My Retro 80's "Planetary" Rush Story

[PKTKKG]

Since I have always enjoyed reading the recruitment threads, I decided to share my retro thread. I went to a large university in the south that had a semi-competitive recruitment back in the day. My family was not greek so I didn’t really know anything about sororities until I arrived on campus. I thought about going thru rush as we called it when I was a sophomore, but didn’t do it (a decision I later regretted). I went through my junior year in the Fall of 1988 – back then juniors were not ‘free’ like they are now and many chapters would not take juniors at all. While it has been more than 20 years, I still remember most of the details of my rush experience as I have a very detailed memory.

There were 9 chapters on campus when I rushed and my code names are as follows:

Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto

I had some recent alum friends in Saturn and I thought they were so cool and that was the group I had in my head that I wanted to be when I began rush. I also had an alum friend through my part time campus job who was an advisor to Mars. They had colonized the year before, and this was going to be their first formal rush. I had also made some really good friends in Jupiter through my campus job. The only bad things were that one of them was a senior, one was a rho chi, and the other was the Panhellenic officer in charge of rush that year. So three Jupiters that knew me well were either recent alum or were disaffiliated.

So I was so excited about rush and finally the first day arrived – Open House was the day we visited all 9 sororities. It was August, very hot, and we had to walk around the men’s fraternity quad as the parties were held in their on campus lounges. I had this hot pink sundress and wore casual white low heel shoes. It was a very dressy sundress and I did not wear hose but that was the only day I didn’t!

The chapters I visited in order were:

Pluto – This chapter had a party reputation at that time and I knew one girl in the chapter from a class. She was nice enough, but going into the party I did not see myself as a Pluto. However, the girl I talked to was really super and I liked her a ton. We had a great time chatting and I remember her name was Alli. She totally changed my impression of Pluto and I was pleasantly surprised that I had a good time.

Mercury was the next chapter. I did not like this chapter at all. They did not have a good reputation, were the smallest chapter, and the conversations here were really awkward and these girls were just trying too hard. They always had posters in our dorms for rush parties every semester and I had mentioned this to one of my alum friends and she explained why they were always recruiting.

Earth was the next chapter. I only knew that my first cousin’s second cousin on the other side of her family had been an Earth and quit. Her advice was to be careful they were backstabbers and did not respect that she had to study for her major. When I went to this chapter and got all the ‘usual’ questions (major, year, where do you live, etc.), I told her I was a junior. I will never forget the look on this girls face – she looked at me like I had a disease. So once that happened, that party was over for me as she made me feel very uncomfortable.

Neptune was next. I knew nothing at all about this chapter except that they were also smaller and recruited every semester. These girls were really nice. I had a good time here and enjoyed talking to them. I was surprised to learn they had only been on campus for 3 years at that point. One of my friends I was rushing with (who totally wanted to be a Jupiter at the beginning of rush) pledged Neptune.

Uranus was next. My next door neighbor in my dorm the prior year had pledged Uranus. We also had a class together. She was very nice and l liked her, but I didn’t know anything really about Uranus except that the members either were very preppy or sort of granola (one girl on my hall who was a Uranus never wore shoes). Seemed like there was not a lot of in between. The girl that rushed me was a varsity cheerleader, so she was the peppiest of them all when she did the door cheer. I also briefly saw my prior year dorm neighbor. Nothing really stood out to me about this group except that they looked at me oddly for being an upperclassman.

Venus was the next party. One of my high school friends had pledged Venus. They had a reputation for being sort of the beauty queen sorority and going in I did not think I would fit in here. However, I talked to three or four girls and they were very laid back and I had a good time at this party.

Saturn was next and I was really excited since this was a group I had 3 rec’s for. I knew three recent alums and I thought everything about Saturn was really cool. So I went into the party with high expectations and smiled my best. The girl that picked me up at the door had this big teased hair and she was really flaky. She drug me around that party physically – grabbed my arm and pulled me around. I wanted to say – ‘stop yanking on my arm’, but I just tried to go with the flow and be courteous, smile, and answer questions while being polite and see if I could keep from being yanked around anymore. To the girl’s credit, I told her I was really excited to be there and she kept saying something like ‘Oh, let me introduce you to so and so I want to be sure you get to meet more girls’. I did appreciate the thought even though I didn’t like being pulled around.

Mars was the next to last party of the day and I was happy to go there since I had that alum friend that was working directly with the chapter. I don’t remember who I met that day, but I do remember they were wearing dresses in three different colors – their two colors and white. Was really glad to go to Mars – they were great!

So as luck would have it, my very last party of a hot late August day was Jupiter – the chapter I wanted to go to the most. The girl that rushed me was named Alice and I told her I knew my two friends from work who were not affiliated that year. It freaked her out a little bit, but I told her I worked with them. My cousin had also told me about one of her friends from her hometown that was a Jupiter. Many girls from this town went Earth but my cousin’s friend went Jupiter. We ended up finding her during the party and I was so happy to have sort of a connection. Turns out that on this day there were two other Jupiters I knew! There were two girls I had met my freshman year and I knew that one of them was in a sorority, but didn’t know which one – one had pledged as a sophomore but remembered me from our freshman class. The other girl was a senior and I used to work part time where her dad worked. So there were two more Jupiters that I already knew and that made me feel great!

So that was the end of Open House. In those days, we did not rank the chapters or fill out any paperwork at the end of the day. The next day, we had to meet with our Rho Chi group and see who invited us back for Round 1 parties.