My Recruitment Story/Advice :)

[DeltaZeeLove]

Hey everyone I have been reading this forum forEVER (basically ) and just decided to actually make my own account recently.

Last summer, my boyfriend of 3.5 years and I, broke up. Needless to say, I was heart broken. Boyfriend and I were living together (stupid, I know) and I didn't really have any involvement on campus. (I was an incoming Sophomore for Fall 09). I had always wondered about sorority life, so I decided to register for recruitment (late) and go for it.

At my school we only have five sororities, but the recruitment process is a couple of weeks long. There is 4 different rounds, and 3 chapters go one night, and the remaining 2 go another night. So four rounds x 2 nights for each round = 8 days. Plus pref, days where there is nothing going on, bid day, and you end up with a couple week process. You are required to go to at least 2 rounds for each chapter.

Anyway, I went in completely blind to the whole process. Many other girls seemed like they already knew where they wanted to be, "Oh, I'm going XX." Which I thought was especially strange since we hadn't even been to a round with them (a week later, I didn't even see that girl, so she must've gotten dropped from them, and completely gave up on Greek life).

Anyway, I went through the entire recruitment two weeks, really liked three chapters (we will call them XX, XY, and XYZ) I sat down on that Thursday evening after waiting forever in line with a bunch of strangers, to order the chapters. We were basically pulling out the ones we were not interested in, and the next day we were called by our rho gam to inform us of what Preference rounds we were going to.

Friday afternoon, my Rho Gam called me and told me I had been invited back by all three chapters! I'm pretty sure I did a little dance all around my house. I had the PERFECT Preference dress.

Sunday rolled around, and I went to all three preference rounds, first XYZ, then XX, finally XY. By the end of XY I was exhausted, things had been a little disorganized and we didn't get to spend as much time in the 3rd preference round, in fact, we got cut off in the middle of the ceremony.

All the girls went to dinner, and were to meet at the library back on campus in about 2 hours. We were to list at least 2 sororities we'd be willing to accept bids from. I listed XX, and XY (in that order). I really felt a connection with both sororities and would be SO happy with either. I didn't dislike XYZ, but I didn't feel a connection. With XX and XY I preferenced with girls I had met in past rounds. In XYZ the girl I met was completely new and told me some story about her and her boyfriend breaking up (?). Anyway, I practically skipped back home that night, because bid day was the next day!

The count down was on, I was watching the clock at all hours of the night. 12 hours, 11 hours! At some point I finally fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning and got really cute, knowing that I was going to meet my sisters today! I was on my way to school when my cell phone rang, and my stomach dropped. "Hi, this is **** from PHC, we were unfortunately not able to place you with a sorority." She went on with some reason, how the ranking system was ridiculous, blah blah blah. I thanked her, and called my mom sobbing. How could I have no received a bid? I felt such a connection there.

A couple months later, a girl from one of the sororities that was on my bid list talked to me about COBing. Of course I was reluctant, my heart had been broken the previous fall. But, I went anyway. To a few events. At my last event we were going to make tshirts. We seemed to be waiting in the Student Union FOREVER. I was wondering what was going on, when one of the girls showed up with a bid for me. They were all so excited to call me a sister. (Obviously, this was Delta Zeta).

I talked with my now sisters after, about why I didn't get a bid. Apparently, they thought I was going to go XX, and wasn't even interested in them. Delta Zeta was my pref round that got cut short, that I was exhausted in, etc.

I wish I would have looked at some of these boards before I went through recruitment. One of the pieces of advice was if you couldn't see yourself with a sorority when you haven't showered, been up all night studying, no sleep, etc. Then they probably weren't a fit for you. The other sorority I had been interested in, I was very self conscious around. I didn't ever feel like I could dress down, and they were the "popular sorority" on campus. I let that blind me.

I now couldn't see myself with anyone, but Delta Zeta.

I think the other sororities are fantastics (I even have tons of friends from recruitment in all the chapters), but I let the "talk" get to me. I decided since XX was the really cool sorority, with the pretty girls, etc. That I wanted to be a XX, but I guess I was always a DZ at heart

<3 Feels like home to me.