My Retro Recruitment story

[DubaiSis]

I was so tickled by the last retro recruitment story I read, I thought it was time to think through mine! I hope you enjoy it!

I am a true child of the 80’s, graduating from high school and starting college in 1984, so it’s been a couple years ago. I will do my best to hold true to facts, but the mirror of time is definitely warped, so perceptions and misperceptions from the time may not be exactly as I remember them now. My husband and I were watching movies 5 and 6 of Harry Potter as I write this, so this is where I’ll draw my codes. There is only one name that has any correlation with the actual house, but I’m not telling! Oh, and my favorite house is my favorite character.
There were 15 chapters on my campus:
Harry
Luna
Snape
Dumbledore
Ron
Hermione
Hagrid
Belatrix
Padfoot
Neville
Ginny
He Who Must Not be Named
Mad Eye
Malfoy
Trelawney

Neither of my parents attended college but my whole life my mother started every sentence aimed at one of us (particularly my 3 sisters and me) with “after college when you…” My oldest sister (5 years older, but a 5th year senior when I was a freshman) was a member of Hermione (we’re calling her Cho) at my school and my 2nd oldest sister (we’ll call her Molly) was a colony member of Mad Eye, but had de-pledged or de-activated. I’m not quite sure at what point she decided it was too much work. She ended up dropping out of college too, so it may have just been about that. This I guess is the first memory gap, or maybe just not important enough to her to discuss.

My parents were very enthusiastic about Greek life. My mother’s thinking was that some random roommate would take no personal interest in our well-being but if we came up missing (or whatever), our sorority sisters would be out looking for us tout de suite.

As far as a little more family background, I am 4th of 5 children in close succession, 4 of whom are girls. I did NOT get along with my oldest sister Cho, a true drama queen, and her going off to college made the rest of our lives much more peaceful. Thankfully we HAVE become friends over the years, even though our Greek and life experiences have been so much different. Because of her flair for the dramatic, as well as a flair for story telling that slips well beyond factual, she enjoyed sharing stories about sorority life that turned out to be less than helpful to me. I understood that she had great friends and attended great parties, but also heard about the casket in the attic that was used in initiation (to be reborn a Hermione) and how during rush the girls had to stash notebooks around the house so that they could take careful notes about each girl they talked to as soon as they walked away. I had met some of her friends at parents’ day functions and the like and they seemed like nice enough girls.

In high school it’s not like I was a loner, but I really wasn’t bothered to be in the popular set. Over the years I have discovered that a lot of kids I grew up with considered me a friend, when I didn’t think they knew or cared that I existed. Gotta love teen angst, right? Plus, I was sick to death of high school and pretty much dumped all my friends because they just weren’t cool, but there was nobody else to replace them, so I was just alone a lot. However, it’s not like I was a Goth chick or anything. I mean, I was the captain of my cheer squad, on Yearbook staff, etc. I was, as my husband says all the time when he sees pictures of me from then, a new wave chick.

I did not have any recommendations, as far as I knew anyway; it is very possible that a few ladies sent some in on my behalf. But this pretty much states in a nutshell how prepared I was for this process. During the summer, my Mom suggested I get my hair cut (picture a somewhat modified version of the guy from A Flock of Seagulls, with my brown hair bleached red around the temples), and helped me pick some outfits to wear during rush, including lending me a very pretty solid red pure silk 2 piece dress and a pair of heels of hers for preference. During the summer, I looked through the rush booklet I got in the mail and imagined living in one of those houses (the pictures shown were only of the houses) and picturing the very sophisticated women who lived in them. One was very modern – looked like a bank, one was very Victorian looking, some were just ordinary, and a couple were beautiful old HUGE homes, like you’d see in a movie about sororities.

And speaking of movies about sororities, the night before I went off to college, I had the pleasure to go out with my Mom and one of my sisters to see one of the biggest movies of that year, Revenge of the Nerds. My first take away piece of advice for an 18 year old girl about to go off to college: do NOT go see this movie right before embarking on this life change. It was the first time I ever had the first thought that there were different status levels in sorority houses. On the up-side, one of the Omega Mus was a high school friend of both of my older sisters, but they didn’t know she had been an extra in this movie, filmed at ASU, until they saw her on screen. So that was great fun for them! Plus, the movie is hysterically funny, so there’s that.

So off I moved to college. I lived in an all-girls dorm so there were a LOT of girls on my floor going through rush, but neither of my roommates were among them. Rush was 7 days, so my roommates wouldn’t be moving in for another 5 days or so. We’re calling them McGonigle and Umbridge. That night the 800 or so of us headed over to the Union for orientation. And I believe this is the first time in my life I ever was intimidated by other women, or anyone for that matter. I was in a HUGE room full of women who were all beautiful, with better figures than me, seemed to be having so much more FUN than me, and in general were getting to know all the girls in the room, while I was invisible. To do this again, I’d have forced myself to put on a more laid back attitude and worked the room a bit. However, I didn’t LEARN this skill until I was in a sorority, so it couldn’t help me at this point.

Next to come: RUSH starts!

[DubaiSis]

OK, so I have no patience, and I see this has had 50 views, so I'm going to move forward. Here's the next piece!

The structure of rush was 2 days of Welcome (15 houses), 2 days Welcome Back (10), Panorama (skit day)(7), RSVP (5), and Preference (3). Bid day was also the first day of classes, and we would learn our outcome late on that Monday afternoon.

Welcome Days. My campus was large and the houses were in clusters but still spread over a wide area. On this round (and sadly ONLY this round) we visited the houses in geographical order. My first set was Harry, Belatrix, Luna and Snape. I don’t remember Harry or Snape at all. One of Molly’s best friends was a Luna. They had the best location on campus, were probably known for being the prettiest girls, the cheerleaders, etc. I remember being bumped like crazy. I think I met 6 girls at this party. They can’t possibly have remembered one thing about me! But it was fast-moving, and by the way, I didn’t have one thought about being memorable or learning anything about them. At the Belatrix house, the conversation was definitely the most awkward of these original 4. These were the 4 in-houses (the houses ON campus).

The other 11 houses were called out-houses and were off campus. Not THAT far, but still, not right there. Then over the rest of the next day and a half, I made my way through the rest. I remembered at He Who Must Not Be Named that one of Molly’s friends (Molly has A LOT of friends!) had been a He Who Must Not Be Named, and I mentioned it. Not especially cool since she (along with a lot of sisters) had deactivated that prior spring. But I didn’t know that at the time. Besides, I didn’t get a good vibe, and their house was a Spanish style, which I didn’t like. Yes, this is what occurred to me at the time. Like I’m shopping for real estate!

The Rons seemed very, uh, well, bitchy. They were perfectly nice to me, but I could tell these were THOSE kind of girls, and that was the kind of girls I had no time for in high school. In talking about rush later with my new pledge sisters, one commented about them asking her what her Dad does. I remembered they’d asked me that as well, but it didn’t stand out that much. My Dad was a photographer, had met lots of famous people over the years, and people generally thought we must live a very exotic life because of his sexy job. (slight swerve here: Utter Nonsense, but I won’t get into that here) So I could easily talk about him, the family business, etc., without thinking about it too much, and I was too oblivious to put two and two together that they were finding out if I met the financial threshold. I didn’t.

I thought TRELAWNEY was nice, but they were so far away, and they had a 2-story house, which I thought was weird. Plus, it was really far away. And since I was on a real estate search, location, location, location!

Nevilles were really bubbly, and their song was SOOOO contagious. Plus, when they were finishing singing at the end of the party, they slowly backed up through the door, and we all wondered how they did that without killing each other.

The Dumbledores were loads of fun. That’s all I’ve got on them.

The Hermiones, Cho’s house felt comfortable to me since I’d been there before. While here I was totally focused on what the girls were doing who were NOT talking to me. What secret things were they doing?
Ginny was the old Victorian home, and their song was about their particular chapter – the house with the winding stair. (yes, anyone who can put two and two together has this one figured out!)

Mad Eye was the newest house on campus (Molly’s ex-house), and it was like a big regular house. Not cool. But it was interesting to find my sister’s name on the charter.

MALFOY was the Jewish house, so I pretty much wrote them off because it didn’t apply to me. Plus, they also had a regular house that had been converted to a sorority house. And no, it didn't occur to me to consider them. I think we've already figured out that I was clueless.

The others are just a blur. I wonder if they felt the same about me? My grades and application probably got me through round 1. We didn’t do resumes back then, but I’m sure I filled out my application thoroughly.

For Welcome Back, amazing this, I was cut from 3 of the 4 first houses I visited. I’m sure that if Belatrix had been more selective, I’d have been cut from them too. The other house I was cut from was Ron. I cut He Who Must Not Be Named to get me down to 10. Now, I’d like to clarify here that I use the word cut because that’s what it was. The houses did cuts and we got a list of who invited us back, then we cut houses to get us to 10. Of course, if you weren’t invited to 10 then you went to every one you got. I didn't know of anyone getting fewer than 10. I was clueless and assumed everyone was doing the exact same thing as me.

Welcome Back was house tours. Also, I lost the comfort of having my rush group with me for the day. We were suddenly on our own, and I felt lonely.
The House with the Winding Stair just brought one thing to my mind; I pictured coming home drunk and falling down those stairs. Funnily, but sadly, Molly said she thought the exact same thing when she went through. The drinking age was 19, so it's not quite as appalling as it now seems.

During the house tour at the Dumbledore house, I remember asking about the history of the pledge paddle. My level of stupid really cannot be fathomed at this point.

The TRELAWNEY house was just soooo far away. And the others, again, just a blur.

I was cut from Dumbledore, TRELAWNEY and MALFOY, so I had a full schedule but didn’t cut any houses myself for Panorama. I didn’t care. It didn’t occur to me to be disappointed, but then I didn’t realize that Dumbledore and TRELAWNEY were two of the strongest houses on campus and I should have been impressed that I'd even been invited back for Welcome Back. And MALFOY, again, nothing personal. It was a Jewish house and I’m not Jewish. Why would they keep me?

[ladybug84]

I love reading these retro stories. I was a freshman in '83, and the fact that you can remember so much in such detail fascinates me to no end. My school only had 5 sororities, so remembering shouldn't be an ordeal from me, but I'm working on a 28 year lapse here. I couldn't begin to offer up a story that would hold anyone's attention. Keep it comin'!

[FSUZeta]

me too! and dubaisis, i think that many of us who rushed 10 or more years ago, went blindly through recruitment. i think we were more open(call is oblivious if you will) to just rolling with the punches.

[Xidelt]

I'm really enjoying this story! No one in my familŸ is Greek, so retro rush stories are a treat!

[AZTheta]

First off, if I give you my scrapbooks and journals and photos, will you write my Retro story? Between you & Brave Maroon, the bar's been set REALLY high.

Second, it's a rivalry thing: ASU vs UofA... from IMDB, I quote:

"Exterior scenes such as the arrival of the nerds at college and the fraternity houses were filmed at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. The original Nerds residence, from which they were ousted, was in fact Cochise Hall.[2] Their subsequent residence was Bear Down Gymnasium.[3] One scene was filmed at Kyle Field on the campus of Texas A&M University. The original Alpha Beta fraternity house that gets burned down was shot at the Beta Theta Pi house on University Boulevard and the Pi house was the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house."

I remember clearly when this movie was being filmed; there were multiple opportunities for "extras" selected from the student body on campus at that time.

With all due respect to the ASU members of GC, I am compelled to set the record straight and will close with BEAR DOWN!

Now, back to your awesome story, please.

[When Doves Cry]

OO OO OO! I THINK I KNOW!! For obvious reasons.

Side note: Have you been back to visit since you graduated???

[thetygerlily]

Originally Posted by AzTheta

First off, if I give you my scrapbooks and journals and photos, will you write my Retro story? Between you & Brave Maroon, the bar's been set REALLY high.

I am confident you're up to the task... I'll be looking for one from you just as soon as DubaiSis wraps hers up!

[Lafayette79]

Originally Posted by AzTheta

Between you & Brave Maroon, the bar's been set REALLY high.

I've read a lot of retro stories and Brave Maroon's and this one are wonderful. They are in a class with Ellebud. I'm looking forward to the rest of this story.

[homeward*bound]

Originally Posted by AzTheta

First off, if I give you my scrapbooks and journals and photos, will you write my Retro story? Between you & Brave Maroon, the bar's been set REALLY high.

Second, it's a rivalry thing: ASU vs UofA... from IMDB, I quote:

"Exterior scenes such as the arrival of the nerds at college and the fraternity houses were filmed at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. The original Nerds residence, from which they were ousted, was in fact Cochise Hall.[2] Their subsequent residence was Bear Down Gymnasium.[3] One scene was filmed at Kyle Field on the campus of Texas A&M University. The original Alpha Beta fraternity house that gets burned down was shot at the Beta Theta Pi house on University Boulevard and the Pi house was the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house."

I remember clearly when this movie was being filmed; there were multiple opportunities for "extras" selected from the student body on campus at that time.

With all due respect to the ASU members of GC, I am compelled to set the record straight and will close with BEAR DOWN!

Now, back to your awesome story, please.

Think of how conflicted those of us who matriculated through both schools are!

Go! Go! Wildcats go!

[DubaiSis]

Originally Posted by AzTheta

First off, if I give you my scrapbooks and journals and photos, will you write my Retro story? Between you & Brave Maroon, the bar's been set REALLY high.

Second, it's a rivalry thing: ASU vs UofA... from IMDB, I quote:

"Exterior scenes such as the arrival of the nerds at college and the fraternity houses were filmed at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. The original Nerds residence, from which they were ousted, was in fact Cochise Hall.[2] Their subsequent residence was Bear Down Gymnasium.[3] One scene was filmed at Kyle Field on the campus of Texas A&M University. The original Alpha Beta fraternity house that gets burned down was shot at the Beta Theta Pi house on University Boulevard and the Pi house was the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house."

I remember clearly when this movie was being filmed; there were multiple opportunities for "extras" selected from the student body on campus at that time.

With all due respect to the ASU members of GC, I am compelled to set the record straight and will close with BEAR DOWN!

Now, back to your awesome story, please.

My sincerest of apologies! I get SICK TO DEATH of people not being able to keep Iowa and Iowa State straight, so I feel your pain. I didn't know the gal that well, so I wouldn't have any other context beyond memory to use. But she was the Omega Mu with the name tag stuck to her boob.

[DubaiSis]

My degree in Journalism with an emphasis in French and Film Analysis and I thank you. And what, you may ask, does that qualify me to be? Pretentious.

I'm just out of bed (remember, I'm 9 time zones east of Central standard time) so I'll see if I can get this posted in 1 or 2 more entries. Oh, and just FYI, I started writing this while my husband and I were watching the movies back to back (as I said) and didn't realize it had gotten so late. When the movie ended, I went off to bed with the story incomplete and could NOT sleep. I finally got up at 4 AM to take a sleeping pill because I was so wired about this! I seriously could not remember when DG and Pi Phi cut me. The only thing I remember with certainty is that I had a full schedule up until Preference. And that is the sort of thing that will induce an anxiety attack in me. In the morning, I got up and had to graph out the houses and check off when each house cut me and who I had left at the end so that I could get it as accurate as possible.

And Dove, I'm sure you could figure out many of these, even though you went through virtually the same houses 20 years later.

So here we go!

Skit day was fun, but the only thing of note was that I talked to a girl at Belatrix who changed everything. She knew my sister was in another house. She pushed me for which, so I believe I finally gave in, but I made it clear that I wasn’t necessarily going to pledge her house. We just weren’t that close and I was going to make my own decisions. Then we got talking about the opportunities available to me at Belatrix. They were a bit smaller on campus, and the opportunities for leadership were much more likely than at the big houses. THAT was cool. Plus, I must have said something about not liking the idea that the houses are sitting around all night talking about me (something Cho had also shared with me). She assured me in no uncertain terms that “we don’t talk about rushees.” “but…” “no buts. We don’t talk about rushees. Period.” And my rush was over. I’d found my home.

OK, one other note. I was a few minutes late to the Mad Eye house, and rushing in, they welcomed me, I got seated and the party continued as normal. I realized upon leaving that I didn’t have my nametag on. I was very impressed that they’d all remembered my name.

I was cut from Neville, and Mad Eye, but I still had a full schedule.

On RSVP day, 2 things happened. 1-I became completely exhausted and SICK TO DEATH of rush. 2-my roommates moved in. My first roommate McGonigle was a barrel of laughs. She was loud (seriously loud) but funny, welcoming, tons of friends, that kind of girl. I look back on her and wonder why I didn’t try to COB her, except that I wanted such separation from that room that I probably threw McGonigle out with the Umbridge water. Umbridge was a prissy byatch who put on airs. I’m still confused about why she didn’t go through rush because I’m sure she could have found a home at the shallower end of the pool. But she is also the kind of person who wouldn’t have been able to take the rejection. She was ALSO the first person in my life to try to peer-pressure me into smoking pot. Do it, don’t do it, whatever. I wasn’t opposed to it as a concept or habit, but I certainly wasn’t going to give in to miss perfect. McGonigle smoked pot because it was fun and I’m sure Umbridge felt like she had to to fit in. But I didn’t have to do anything to make Umbridge happy and I’m sure that annoyed the crap out of her.

The parties on RSVP day had a couple hours break in the afternoon, and right about the time I was getting ready, McGonigle and Umbridge start drinking in the room. This is something I was definitely not opposed to, and in order to build my motivation to get through the day, I had a drink or two with them. Note to college girls: DO NOT DO THIS. Not only did I show up to Ginny late, I’m sure I smelled of alcohol. On the good side, we sat outside on their lovely deck at nearing sunset. On the bad side, in retrospect I might have been relegated to the outside.

At Hagrid I was really starting to feel a connection. They served these daiquiri-like drinks in tall glasses with long skewers of frozen fruit. They were VERY cute and the fruit was nice, except that there was no way to eat it. I mean, if you’re hanging out with your friends, you’d grab a napkin and go to down on that sucker. But we didn’t have plates, and no way to remove the semi-frozen pineapple chunks off the skewer in any way that might be called lady-like. And you couldn’t really drink the drink with the skewer full of fruit sticking out of the glass. We did have a good chuckle over that. I believe we decided I would eat the fruit and then she’d hold the stick.

Hermione was the last house of my RSVP day. When I went into the house, 2 things were different today. When I was asked if I wanted to talk to someone I knew already or didn’t (strange question on their part), I think I said something along the lines of, “oh, let me speak to someone I already know this time. Make it easier.” So yes, that really screams I WANT TO BE YOUR SISTER. The other relates to the bag I’d carried all week. It was a sadly fake Gucci bag that my Mom had brought home from a trip to the Philippines. The bags she bought there cost like $1 a piece, so she brought home a whole huge box. When they’d break (as they did; they were cheaper than crap and the vinyl straps couldn’t hold up to the cold of a Midwestern winter) we’d just throw it out and get another one out of Mom’s closet. We did this for YEARS. Anyway, my girl at Hermione (like many others had during the week) commented on my bag. Today I decided to tell her the truth instead of just thanking her and moving on. It’s a fake. Here’s how you can tell, etc. This was a day that we were in the girls’ rooms being heart sold (pre-pref… hmmmm), but we just talked about regular stuff.

So again, surprise surprise, I was cut from Ginny, Hagrid and Hermione, my legacy chapter. I was sad about Hagrid and sort of sad about Ginny, but I figured Hermione just made it easier on my. My sister was mad but no longer an active so she didn’t have any say, and apparently her friends were REALLY mad. What I was told is that they said they didn’t think I would be an enthusiastic sister. They told me what was said in member selection? Whatever. In addition to not caring about being cut, it again brought up my desire to be in a house that doesn’t talk about rushees. This would pay off in SPADES over the next three years, when we were done with voting each night in about 2 hours, and the partying would begin! Because it was summer, the Harrys and us would both have our windows open. So we sat around drinking beer listening to the Harrys across the alley fight all night over member selection. But I digress.

So next comes Preference!

[FSUZeta]

another pet peeve-the money chapters spend on drinks and food that they serve to pnms who are afraid to drink it, eat it or who can't eat it because we have concocted some elaborate tower of flaming fruit or something similar. i wish all college panhellenics would just say, no food or drinks at any party, each chapter donates x amount of dollars to a panhellenic fund and that money is used to buy water and snacks for panhellenic to distribute to the pnms thru out rush week.

[DubaiSis]

Oh, I think the food and drinks is nice, but the mistakes come when a group of girls age 20 (or so) are making cocktail party decisions when they haven't really ATTENDED cocktail parties. Foods that are one or 2 bites total and doesn't leave goo on your fingers, for instance, is something you probably only learn the hard way. If the girls had made this drink and plopped one or 2 frozen pineapple chunks into the drink, it would have been cute AND drinkable.

[AZTheta]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

My sincerest of apologies! I get SICK TO DEATH of people not being able to keep Iowa and Iowa State straight, so I feel your pain. I didn't know the gal that well, so I wouldn't have any other context beyond memory to use. But she was the Omega Mu with the name tag stuck to her boob.

In that case, she'd be from ASU

Carry on! I am gathering my info to ship to you. Love the way you write.