A Wicked Recruitment: Fall '08

[Smile_Awhile]

Finally, the appointed move in day occurred. Mine was a day before the majority of the freshman class, as I am a member of the Honors program, and we had a retreat while everyone else was moving in. As I was walking around the campus, I saw some sorority girls lining the basketball court. I knew they were sorority members from their shirts, as they were all wearing the “Go Greek!” shirts from Panhellenic. My stomach churned as I saw them. I was getting a little worried about my decision to go through recruitment, but I ignored it, as I had to get everything up into my room!

After moving everything in, I said goodbye to my family, and there I was, out on my own. The Honors students had a cookout that day, which I attended. The first person I met was “Dancing Darcy” (names changed to protect the innocent!). She was a dance major, and we met as she was coming out of her room- she just lived down the hall from me! We exchanged pleasantries, but I didn’t really like her right off the bat- just one of those things. She seemed sweet, but we didn’t’ click right off the bat.
I remember the cookout as nice- I talked to “Dancing Darcy” and someone else, who I cannot really remember. We didn’t really mention recruitment.

Later, I went down and knocked on a girl’s door. We’d been talking through Facebook, and I was bored out of my skull with no one else in the dorm. I hit it off with “Business Betty” right off the bat. She was majoring in Entertainment Business, and was a really sweet girl. We talked for a while, and ended up watching a movie later that night. She was really great- and she was going through recruitment too! It was exciting to meet someone else doing what I was doing, and she had the same attitude- if it wasn’t for her, I’m not sure if I would have gone through with it. Her mom had been Greek at our school, although it was at a chapter that had long closed.

At the honors retreat the next day, I ended up hanging out with Dancing Darcy and Business Betty the majority of the day. We also added one more to our crew “Acting Amanda”. She and I were the same major- theatre. Throughout our first few days, we all stuck close together- eating together, hanging out together. It was great. Initially, Acting Amanda, Business Betty, and myself were all going through recruitment, while Dancing Darcy was not. After much convincing, we got her to go through the process with us. We were all nervous/excited… Business Betty and I ended up walking to our first recruitment events together, in which we both commented on how nervous we were.

A quick description of recruitment at my school, as it’s different. We do have recruitment counselors- they have no Greek name. However, those groups are very loose- we don’t meet them ahead of time. The groups are pretty large too- we had about 100 girls go through, and 4 groups. There is no required informational session- a session occurs, but it isn’t required (something I wish would be changed). First night you go to all the houses for 15 minutes. Second night was skit night, with a max of three invites back (which would be every house). Third night was preference night, with a max of two invites. Finally, Bid Day!

There are three sororities on my campus: due to our size, I won’t be revealing which groups are there until the end, or possibly not at all. As cheesy as this sounds, I’ve decided to use the character names from the musical Wicked. The three groups are:

Elphaba

Glinda

Nessarose