How much do I tell my daughter?

[AXOrushadvisor]

I would give her scenarios up to a point. I think the advice to have fun, be yourself and stick it out to the end is sage advice. The only thing I would add and I will be telling my dd this in another year is if at the end of preference she can only see herself in one house or two houses to ONLY put those choices down. I'm not an advocate of SIP but I'm also not an advocate of taking a spot that some one else would like to have or quitting.

[DubaiSis]

Or that dress that looks kind of frumpy on the hanger looks AWESOME on you. It works both ways. You need to try on all of em.

[scrapcat]

My daughter went through recruitment last fall. It was crazy. After reading many threads on here the one thing I told her was don't fall in love with any one sorority, house (structure), colors anything!! I wanted her to understand that invites change every day you may see the same house and then "poof" they didn't invite to the next round, but dang it all if ABC keeps on sending those invites. It's funny, crazy and exciting. What a rollercoaster. But I must say my daughter is thrilled where she is and her entire wardrobe is all greek!! Good luck to your daughter!

[gee_ess]

I told my daughters lots of things about recruitment but I did NOT tell them about hand signals, notebooks under cushions, rankings, voting, (nothing about MS, obviously) etc. I conveniently left that out because that stuff was out of her control and would freak her out further than she was already freaked out.

My decision to give her input was based on providing info that would help her have a better rush.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by gee_ess

notebooks under cushions

Huh?

[gee_ess]

For quick notes jotted down between parties about who you met, how the conversation went, etc.

[33girl]

Those must be some big ol' cushions, because I (rushee I) would most likely sit on one and commence reading it.

[gee_ess]

Haha! They were really small notepads and they fit nicely underneath sofa cushions, behind plants, etc!

[ZTA zetahunny]

If I had a daughter going through, I would advise her to look sharp. That's a given. Enjoy yourself. Find something good about every group. (Make a private game of it. That will help you stay upbeat...might as well have fun!! Not one of us is too good to be engaging.) Wear shoes that not only look good, but that are confortable. All of us know that after a day of wearing horrible shoes, any one of us can lose out spark. Don't worry so much about what to say. Listen, smile and relax. Many times the rooms will be so noisey that it's difficult to hear and be heard. Make sure you don't have horrible breath. If you lean in to speak, you don't want to knock anyone out with bad breath. (If your gums are red or if they bleed, you need a dental cleaning and need to brush and floss every day...two weeks of perfect hygiene will turn red gums nice and pink.) I have seen many a beautiful girl make me want to take two steps back because of bad breath.

[ZTA zetahunny]

I wouldn't tell her anything about MS...I only know how my chapter did it. That would only be a distraction. I went into it blindly and had a blast! I wish I hadn't thought certain chapters were creepy or not good enough for me. Later I realized that they were all good...even the ones that seem to struggle. My daughter went through and was released near the end by two of her favorites. She continued on with recruitment, gave others a chance and was initiated. I regret that I encouraged her to list her legacy connections. That might have hurt her more than helped her. As it turned out, she really wasn't as interested in all of it as I was. We are different people. It took me 21 years to realise that, and now we are closer than we possibly could be.

[pearlalum]

Thanks again ladies for all of your advice. My daughter is starting to get a little nervous about rush, even though she "can't think about it right now." She's busy with finals and graduation. My son is home from his college right now and was talking to her about rush. He goes to Mizzou where sorority recruitment is a little more intense than Iowa, I hear. I think he freaked her out a bit. I think, at this point, I'm a little more nervous about all of this than she is. I really don't want to be a helicopter mom, but I'm afraid I feel a small propellar popping out of my right ear!

[jazing]

Helicoptor parent ... I like that term. Describes my parents to a key.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by jazing

Helicoptor parent ... I like that term. Describes my parents to a key.

The phrase you are looking for is "to a T".