A drama filled, rollercoaster Back to School themed recruitment!

[HereComesTheSun]

Preference day is here!

Today is the day. Preference day is the final day before bid day and it seemed like that week dragged on, but went faster than the speed of lightning.

I put on my best dress, wedges and my favorite necklace and mentally prepared myself for what could have happened. I didn't get a call the night before saying i'd been released. So I could've been invited back to one chapter or both.

Before I left my dorm, my sister called me and told me she had officially sent in her resignation letter and went alum. I was not surprised at all. She told me not to feel pressured and to make the decision that was best for myself and only myself and go with my gut instincts. She said her gut instinct was to drop her sorority before initiation and go through recruitment a second time or do informal, but she got intiated instead regretted it wholeheartedly because now she is bound for life, no matter what.

That definitely scared me and my heart was jumping out of my chest before I left.

We walked to the area where we usually get our schedules and all of the color had been drained out of my face and I had no idea what was going on or what my schedule even was, but I was expecting the worst.

I finally got my schedule and the look on my face was priceless.

1. USC
2. Rutgers

The same schedule as yesterday. I was so excited I made it this far with USC because I had other friends that got dropped from houses they knew a lot of girls in during recruitment and I was so relieved that I got invited back to my number one again. But I still got invited back to Rutgers which amazes me to this day. I left a conversation midway to go to the bathroom andd cry and came back with my face red and tear stained and barely said a word, but I still got invited back.

Luckily I got invited back to USC so I could put my absolute best foot forward and really let them know that this was where I wanted to be and could proudly wear the letters for for the rest of my life.

I walked to USC very determined and one of the girls I talked to earlier in the week pref'd me and I absolutely loved her. She was so nice and I was excited that she was the one pref'ing me. This day was the longest so we talked about everything from how recruitment was going to what stores we could spend our ladt penny at.

She was a senior, so she was talking about how much she loved her chapter and how hard it was to go through recruitment for the last time because it's just another step on the way to graduating and becoming an alum and that made me emotional because the fact that she loved it so much and was so dedicated really made me 10 times more passionate about USC. So I started crying and she started crying and then we were laughing at each other and it was just really nice.

I was crying because I loved them so much and they invited me back every day. I was crying because the girl pref'ing me was so sweet and I didn't want to see her leave her chapter even though everyone eventually does. I was crying because I was afraid of bid day.

After the conversations ended, we went into their living room and other seniors in the chapter were reading letters and then they sang songs and it all was just so moving. My friends in the chapter cried and hugged me at the end and I cried again to and they told me everything was gonna be alright.

I left USC happy, scared, confident and content.

Then I had to go to Rutgers.

Rutgers was seriously scaring me because my sister is an initiated member and per national policy, legacies that make it to preference are automatically put on the first bid list. That scaring the living hell out of me.

When I went to Rutgers, a girl I already knew before who was also the Executive Vice President was pref'ing me. Like any other day I visited, it was awkward.

She asked me general questions like how I was doing, how recruitment was going for me but then she started asking me questions that had me very taken aback. She asked: "So do you know what houses you're choosing? Do you know what decision you're gonna make?" I was stunned.

1. Yes. I knew exactly what decision I was going to make.
2. Why the hell was it her business to ask me? I didn't ask her if they knew who they were giving bids to.
3. As an older woman who holds an executive decision, she should know better not to ask a PNM such a question

But besides all of that, I wasn't going to be outwardly rude or tell her what I was going to do because again, it just wasn't her business. So I just replied: "Yeah, i'm pretty sure what i'm gonna do But making my decision might be a little hard." She then was like: "Well, you look conflicted, I can reassure you." She then was talking about the chapter and all the the things they done and awards and competitions they've won and just how close their sisterhood was and how they weren't like the other chapters that were cliquey and didn't have what they had and I was honestly digusted.

They took us to their living room where girls were singing songs about the chapter and in between, she kept saying how conflicted I look and was telling me more about the chapter that I honestly didn't care about and I was just itching to leave and make my preference. I wanted to leave and crawl out of my skin.

When it was finally over, she gave me an awkward hug and said: "Hope I made your decision a lot easier!"

After we visited all of our chapters, we were allowed to do our final preferencing. I looked at the preference card and read the agreement one last time. One of the Rho Gammas asked me if I needed any help or needed anyone to talk to about what I was going to do and in hindsight I kick myself for not listening to her, talking to my own Rho Gamma because maybe things would have been different.

But all I could think of in my mind was the director of sorority and fraternity life saying 88% of the women who maximized their options got their first choice and I remembered the girl in my Rho Gamma group saying the worst mistake she made last year was suiciding. And I remembered what I had read on Greek Chat saying women who suicided were not eligible to be a quota addition of a chapter.

Tha scared me and so I preferenced USC as first and Rutgers as second.

I turned it in feeling confident about my decision and following the rules.

When I left, I saw my friend who had Rutgers and USC just like me and suicided just USC. She said: "Well if I get a call tonight, that means I didn't get a bid and if I don't that means I got one."

After that, I immediately regretted my decision.

Spoiler: She never got the call that night and now is a proud member of USC.

[thetalady]

Originally Posted by HereComesTheSun

Before I left my dorm, my sister called me and told me she had officially sent in her resignation letter and went alum. I was not surprised at all. She told me not to feel pressured and to make the decision that was best for myself and only myself and go with my gut instincts. She said her gut instinct was to drop her sorority before initiation and go through recruitment a second time or do informal, but she got intiated instead regretted it wholeheartedly because now she is bound for life, no matter what.

This part is incorrect. You EITHER get early alum status OR you resign. Resignation does not get you alumnae status. Resignation actually severs you from the organization and you are not bound for life. Early alumnae status is a privilege granted in some organizations, usually for a specific reason, which varies from sorority to sorority. Simply being unhappy with the sorority is not a valid reason.

If you sister resigned, I don't think that you were actually still a legacy at the time the bid lists were determined. Ironic.....

[33girl]

Originally Posted by thetalady

This part is incorrect. You EITHER get early alum status OR you resign. Resignation does not get you alumnae status. Resignation actually severs you from the organization and you are not bound for life. Early alumnae status is a privilege granted in some organizations, usually for a specific reason, which varies from sorority to sorority. Simply being unhappy with the sorority is not a valid reason.

If you sister resigned, I don't think that you were actually still a legacy at the time the bid lists were determined. Ironic.....

She's bound for life in the sense that she can never pledge another NPC group, whether she self terminated or not.

And if someone did say the school name in this thread I missed it because calling the sororities by names of schools was confusing as balls.

[Wynter]

This really is a tough situation. :/

While I do feel for you, I also feel that your sister's experiences really did taint your opinion of ADPi from day one. Dirty rushing or not, these girls seemed interested in you (if they had such a bad relationship with your sister...why would they if not because they liked you?).

Like others have said, a new pledge class can make the world of a difference in a chapter. Heck, mine did, and after two classes left, our sorority was ON FIRE, killing it at recruitment, and just had a totally new dynamic and feel.

I'm sorry about what happened. Please try again next year (or through COB or informal if that's possible) with an open mind, and try to remember...ADPi could be your blessing in disguise.

[Dnpgopenguins]

Originally Posted by 33girl

She's bound for life in the sense that she can never pledge another NPC group, whether she self terminated or not.

And if someone did say the school name in this thread I missed it because calling the sororities by names of schools was confusing as balls.

If this s the school I think it is, then members can go alum after living in the house for two years. Maybe the OP is confusing her terminology and meant that older sister moved out of the house, thus taking alum status????

And when the OP said that the member told her about placement on bid list I am thinking that member might have been trying to make OP happy about being there, or maybe OP took it the wrong way. I have had people say things to me to try and cheer me up and what they say, even with good intentions, still makes me miserable. Just a thought.

[LAblondeGPhi]

Originally Posted by Dnpgopenguins

And when the OP said that the member told her about placement on bid list I am thinking that member might have been trying to make OP happy about being there, or maybe OP took it the wrong way. I have had people say things to me to try and cheer me up and what they say, even with good intentions, still makes me miserable. Just a thought.

This makes the most sense to me. It's confusing as an active to explain to a new member why she got your house instead of the one she obviously wanted more. What are you going to say? "They didn't want you enough"? It's hard to explain the process in a way that won't sound hurtful, so I'm sure many sisters try to spin it into how much their chapter does love that new member.

Trying to explain the process without going into technical details can VERY EASILY become "We wanted you more than they did", because it's sorta essentially true. The problem is that it sounds an awful lot like the secondary chapter usurped the first chapter's claim on a PNM by wanting her more.