Dear PNM's and their moms

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by aephi alum

I have to agree that young people these days have very little experience with rejection or failure. It used to be that kids would get their first taste of rejection, say, when they were 7 years old and weren't picked for their local Little League team, or when they were 12 years old and weren't picked for the school choir. Now "everyone's a winner" and the first time these young people run into rejection is when they go through NPC recruitment and a chapter cuts them.

This post made me try to think of my first rejection moment. Pretty sure it was 2nd grade Christmas play. I didn't get to be the North Star in the sky who guided the Wisemen. I was crushed for about 5 minutes. lol. But yeah, it was early.

[Alumiyum]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

This post made me try to think of my first rejection moment. Pretty sure it was 2nd grade Christmas play. I didn't get to be the North Star in the sky who guided the Wisemen. I was crushed for about 5 minutes. lol. But yeah, it was early.

Recruitment was ironically one of the first times in my life I didn't face rejection. Though had I been at a competitive school I'm sure it would've been a very, very different story I'm sure.

This thread definitely needs to be required reading...to the OP, well said, all of it!

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Alumiyum

Recruitment was ironically one of the first times in my life I didn't face rejection. Though had I been at a competitive school I'm sure it would've been a very, very different story I'm sure.

You took the words right out of my mouth. Although I'm sure if I'd rushed my first semester at college, competitive or noncompetitive school, I wouldn't have had the amount of confidence I did when I did rush. I had to shake off the hometown dust a little bit before I could get anywhere. That's why I have such a hard time understanding these chapters that take all the people from the same hometown, and the people who join them.

[Alumiyum]

Originally Posted by 33girl

You took the words right out of my mouth. Although I'm sure if I'd rushed my first semester at college, competitive or noncompetitive school, I wouldn't have had the amount of confidence I did when I did rush. I had to shake off the hometown dust a little bit before I could get anywhere. That's why I have such a hard time understanding these chapters that take all the people from the same hometown, and the people who join them.

I did it right out of the gate, which in my case was a good thing...no time to do anything spectacularly stupid that would've gotten me cut later. I had my mom picking out my outfits, finding recs all summer, and reminding me over and over not to take anything personally, so though I wasn't confident I was prepared. But my fairly mediocre GPA and list of activities probably wouldn't have gotten me nearly so far at a school like UA for instance. I'm glad I had the experience I did because it was a huge confidence boost and after my high school experience I needed it. I was pretty used to rejection, and it was nice to not get it.

But I can understand how a PNM who has been president of clubs, in SGA, Homecoming Queen, etc. has a hard time understanding when she gets massive cuts during recruitment. It's hard at any age to not take rejection personally, but at least for me it was much harder at that age than it is now.

PS-I purposefully went to a school with few kids from my high school attending and even fewer in the Greek system...sometimes it's nice to start over. But I'm not one of those people that will be returning to my hometown and needs the connections. I get why some people don't break out of their shell, at least from my community.