A Canadian recruitment story...

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Going in, I didn’t have any idea of different sorority’s reputations on campus and I want to say that I was pretty open-minded…But to be honest, I had very little idea of what a sorority was about. I was super involved in high school, and then opted to go to a good university 6 hours from home with none of my friends. I had the vague idea that a sorority would be a good way to get involved, and hopefully distract me from being homesick.

A couple of weeks before school started, I checked out their websites, where Rose and Daisy had posted their rush schedules. During the second day of classes, I also saw a poster for an information session for Trillium. Rush started the week after classes started.

Monday: Rose was kicking off their rush with a barbeque mixer, meeting in the building beside my res. Daisy was having a philanthropy can drive event…across town. As lame as it sounds now, I opted to go to Rose’s event just because it was closer.

The mixer: The website said to meet in the university centre at 6pm. I went there and was greeted by about five sisters wearing t-shirts and sweaters with their letters. They were standing around talking to four other rushes by the time I got there. It was pretty casual conversation, just talking about where we were from, what programs everyone was in, etc. We waited until 6:20, when there were about 12 rushes total and then walked to the fraternity house where the barbeque was taking place. The fraternity had a number of rushes there, and were waiting on maybe a few more. We all got hamburgers and hot dogs and then sat on chairs and picnic tables in their backyard.

When everyone was finished eating, they started up a game where we went around the circle and each person had to say their name, their year, their favourite food and a weird fact about themselves. It ended up being pretty fun. One of the sisters tried to say that her weird fact was that her favourite food was sauer kraut and the guys were like, “No, no, that’s cheating, try again.” A girl said her favourite food was cafeteria food, which got a lot of laughs. A few people picked weird facts that were a little too weird- one of the guys said his nipples were inverted and tried to show them (!!). At the end, the sisters walked us back to the school and offered to walk home with anyone who lived farther or didn’t feel comfortable walking alone, which was nice.
I had a one on one conversation with one sister in particular walking home where I felt like I got really meaningful advice. She was talking about how and why she ended up being a Rose, and just said that she felt like it was an amazing fit. She said that she really hit it off with the girls from Rose, and immediately felt at home. And this will probably sound basic to sorority women, but as a rush that really hit home for me. I needed to look for a group where I really fit.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with the girls and I thought they were really nice. I didn’t feel like I really hit it off with anyone in particular, and I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed spending time with the sisters, or if it had been the guys that made the night fun.