropy, because the cause they supported was something that affected my mom directly, and I could see myself being very passionate about it. I had good conversations with most of the girls, even though one asked me some “get to know you” questions I thought were a bit weird (like asking me if I could be any candy, what kind would I be?) but I just wrote it off as quirky but well-meaning.

That night, we were supposed to rank our top four houses, but since I only had three, I just listed them.

At this point in recruitment, I wasn’t convinced that I would want to join any of the three chapters, and I felt left out that my roommate and new friends all seemed to be having “perfect” recruitments. I wasn’t nearly as excited for day three, Skit Day, as they were. I knew I needed a major attitude adjustment if I wanted to make it through the week.

~

To be continued...