A Fall 2009 Story

[carynie13]

Okay, I've been reading this site frequently, and it was a great help for my recruitment. I've never actually posted, but I wanted to share my story as some of you and your threads helped me learn what to do and not do during this crazy, hectic week. This is still my favorite part of being a sorority member so I hope you enjoy!

To begin, my summer after senior year was spent doing research about sororities and recruitment at my fairly competitive school. From this site, I learned that although I had an amazing GPA (4.28 cumulative) and a great resume of activities, awards, and service, I really needed recs to stand out from the 1200 other girls that would be going through the process.

My first rec came from one of my grandma's friends who offered to write me a letter (after seeing my picture in the paper for a scholarship) before I even really knew what their purpose was. I was so happy to have such a prestigious community member offer to write me a letter. From my research, this chapter seemed to be really interesting to me and one I might really love. I'll use types of trees in order to not suggest sorority affiliation, and this letter was for Maple.

After this, Maple member offered to have her daughter, an alumna of Pine at another school, write me another rec. I was so excited as I had an older friend who is a member of Pine and had very similar character and interests to me. I still felt that two recs to two of the fourteen chapters was not sufficient. I began asking friends if their moms were sorority members and was happy to find another Pine alumna and a Ginkgo family friend, which was another chapter that I thought looked interesting from the school greek life page. Two more recs came from a recent grad of the Oak sorority and an older acquaintance whose mother was a Dogwood, which was home to many friends from my hometown. I also asked my boyfriend's sister to write me a letter to her sorority, Ash. Although she thought I would fit better in a few other houses, she wrote me a very nice and complete recommendation.

Going into recruitment I felt very prepared, with seven letters to six different chapters and several friends who put a good word in for me at their chapters. I was so excited for the week ahead even though I still had no idea what a walk out was or what all I would talk about in each house, since the 5 B's were also off limits (thanks GCers for that info, too .