My Recruitment Story

[keyplayer]

Let me begin this story by saying I’m not the typical sorority girl. I was an athlete in high school and was never into partying, makeup, boys or any of that stuff. I’m the girl with a million guy friends but only a few girl friends. The only reason I went through rush is because my mom made me. Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t have done that, but to be honest I’m so glad she did. She’d been in a society in her school because there were no sororities and had had a wonderful experience. Some of her sisters are still her closest friends and my godmother. I was unsure about the recruitment process because it sounds so dramatic, catty and just too…girlie for my taste. I received a Facebook message from a friend who had graduated a year earlier and gone to the college I was attending. I didn’t know she was Greek, but she gave me all kinds of tips regarding rush, though she refused to tell me which sorority she was a part of. (I found out later she’s a Rapunzel, but that was an accident when she introduced me to sister who was visiting her for the summer and the sister let it slip.) The advice from this girl, in addition to all the tips my mom and I picked up lurking on Greek Chat (thank you all for that, by the way, because it really did help) made me feel a little better about recruitment, though I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure Greek life was for me. I planned on going in with an open mind, and on just letting it all happen and see, knowing I could drop if I really hated it. I secretly loved the idea of sisterhood, since I grew up with nothing but brothers. I am not going to reveal my school, so please don’t even ask.

Mom is jumping in her to give you, the reader, some background. Subjectively, my daughter is stunningly beautiful, exceedingly intelligent and breathtakingly charming-recruitment should be no problem, right? More objectively, while she is not beauty contest material, she is really pretty and very petite. She is smart, and is in the highly competitive honors program at her school. However, her high school gpa is a fairly unimpressive 3.6 because she took a total of 16 AP level courses in high school. One mom told me that her daughter’s sorority had to make so many first round cuts, they just cut everyone below a 3.75, so I worried that her gpa might hurt her. Also, she is a really fun and funny person to be around, but her wit tends towards sarcasm and irony, which doesn’t always lend itself to good first impressions. I also knew that she would not change one thing about herself during recruitment. She has always had a strong sense of herself and does not particularly care to fit in with any particular group. She also did not have the most positive attitude about participating in recruitment. Needless to say, I really worried about whether I was encouraging her to do something that might hurt her in the long run. I did firmly believe that, if she could get through recruitment with her sense of self intact, she would benefit from being a part of a sorority because she is at a large school, and sororities are a wonderful way to become a part of a smaller group.

My school has ten NPC sororities:
Mulan
Aurora
Pochontas
Belle
Ariel
Jasmine
Cinderella
Tiana
Rapunzel
Snow White


I’m sort of a nerd, so I spent the weeks leading up to recruitment reading the chapter websites obsessively and googling the national organizations to learn as much as I could. I had letters of recommendation for each sorority except one and I spent countless hours looking for the perfect outfits. I figured if I was going to do this, I should do it the right way. I hope I never have to stress out about clothing that much ever again.