Cutting or pledging a group for dumb reasons

[FuzzieAlum]

I guess I remember thinking some of this kind of stuff, but I don't remember cutting any houses for it. Of course, with only five chapters, I didn't feel overwhelmed with choices. It might have been very different if I had 15 chapters to choose from instead!

Although I did drop one chapter just because they had big hair ...

[carnation]

I have been rolling in the floor with these. I wish that actives everywhere could see some of these reasons! Although they'd probably have to admit that they used some of the same logic.

I think it's worse at really big campuses. You have 14 chapters that you have to cut down to 9 and all the letters, colors, and mascots are whirling around in your head and you just start making desperate decisions!

[dgtxalum]

When I was a Rho Chi my senior year, there was a girl during prefs that was the last to leave, and I was one of two Rho Chis left waiting on her. She could NOT decide between DG or ZTA, and ironically enough, the other Rho Chi was a Zeta and I a DG. It was too funny to hear her trying to rationalize which sororority to pref - she was seriously grasping for anything to sway her one way or the other. She'd say things like "Well, I like bunnies and strawberries, but I also like anchors", or "I don't really like pink and blue, but I do like turquoise and gray..." All we could do was sit back and laugh to ourselves, and feel bad for her predicament. And I have to say it was hard not to root for our own GLOs!

[UF56]

Just out of curiousity how did she end up deciding and where did she go...ZTA or DG

[dgtxalum]

You know, I'm embarrassed to say, but I'm not exactly sure. There are so many rushees that go through, and our pledge classes are so big that I couldn't exactly remember which girl she was. My hunch would say she went Zeta though, because there was only one other girl that resembled her in that year's pledge class and I don't think it was her...

[ThetaxiUW]

Most of these stories involve "this one girl I knew" or "this one guy" but I'm gonna be honest, it was me who did this.

When I decided to rush (informal) I sent out an e-mail to all the rush chairman of almost every fraternity on campus. I think like 28 houses or so. I recieved about 12 or 13 emails back. Called most of them but others I had already visited or known that I didn't want to be there. I talked to Sigma Nu and Theta Chi and Theta Xi and I think Beta's. I was visiting some houses one day and got a call from the rush chair at Theta Chi. He said that they were going out to dinner and that I should come along. So I looked online where it was and left to go ever there. I was walking along and saw Theta Chi. Went in and asked for the rush chair. We talked and he gave me a tour and everything. And then he said that we were gonna go rock climbing tonight and that I should come. So I said I thought we were gonna go to dinner. He asked when he said that. Turns out that I went to Theta Xi instead of Theta Chi. Come on... who hasn't got a letter wrong once in their life. But turned out to be a great mistake. The rock climbing was probably way better than the dinner. Plus we got pizza after anyways.

side note: Considering that fraternities set their house bills at under the dorms (usually), I guess buying friends at fraterities is cheaper than buying them in the dorms.

[aephi alum]

MIT used to be located in Boston, so a lot of the older fraternity houses (and some newer ones) are in Boston, while other fraternity houses are in Cambridge, a few right on campus. There are also a couple in Brookline. I've seen people refuse to rush the Brookline fraternities because the houses are too far from campus (you have to drive, though both houses have shuttle vans), and I've seen people refuse to rush the Boston fraternities because they didn't want to have to walk across the Mass. Ave. bridge in the middle of winter. (To be fair, that bridge does get very cold and windy - brrr!)

My husband refused to continue rushing one fraternity when he found out the freshman rooms in their house didn't have any windows.

A friend of mine had come to campus as a HS senior for a visit. The admissions office matches prefrosh up with volunteer students, and of course, GLO members are highly encouraged to volunteer. So he was met at the admissions office by a guy wearing letters and saying "C'mon, I'll take you over to Skullhouse." The nickname scared him to the point where he wound up not rushing at all.

[GPhiSweetiePie]

LOL! This is such a funny thread . I have a story that kind of goes along with all of these...

I can't remember for the life of me who was telling me about this (I think maybe a recruitment counselor), but she said one of her friends was going through rush and had narrowed it down to three houses. The only thing was, instead of having a first, second, and third choice, she liked them all equally. So, when it came time to make a decision, she decided to go with the house that had the "safest-looking" locks on their doors. Hope it ended up being the right house for her!

I also remember that when one of my (biological) sisters rushed, she kept getting asked back to a house with a pretty mean nickname, and she ended up cutting them for that.

And as far as weird cuts that I made, the only one I can really think of is that at this one house I kept getting asked back to (actually, the same one that asked my sister back again and again on her campus), the girl that rushed me once had a REALLY crooked nose and it was so distracting! LOL...It's a little mean, I know, but we've all been there.

[Colleenie]

I cut a sorority during rush because a section of lattice fell on me during the party. Ouch! There were others I cut b/c I didn't like colors and symbols - I had 13 houses to chose from and after a long day of rush, your judgement gets cloudy.
I loved the DG sailor hats during rush and it was probably one of the reasons (they had great girls too) I kept going back to them but on pref night I chose sig kap - for all the right reasons. My sisters would tease me about loving those sailor hats so they bought me one and decorated it with Sig Kap stuff!

[CarolinaDG]

Since everyone keeps mentioning the sailor hats, just wanted to bring something up a little off-subject...
Our chapter doesn't do the whole sailor-hat thing (even though it's still kind of one of our sybols). But, about ten years ago they did. It's kind of funny, though, looking back at a couple of advisors ten years ago with these goofy sailor hats on their heads. I think it's kinda cute, though, personally. I think the main reason that we don't do it, though, is because it would make us stand out a little too much, and you always take a risk... like we've seen on this board, people either love the hats or hate them... I do admit, though, I sometimes look at pictures of other chapters all in their sailor hats and wish that we'd start doing it... they're SOOO CUTE!

[Lil' Hannah]

getting farther off topic...

Our chapter has entire sailor outfits in the basement from a while ago when they used to wear them during recruitment...talk about scaring girls off.

now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

[PiPhiJulie]

I knew someone who cut one of the sororities because she thought the house looked like the Brady Bunch's house (it kind of does though).

[AchtungBaby80]

OK, here's my story. I cut the very first house I visited during Recruitment Week because 1) they smiled too much, and 2) because I felt like I made a fool of myself and didn't ever want to go back in there ever again. I guess I missed the part where my Rho Chi described exactly what it would be like when we went into each of the houses, so I didn't know there would be a member meeting me at the door and leading me by the arm into the living room. Well, I walked in that first house, and all I saw was a barrage of lipstick and teeth and it scared the bejesus out of me. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, and I was so intimidated by all those HUGE smiles that I just froze. Then the member came and latched onto my arm and started walking, and I jerked my arm away in surprise and almost shouted, "What are you doing?!?" Well, they must have thought I was the biggest schmuck ever. I managed to carry on a normal conversation for the rest of the function, but I didn't like their skit--it was a 70s dance number and every one of the members had this gigantic fake smile planted on her lips. I remember wondering if they had put Vaseline on their teeth so that their lips wouldn't stick as they were smiling so much. Anyway, I felt like such an idiot that I cut that house very quickly with no second thoughts. Now that I think about it, that was a really dumb reason if you could even call it a reason, but I know I would not have joined that house anyway so I guess it's all right.

[DRau]

Originally posted by Lil' Hannah
getting farther off topic...

Our chapter has entire sailor outfits in the basement from a while ago when they used to wear them during recruitment...talk about scaring girls off.

now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

We found these big, poufy, taffata, wine-colored dresses (at least 60 of them) in one of the closets in our chapter house. They looked like an 80s prom explosion. Anyway, we couldn't figure out why we would have 60 matching dresses in our house colors... Until we found the photo albums from the 80's.

Apparently, our actives wore those on Bid Day when the pledges came back to the house and took pictures in them EVERY YEAR!!! God that would have scared me... I'm just glad we had cute little tee-shirts when I was a pledge.

CIAO

[bruinaphi]

I thought those were the old chapter preference dresses from Gamma Beta? The Epxilon Upsilon chapter used to wear similar ones.