Ok, so i come back to campus that Monday (i think round robin was on a Saturday) and that is when Rush starts. Again, here are the chapters at NYU circa 2002:
Alpha Epsilon Phi
Alpha Phi Zeta*
Alpha Sigma Tau
Delta Phi Epsilon
Kappa Psi Delta*
Theta Phi Beta*
Zeta Sigma Phi*
Alpha Kappa Delta Phi (HAsianAmerGLO)
Note: now that I think about it, I don’t even remember KPL being there my freshman year – I distinctly remember there being 7 sororities. If I recall correctly, they share a chapter with Columbia – quite common with other orgs in the NYC area, sharing charters
i'm not gonna code them - not that im not clever enough, but it really wont make much of a difference. But here are a few characters that will appear (changed names of course):
Annie – one of the girls in my rush group, who also happened to be in my freshman seminar. She was from PA and was really excited about rush, but didn’t know anything about being greek like me.
Malika – the girl who I met at Round Robin who would give rush a try.
Chris – my BF at the time, who was a Syracuse alum and had his feelings about greek life (of course right?)
My mom – who I bore with all the details of my journey with greek life.
My aunt – who is also greek, but I am not very close with
Shari – a clubmate of mine I met sophomore year and bore with details.
Barry – my freshman year RA
Kim – one of my freshman year roommates
Mona – a member of Theta Phi Beta who I get close with
Now recall what i've told you about NYU's rush - very informal. no dressing up, no chants - hell, to be honest, i never saw my RC after that first day – I don’t remember her name or what she looked like. i DO remember you HAD to visit all 7 chapters spread over Monday and Tuesday, and you could stay as little or as long as you want (so legitimately, if you REALLY didnt like XYZ, you could show your face for 10 minutes and then go to the next house or if you REALLY liked ABC, you could hang with them for an hour and then go to every other house for 10 minutes). Everyone had a punchcard to verify that they went to each house. Then Wednesday and Thursday you were free to go to anyone's event's (so if you only liked 2 of the 7 houses, that's where you visited). Friday was an invite only night and was a dressier event (business casual, really). Then Saturday was I guess the equivalent of “silence” because that is when you waited for “the call.” Now I know that’s usually a bad thing, but we didn’t do bid cards or anything. The chapter would just call you and say, “Hey, we want to extend a bid… come over and meet all your sisters!” or “Sorry we wont be inviting you to our sorority, but we encourage you …”
actually, here's a quoet from NYU's recruitment website (which is current, and may not 100% reflect what i wrote above):
Quote:
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NYU’s recruitment runs very differently from other schools where the fraternity and sorority life population is much larger. There are no official cuts, ranking lists, or bid matching – matches between the individual and the organization are made on a much more personal level. That said, sometimes there just isn’t chemistry between a PNM and a sorority. If a PNM is only attending the events of one sorority and the sorority has no intention of giving her a bid, they are required by the Panhellenic Council to inform her of that decision to give her the chance to see other organizations that might be a better fit.
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(Question for NPCers: does that mean NYU is a COB kind of school? or is just a really an informal rush?)
Rush happened mid-September and people were still getting the hang of their schedules, with getting involved with clubs and what not. I was involved with hall council and was writing for the university paper, so I really had to squeeze in the time between and after classes to go to events.
The girls in my rush group decided to get together to meet at 3rd north to visit the houses together (there wasn’t any pressure to stay with your group, so I don’t know why we were even grouped!) This created problems because no one could agree on which house to visit first. There were two Asian girls who only wanted to see aKDP. A girl from aKDP recognized one of them from HS and they both instantly left us in the lobby to hang with them. That left 4 of us – 2 girls were excited about DphiE, and me and another girl,
Annie, were pretty open. Since all the sororities are in one tower, we decided to start from the top and work our way down to be fair.
The house at the top was
Theta Phi Beta. When you come off the elevators, their letters and shield are painted on a huge wall near their front door. I don’t know much about sororities but they were founded in 1985 (or was it 88? Sometime in the 80s), theyre colors were pink and purple and their mascot was the Pink Panther. I thought it was cute and really girly, kinda not my style. We four go in the house and all the sisters are like ”HEYYYYYY ladies what’s up??” we all introduce ourselves, the sisters introduce themselves. I instantly click with
Mona who is from LI and kinda sporty and academic, like me. They were having a game night – first we played Monopoly, which I enjoy as much as the first person, but with 20+ people divided into teams – no fun. After 10 minutes, no one wanted to play and the sisters quickly switched gears to Taboo – one of my favorites. Their mistake – having the sisters against the rushees. So it was like 15 of them versus 6 of us, but still fun. The two “dphie” girls were antsy cause they were ready to leave after Monopoly but the rest of us were having a good time. Then we switch to Charades and that was really fun, considering I am a shy person. Before I knew it, it was going on 9pm (we’d gotten there at 6:30!) and I was having a good time and hadn’t seen any of the other houses! The two “dphie” chicks were pissed at that point and blamed ME for holding them up and declaring that they were splitting off tomorrow. Fine by me, I said. Annie was chill about it, just brushed it off, and didn’t mind.
It was pretty late but Annie and I stick together to go to the next house,
Alpha Phi Zeta. I don’t remember too much about them but when we got there, they were so quiet! Two sisters came from their rooms asking us to be quiet because they were studying (umm, its September, the semester just started!) and the rest of them were jus sitting around talking about TV and how they couldn’t wait for the new season of Friends to come back on (wow, im reaching back aren’t I?) Me and Annie politely stayed there for 20 minutes and left. Definitely not our cup of tea.
Next floor down:
Alpha Sigma Tau. These girls were fun to hang with. The house was nicely decorated and had a couple of Greek Week trophies. Their theme was centered about the green M&Ms (their shirts – the only rush shirts I remember – read “its something about the green ones”) but I was a little unsure about how it made sense, aside from the color coincidence. Their “rush” was more similar to what I’ve been reading on GC, sort of going around, asking us about classes, where we were from, etc. While every girl had the same shirt, everyone wore it differently - some had the sleeves rolled up, others had fringe cuts, others made tanktops and knotted ties on the sides, one girl made a little dress out of hers! Some wore jeans, others wore pants and heels. They were the first ones to show us around their penthouse – not that there was much to see. Each house had 10 bedrooms – the president got a single, as did the membership chair, then everyone else had doubles. If you do the math that makes 18 to a house, which sounds really small but I can’t remember any chapter being that big that they needed any more space. Also, not every sister wanted or could afford to live in the house (it cost the same to live in the house as it did in the dorms, so if you were a commuter or lived off campus, chances are you continued to commute or keep your apartment. And people moved in and out the houses all the time, between studying abroad, taking a semester off, becoming an RA, getting their own place).
Anyway it was nice to see their house, the only drawback was 18 people to 2 bathrooms – not a good ratio at all! I click with Kate, a senior from my college and was excited to have another potential schoolmate (my particular college was definitely the least likely to join a sorority – we were the “hippie, free thinker” kids of the campus). As I was leaving the house, Kate takes me aside and says, “I really hope you consider joining us.” Surprised since it’s the first night, I say, “umm yeah, I guess…” and she says “Seriously, because I’m graduating and it would be really nice to have someone replace me, you know what I mean?” she laughed and I kinda laughed along with her, but I got off the elevator like “did she really just say that?” I wasn’t really offended, but 18-year-old freshman me was definitely taken aback. Then I wondered, “was that some reflection on how she feels among her sisters? Is this something I should consider?”
Anyway, it was late and time to go home – Annie lived in Weinstein, which was kinda on the way to Rubin. She said she was kinda so-so about all of them, and was hoping on a better impression the next day. I kinda felt the same way – one day wasn’t enough to know anything solid. But, I did get a better impression from AST and I think it was because they were NPC and the others were locals? They seemed to be more cohesive and more of a sorority. The other two I had visited were more like clubs and for that, I didn’t need letters to hang out. But I had such a good time with TphiB!
Rankings weren’t necessary, since everything was low-pressure and laid back, but in my mind, I liked Theta Phi Beta the most, and Alpha Sigma Tau was next, and then Alpha Phi Zeta, though realistically at that point, I wouldn’t accept a bid from them.
Would I even accept a bid? I was still uneasy about this sorority thing. Was it for me?
Here’s who I would visit tomorrow:
Alpha Epsilon Phi
Delta Phi Epsilon
Kappa Psi Delta*
Zeta Sigma Phi*
Alpha Kappa Delta Phi
(trust me, im gonna speed this up)
Hybrid Mode
