2nd Round
For 2nd round, sections at each house were 45 minutes long with 10 minutes for travel between each house, which meant that 2nd round dragged on until almost 11 pm, although this was a Friday night - 3rd round would be Saturday night. Each rushee was responsible to go to each house on their own, they could not go to houses they were scheduled to if they didn't want to. The only thing rho gammas did was do check-in at each house to see how many people showed up for each section.
The order I visited houses during this round was:
Rockies
Braves
Twins
Cardinals
Marlins
At this point it should be mentioned that
Rockies and
Twins are close to each other and that
Cardinals,
Braves, and
Marlins are relatively close to teach other as well. What this meant was that my schedule for 2nd round had just about the most walking possible for 2nd round. Although campus was small, this still resulted in time conflicts as rounds didn't get out on time that often and 10 minutes of walking time in some cases was just not enough time - this will play a part later.
I started this night at
Rockies. Before entering the house, I noticed there weren't very many people in this section of the round, which I thought was weird for one of the larger houses on campus. One thing I immediately noticed at this and other houses was how much the attire was ramped up for 2nd round. Whereas first round was nicer stuff that could normally be worn to class, this round was stuff you'd wear when going out on the weekend or going to church. The president of
Rockies spoke with a spiel about how glad he was that we all decided to come back and learn about more and that they would learn a little more about the rushees as well. There was then a video about how much this house liked to party, the most impressive part was one of the brothers punching another one bare-fisted and knocking out teeth, another impressive bit was watching a girl at one of their parties smash a beer can...between her boobs - it was very impressive. After the video and another speaker, was the one-on-one. This was actually a 2-on-1. Again, as happened the last time at
Rockies, I didn't really have much commong ground with either of the brothers I talked to, although they tried really hard to get to know me. After another speaker, it was time to go to Braves. Overall, I was mildly impressed, the atmosphere of the house seemed fun and they seemed interested in me but I just had a bad vibe of sorts about the house.
Then, to
Braves. Right when I walked into
Braves (houses didn't do handshake lines very much 2nd and 3rd round) the brother who I had spoken to first round welcomed me back, which seemed nice. Again,
Braves had very good food - this round was an ice cream buffet. Whereas other houses had talked about their social events during first round, Braves did it during 2nd round. The presentation was energetic but not over the top, I liked it alot. Then, an alum who had to be in his 50s or 60s talked about how
Braves had given him the best experiences of his life both during and after college. Then was individual conversations. To hide the fact their house was small, each rushee was placed in a room and through a period of about 20 minutes brothers would switch in and out of each room, so that each rushee talked to 3 brothers. These one-on-ones were good as I connected with the people I talked to, and one of them really went out of his way to assure that
Braves did no hazing (this ended up being a huge lie in the coming months,
Braves had some of the worst hazing being almost as bad as
Marlins, but I had no clue about any of this at the time). Then, there was a final speech by someone who had better speaking skills than the first round speaker which really made me feel good. After this round, I felt as though I could really see myself as a member of
Braves since I connected to everyone I talked to there which was something that didn't really happen at
Rockies.
Next was
Twins.
Twins and
Braves were the two most remote houses on campus.
Braves was at the south edge of campus,
Twins was the northeast edge of campus. My round at
Braves ended 2 minutes before my round at Twins was supposed to start. This presented a problem. By the time I got to
Twins, it turned out they were waiting for me to start the round for 5 minutes. I felt pretty embarrased at this point. This round started with a speaker, and I noticed quickly that there was only 10 people during this round, which was a very low number to be in a section of 2nd round. I knew most of the people in this group of 10. After a speech that didn't really stick out, we got Subway sandwiches and cake and were then paired into 1-on-1's. I was paired with the president. this was significant because I had known the president since the first day I had arrived on campus and we were very good friends - he had rushed me hardcore fall semester inviting me to every even the house held. He did a very good job of telling me to do what was best for me and that
Twins would be very happy to have me. We talked about the one person in the house that I did not get along with, and the president assured me that it would not be a big deal. There was a closing speech that was fairly impressive. After leaving this house, I couldn't decide how I felt because this was easily the house I knew the most about and was the most comfortable about but at the same time I wondered whether or not I would have more fun in a different house that I didn't know much about yet - the impressive 2nd of
Braves was really sticking out in my head.
At this point,
Rockies was definitely out of the picture as I could only go to 2 houses 3rd round and
Braves and
Twins had both been better than Rockies.
Then I went to
Cardinals. After greetings, I was offered pie and ice cream - apparently I missed the memo that 2nd round was the unilateral dessert round (who knew?
). Being that I had eaten at all 3 houses previous and had to jog to get to
Cardinals just to be 5 minutes late, I turned the food down - I was starting to feel a little sick anyway. The brother who was offering me the food seemed to take personal offense to this which to a small degree weirded me out. The opening was a speech which more than anything else struck me as how much more serious it was than anything at any of the other houses during 2nd round -
Cardinals made joining their house and greek life and general almost sound like a life or death decision.
Cardinals were dressed up more than any of the other houses, and the conversations were structured as a house tour then a 1-on-1. The house tour didn't go too well as 1) I already knew the house layout inside and out and 2) the brother giving the tour didn't seem like he really gave too much of a damn. The 1-on-1 with a different brother went a little better - both the tour and the 1-on-1 were with 2 of the few people in the house I didn't know. After a final speech that was still pretty serious but not as uptight as the opening, I started having serious doubts about
Cardinals, even though they had been my favorite house heading into rush. Not really knowing what to think, I then went to
Marlins.
Continuing with the apparent dessert theme,
Marlins offered choclate chip cookies that ended up being the best food of any house 1st or 2nd round. the presentation was about what would happen during the pledge period, mostly social events but also weekends blocked out for "brotherhood activities" (fancy term for hazing). This presentation was good in that it maintained the fun aspect of 1st round while still being somewhat serious. The 1-on-1 here went fairly well, as me and the brother had a very good conversation about not only
Marlins but also the greek system in general. The final speech was one of those super-emotional speeches about how this one senior had almost failed out of college and made other bad choices but his brothers at
Marlins had rallied around him and helped him up - the speech showed what good Marlins could do for a person. Although what
Marlins did during first round wasn't necessarily my cup of tea, 2nd round seemed much more down to earth and like a fraternity that I would be happy to live in.
After I got back to my dorm, the rho gammas announced that we would have two hours to make our choices for next round.
These were easily the most stressful two hours of my rush experience. I had to cut 5 houses down to 2. I knew I would not join
Rockies, but I was torn between the other 4 houses.
Braves easily had the most impressive round - I decided after 5 minutes or so I would definitely be going there 3rd round.
Cardinals, which had been my #1 house going into rush, sort of rubbed me the wrong way and made me feel uncomfortable. Although I really liked
Marlins 2nd round, I couldn't really tell if they were more like how they acted 1st round or how they acted 2nd round - the 2nd round
Marlins seemed much more like an environment I'd like to be in than 1st round. And there was
Twins. I knew the house very well and had fun there in the past, but I couldn't decide whether or not familiarity with the house now necessarily meant it being the house for me. Deciding between these three houses was hard enough to me that I ended up making a diagram what I thought to be the pros and cons of each house and if some things outweighed others. I ended up calling an independent upper-classman girl friend asking her what houses she thought I would fit into; she gave me the answer I was afraid I would get - I could fit into any of those houses. Eventually, I finally came up with a ranking of the houses after 2nd round.
Braves (far and away the best house 2nd round and rush overall)
Marlins (the last speech really got to me - I thought this house could be very good to me)
Cardinals (everything i'd experienced before 2nd round at
Cardinals had been fun, but then this awful 2nd round made me think perhaps it wasn't all that fun and that I might not have a good time as a member there)
Twins (although I knew most of the brothers in the house and thought they were cool, i just decided they weren't the best fit for me)
Rockies (no way I could be in this house, no matter how interested they were - I decided the 30 seconds at the end of first round had been a fluke)
If I had kept thinking about it for another 5 minutes, it's quite possible that
Marlins/Cardinals/Twins could have ended up in a different order.
Finally, the rho gams came back with our lists for who invited us back for 3rd round.
My list was the last one in the rush group.
I scrolled down the page.
I had been invited back by
Braves - that was a sigh of relief.
Rockies had invited me back - I couldn't have cared less.
Cardinals and
Twins had both invited me back.
But
Marlins had cut me.
Not really having time for it to soak in and think about it because it was 1 am at this point and 3rd round was the next night, the rho gam told me to hurry up and pick another house other than
Braves - these rho gams would not allow suiciding. Just going down to the next house on my list, I half-heartedly put down
Cardinals.
Greg comes into the story now, as we had gone to somewhat similar houses 2nd round - he was suiciding
Braves. Right picks for 2nd round, Greg asked me why the hell I was going back to
Cardinals and was peer pressuring me, telling me that
Braves was the only house I would have any fun at. After comparing schedules, me, Mark, and Greg were all going to be at Braves at the same time.
I talked to Mark after 2nd round; at third round he was going to be at
Braves and
Marlins. We both had the same idea about
Braves - we wish we had gotten to know this house sooner but were both very interested. Although, the funny thing was that we had gotten each other's favorite houses - Mark had wanted to be in
Cardinals since the first day he arrived on campus and I at the time would have preferred
Marlins to
Cardinals.
My 3rd round schedule would be
Braves and then
Cardinals. All in all, I had decided I would try to go into 3rd round with an open mind about both houses but that
Braves would have a slight edge. Essentially, I had gone from knowing nothing at all about
Braves to liking them more than any other house, even previously well-liked
Cardinals and
Twins.
.....their loss.
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