A Delicious Recruitment

[sophia27]

A good friend of mine who posts regularly on here asked me to post my trip through formal recruitment. All I will say is that this occurred sometime within the last 10 years. Below is some background about recruitment at my school as well as myself.


At Dessert University we had 11 chapters that participated in recruitment. It was a larger school with a non-competitive Greek Life.

1. Tiramisu
2. Cheesecake
3. Sundae
4. Tapioca
5. Custard
6. Water Ice
7. Pudding
8. Brownie
9. Cookie
10. Popsicle
11. Rhubarb Pie

My Alpha Omegas (My University doesn’t call them rho chis or pi chis) will be referred to as twix and twizzler.

Rounds
Philanthropy – 11 Sororities
Sisterhood – 7 Sororities
Skit – 5 Sororities
Preference – 3 Sororities

The first round was held in the student union. The rest of the rounds were held in the sorority suites, which were in the basement of one of the campus dormitories. Recruitment didn’t start until 3 weeks into the fall semester, which was long enough for most girls to develop opinions on the sororities and overhear gossip.

While I didn’t want to prejudge any sororities I couldn’t help but notice and overhear a few things before recruitment actually began.

Water Ice, Pudding, & Custard had sisters that were all very tan. They were considered the top 3 sororities on campus from what I had heard. One of the Puddings I had played a sport with for 6 years growing up I didn’t know she was a Pudding till I saw her in Letters on campus (She was a year ahead of me in school).

Popsicle & Cookie were the two bottom sororities that were considered rejects and fraternities on our campus had some cruel nicknames for them. I would later learn when you hang out with the fraternities enough you’ll learn everyone’s nicknames.

I signed up for recruitment for a few reasons.
1. I wanted to meet girls with similar interests as me, while I got along with all the girls on my floor they weren’t people that I would bother staying in touch with over vacation much less after I graduated.
2. I was bored and desperately wanted to become involved on campus, so when someone asked me to sign up I thought it was a great way to be more active on campus, although I wasn’t sure I would end up in a sorority (They had promised me that just because I signed up didn’t mean I was obligated to join a sorority).

I lived in a non-freshman dorm in what was essentially a lounge converted to a dorm room for overflow freshmen housing with 4 other girls. We all had very different personalities but managed to get along. I was the only one of the 4 of us who would go through rush freshmen year although my one roommate had thought about rushing an NPHC sorority (I don’t know if she ever did or not none of us kept in touch after we moved into permanent housing spring semester). On our floor we had two brothers of snicker fraternity and they would get us into parties at snicker and milky way fraternity before I joined a sorority.

I had not been popular in middle school or high school after moving to a new town it had been very hard for me to adjust and make new friends as many girls had already developed their own clique of friends. I was glad to go off to college where it would be an equal playing field again and I would not be the only person looking to make new friends.

[Tropical_Dancer]

this sounds like it will be a great story, I'm definately pulling for cheesecake

[anygreekmom]

I love your code names...even though you are putting a serious dent in my diet!!! I would LOVE some tiramisu right now...

[lovespink88]

Sundae for sure... and now all I can think about is eating one...

[honeychile]

I've always loved Pudding!

[sceniczip]

Cheesecake all the way!!!

[lavendarlace]

Love your straight forward post, I like having all the information up front. I'm rooting for the underdog, cookie.

[CougarGrad]

Merciful Heavens, I don't know who to root for. *drool* Let's see how brownie works out!

[sophia27]

The day was divided into two parts the first half of the day we visited 6 sororities and then we would have a lunch break. The remaining 5 sororities would come in during lunch break and setup for recruitment. We would then visit the last 5 sororities and rank them, so while it wasn’t as long for the sororities it was still a really long day for the PNMs going through recruitment. The first round was so long and draining that I won’t go into much detail because to be honest I don’t remember that much.

Cookie - I thought their campus philanthropy event was very unique and creative and definitely something I would want to participate in. I didn’t really know much about the cause they raised money for, but was definitely planning on looking it up when I got home.

Cheesecake - To be honest I wasn’t really sure exactly what the campus event was that this house did for their philanthropy and it kind of turned me off to them. I wanted to actively be involved in a philanthropy and I saw this as them not being passionate about what they did. I was going to give these girls another chance though because I had a relative who had been a member of this organization when she had been in college.

Tapioca -I was kind of turned off by the campus philanthropy event for this house because it was a walk and the idea just seemed so unoriginal. It seems like almost every charity hosts a walk for their cause and its nothing I would get excited over. I did like the cause which the money they raised went to could definitely see myself working to raise money for it.

Custard -This was probably the sorority I was least impressed/turned off by for the first round. Their event for their cause was a spoof off of two of the other sororities’ events and it just came across as a really shallow event. Not to mention that I knew I wouldn’t fit in with these ultra tan girls who were all extremely skinny.

Brownie – To be honest I don’t really remember anything about this group except that they were like the girls your parents would have babysit. Just really trustworthy and wholesome girls

Water Ice -I definitely thought the campus philanthropy event was cool and unique. Apparently several water ice chapters didn’t similar variations of the event that they did which was pretty interesting. I didn’t really remember much about what they actually raised money for but I had liked how enthusiastic the sisters had been about their event.


Lunch Break!


Pudding - I loved that their philanthropy event was an athletic type of event and definitely thought it was cool. I remember seeing my pudding friend across the room and us nodding heads towards each other and smiling kind of like a silent wave. I thought it would be neat if we were in the same sorority but I also felt that I should judge the sorority as a whole and not just the one girl I knew.

Sundae -I remember the most about this chapter from round one. While all the chapters had table decorations, balloons, and a tri-fold on their philanthropy this chapter had done one more thing. Across the back of the room they had take a string and attached a bunch of old philanthropy shirts they had used from previous years. It was definitely neat to look at. Then they had everyone from their exec. Board stand up and introduce themselves, their year, major, hometown and favorite food. It was nice not to have the spotlight immediately turned back on to me. I really liked their campus philanthropy event. It was actually the same sport that I use to play with the girl from pudding which made me really excited. I thought Sundae’s charity was a great cause to support and raise money for as well.

Tiramisu – These girls were another top sorority although they weren’t all tan like the other sororities they definitely knew how to dress well and were extremely pretty. Their philanthropy event was Mr. Dessert University I thought it was definitely a good activity and liked the cause they were raising money for.

Rhubarb – Was another small chapter. Rumor had it that they would get really large pledge classes and then 4 years later ¾ of the chapter would graduate making them really small again. The girls were nice and pleasant although I really didn’t learn anything about their philanthropy.

Popsicle – By this time I was so tired I was ready to go back to my dorm room and curl up in my bed. I had been going since 8 AM and it was now nearing 6 PM. The only thing I remember about these girls is that they did Miss Dessert University.

Ranking was difficult for me because I really hadn’t met many sisters since we sat in one spot and worked on the crafts the whole time. I thought that any cuts that were made after this round would be superficial. I had to rank 4 sororities and the rest I would put a 1 next to. I was kind of upset that the steepest cuts were the first round when we barely had gotten to know the sororities. I talked to twizzler about how I would feel bad really cutting sororities that I didn’t really know yet and she told me she understood, but that I should just put down the sororities that I felt I was least compatible with. After talking to her I ranked my bottom 4:

2 Pudding
3 Popsicle
4 Water Ice
5 Custard – this was the easiest of the decisions and while I may have based my decision on superficial things I just knew I couldn’t be a sister to these girls.

I know some of you may not believe that I cut the top 3 sororities, but while I would’ve loved to have been in a top sorority. I don’t think I could have truly enjoyed myself I would have felt like the ugly duckling if I somehow did end up getting a bid. I don’t know why I chose popsicle to cut as well I guess I just felt something didn’t click with myself and the sisters.

[twinkle555]

Lovin thissss! The philanthropy shirt thing is a cute idea..my chapter is doing something similiar this year for recruitment on philanthropy day Go brownie and cookie!!

[kiteflyersmom]

I like this story. Can't wait for the next installment

[twinkle555]

More please??

[violetpretty]

If you're concerned no one is reading because very few people are posting, and therefore you think no one wants to hear your story, you do have 1,026 views as of right now. It's just on GC, we don't like our recruitment threads to be cluttered with a page of nothing but "more please" posts between installments by the OP. I am reading, and clearly so are a lot of people.

[hruffel]

Go pudding!!!!!

I think i know what school you are talking about

[sophia27]

Sunday was my day off from class and recruitment, but since I hadnt initially planned on participating in recruitment I had to get up and catch the bus to the mall and buy myself a dress for preference. The mall was very small and didn’t have a large selection of stores, so I was really hoping I could find anything that would work. I had talked to twix and twizzler about what I should wear for preference, so that I would have an appropriate dress. I was lucky enough to find a dress that worked. It helped that the local high schools' homecomings were coming up to give me a better selection. It was a tube top dress in a ruby color.

Monday evening I got dressed wearing dark denim capris and a white and blue top that tied in the back giving a baby doll look. Im not sure what the material was but it was really light, which is partially why I had picked it. We would be in the dorm suites this evening and unlike the student union they were not air-conditioned. We met up in front of the dorms in the quad, so we could go in as a group we would have to wait for a resident to leave because even though the sororities had suites in the building for meetings the residence life wouldn’t allow our Dessert ID cards to open the electronic doors. Our group staked out or own little area of the quad and twix and twizzler passed out everyones schedule. Mine read:

Cookie
Brownie
Tapioca
Rhubarb
Sundae
Cheesecake
Tiramisu

I was happy that I had gotten all the sororities I wanted back, but not really surprised a few of the other PNMs had mentioned that some of the sororities don’t cut PNMs till after the second round. This is because so many girls never return after the first day. I could see this just by looking around the quad every year about half of the girls who go through the first round of recruitment drop whether its because of dirty rushing (girls told to drop out and go through informal rush after formal) or because the first day is so long and grueling.

As I stood in line to go into cookie's suite I looked down the corridor at two of the other suites and noticed that there were a lot fewer girls at cookie than the two others. It made me feel sad and angry at the same time. Like all of the suite doors Cookies door had been painted by a former chapter member it had their name and all of their symbols on the doors. The girls were all wearing matching letter shirts. I remember the one group of girls I seemed to have a really good conversation with but kind of felt bad because the other PNM wasn't talking.

Brownies were dressed in letters although it seemed as though their were a few different types of letter shirts girls were wearing. When we started talking the sister explained to me that each of the different pledge classes got their own unique letter shirts when they were initiated and that was what everyone was wearing. It seemed as though they had separated the bump groups so that members from every pledge class were in each group. We talked about what other events the chapter did besides philanthropy during the year. Brownie we played a version of Charades where we had to guess the scene that the sisters were acting out. It was quite funny and I was definitely laughing. This was the kind of organization I wanted to be involved in. I didn't want to be prim and proper all the time and I definitely wanted to be able to laugh. Maybe I would join a sorority afterall.

Tapioca - by now the heat was getting to me I was definitely sweating! Two of the things I noticed about Tapioca were that they were ethnically diverse and larger than the previous two houses I had been at. The chatter outside had been that this had previously been a bottom sorority, but was definitely rising.
We discussed events the chapter held like at the previous two chapters and played a game as well. The sisters also talked about some of the clubs they were involved in on campus and scholastics.

Rhubarb - Twix came in with us and sat down in the room (The Alpha Omegas did this occasionally to make sure no dirty rushing occurred). Rhubarb was forgettable I definitely didn’t remember anything here. After last round and this round with me not remembering anything I knew I wanted to cut this group.

Sundae - There was excitement murmuring by the doors to their suite. Apparently they had just gotten a window air-conditioner they were the house to have one. I was excited to learn that the chapter was second in grades and very competitive in the greek events held every year. The sundae sister told me that she couldn’t remember the last time they didn’t place for homecoming or greek sing. At the end of the round we got into a circle and played a game they would role a hamster ball around with slips of paper. When it was my turn I pulled out my slip of paper it said which tv show character do you consider yourself to be most similar too. My mind completely blanked____ I couldn’t even come up with female tv characters. I was so upset the recruitment chair told me I could pick another slip. As I was reaching in to grab another slip of paper I heard some sisters saying they could see me as being Joey from Dawson's Creek. My second sheet said pick any childhood TV star you would like to date/marry… immediately I said Zach Morris from saved by the bell.

Cheesecake was next, although I was sad to leave the AC I was excited to come visit cheesecake. They had a really cute table set up of Cheesecake things paddles, big little gifts, and letters. These girls seemed to have a really close bond with each other. We talked about date party and formal. Most of the sororities do the same event for date party which I was getting really excited to possibly attend. It felt like the round was over before I knew the time had flown by so fast.

Tiramisu I felt like I was in way over my head here. The girls were all really pretty. They looked as though they had stepped out of charm school with their polos and Tiffanys jewelry on. Tiramisu had come in first for grades this last semester just ahead of Sundae. They had done greek week with Snickers fraternity and had gotten first place as well. Although they came in second to Sundae at Homecoming.