A Yummy Slightly Old Recruitment Journey

[greekmom2]

Thank you all again.

Next day the inevitable happened. It was preference - Lemon Bars and Blueberry Tarts. She called me and said, “Come and get me, I’m done.” Fortunately I was in Family-Friendly City on that day (we hadn’t sold our house yet, and I had some business to take care of), so I could get her fairly easily. Now I’m sure it sounds like she left school because she didn’t get into a sorority she wanted, and that’s true in part. As a matter of fact her ex told her that he heard she had told the Ice Creams she was dropping out of school if she didn’t get into their chapter (not correct, and she had a pretty good idea where he had gotten that info, but it was , when all was said and done, what happened). There was more to it than that. Her grades, her doubts going back, her need to get away from the ex, etc., but it was a moot point. She felt this was the last in a series of closed doors, and she needed to go home, rethink her options, and get her GPA up at the very least.


Brooke might have been superficial, close-minded and a host of other things common to many 19 year old girls, but I have to hand it to her on this -She didn’t do any crying or feeling sorry for herself – at least in front of me. She knew that ultimately, she had gone into this feeling like there were certain chapters she couldn’t join and whether her reasons were sketchy or solid (she would now say mostly sketchy), it hadn’t worked out the way she had hoped, she made a decision to drop, and she lived with it without wasting much time crying about it. Actually, as we were getting ready to jump in the car to go, she saw a freshman girl from her group that she knew crying on the lawn outside their dorm. She also hadn’t gotten the chapters she wanted and was disappointed. Brooke told me to wait, jumped out of the car, and spent some time with her arm around the girl – talking to her and comforting her. I think Brooke kept track of her and she eventually ended up COBing and happy in a chapter, but I’m not sure.


She moved on. Really quickly. On the drive home she talked about things she wanted to get involved in and schools she wanted to visit. Of course there was some aftermath. Ex called wanting to know why she was really doing this. That conversation brought on some tears. Her Chocolate Cake friends called after bid day and asked how things had gone and where she was. She cried again then. A few months after this (spring actually), the Cookies emailed her and invited her to some informal events. Apparently, they weren’t aware she was no longer at Party State. I think she had a “what if” moment, but by this time she was pretty sure she needed to head in another direction as far as schools went, so she didn’t dwell on that for long.


The next year was hard, but here is my message to moms who come on GC after a disappointing recruitment looking for answers. I had never cared a thing about sorority life, but I still spent the entire week my daughter went through recruitment virtually unable to eat I was so stressed out. I listened to her cry daily and my heart broke. I couldn’t sleep. I cried all the way down to get her. I had the advantage of knowing some good, completely non-personal reasons why she MAY had been cut (of course we will never know for sure), and it still hurt me for her. She’s my child after all.


My heart continued to break for her the following year. She was in a city where she knew no one. She watched her friends at Party State go on with their lives via facebook. She felt forgotten with the exception of ex’s fraternity brothers and her Rho Gamma (they sent facebook messages regularly to see how she was doing and what her plans were).
We want our children to be happy 24/7, but as hard as it was to watch – she and I both know because we’ve talked about it a lot since, that the year she came home was the best thing that could have happened to her in terms of her own personal growth.


Slowly she joined some activities, found a job, started taking classes at a community college, and brought her grades up. More importantly, she learned that when it comes to friends – quality beats quantity and having lots of people who “know” you can’t replace a few people who love you. She figured out who she was and what she wanted. She learned to go outside of her comfort zone and take some chances. She learned how to study and remembered how much she had once loved school (the academic part that is). She started to understand that you have to work for things – they don’t always just work out because you want them to. I guess what I’m saying is that while its fine to hurt for them – it really is best not to try and “fix it” for them. They will miss out on those all-important opportunities for growth.


She also visited schools. She considered going back to Party State, but she fell in love with my alma mater – University of Tie Dye. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to go through recruitment there, but when she visited she did ask me to show her Greek row which was interesting because Tie-Dye doesn’t have much of a Greek row (it’s more like a Greek block with other Greek houses scattered randomly), and that just mystified her. She actually got a bit frustrated with me assuming that there must be some type of larger Greek row somewhere, and I was just clueless or forgetful. Since I didn’t spend any time at Greek events/parties when I was in college, I admitted this was a possibility, but this was all I knew of the Greek houses at my school.


Through facebook, she found out a friendly acquaintance from high school was also at the University of Tie Dye. She got in touch with her to ask about the school, and it turned out friend was a Candied Apple. She asked about recruitment which UTD did shortly after school started. Being a sophomore wasn’t a big deal (she would be a junior by age and a sophomore by credits), it sounded more laid back, and friend had good things to say about all the other chapters which all seemed more well, I guess, even is the word. She was also relieved to find out that while Greek life there was growing and healthy, it wasn’t the end all be all of the social scene on that campus by any stretch. She felt reassured that no matter what she decided, she could find plenty to do there.


She went down to visit the school a couple of times and on one occasion hung out with friend and visited the Candied Apples. They seemed like nice girls and the house was beautiful. She had learned a lot in a year, and she knew she needed to be much more open minded if she decided to do this again, but her heart started leaning a bit toward the Candied Apples.

At the encouragement of her cheer coach (she joined an international cheer team during that year) and myself, she sent in a tape to the coach of a new sport University of Tie Dye had just started (Title IX thing). It was a type of competitive cheer with a few variations. She got a spot as a recruited walk on (scholarships had already been awarded) and signed an LOI. She wasn’t exactly thrilled, but she figured it would be a good way to meet some people at a school where she didn’t really know anyone, and if she didn’t try recruitment or it didn’t work out, at least she would know she had something else. I just saw scholarship dollars down the road.

[groovypq]

Loving this story - and the cheerleading part is an interesting bonus!

[greekmom2]

^^^Yeah, well that part added a bit more of a twist.



She started at UTD in the fall. One evening she and a teammate (we call her Amy) decided to tag along with Amy’s boyfriend to a fraternity party. Amy introduced her to a guy from her high school. They talked a bit and he asked if she was going to go through rush. She said that yes she was, but she was pretty nervous about it. He told her he was sure she would get into any sorority she wanted. She thought he was cute, sweet, and completely clueless (not in general – just about how sororities work). Still, she was impressed that he didn’t say one negative thing about any of the sororities (at least not then).

This time around she had a much improved GPA but not stellar (her grades from the previous year were great, but they were averaged with her freshman GPA). She didn’t have any preconceived notions about the sororities. The year off had given her time to seriously consider what she had to offer a sorority and what she wanted from it as well. Her viewpoints changed; while I don’t think she was flat out rude to the two last sororities on her list at Party State, she knew her attitude there wasn’t good, and she was embarrassed about it. She still didn’t think they would have been good fits, but she understood she was lucky to have been asked back at all.


She was actually more embarrassed about her behavior at Apple Pie. As she put it, “Mom those girls were never anything but good to me and I should have been thrilled to go back, but instead I cried most of the way through the house tour.”

She was facing one serious difficulty. Recruitment started at 5 pm on one side of campus and her team practice ended at 5 pm at the athletic center off campus and on the other side. To make matters worse, UTD apparently felt cars were the work of the devil or at least greedy, corporate industrialists out to destroy the environment and life as we knew it, so they made parking as limited as possible. Her coach, whom she normally liked, wasn’t budging an inch. Fortunately, Greek life was, and they told her that while it officially started at 5, the groups wouldn’t actually get to the first house until 6, so they let her know which chapter her group would be visiting first and were willing to let her meet the group there.


This still made things tight by the time she got ready, drove over, and found parking. She wanted the sorority thing to work so badly that I worried she would quit the team, and I imagined all of those future scholarship dollars floating away. I also worried she would quit, recruitment wouldn’t work out and then she had given up a team for nothing. At any rate, I became a helicopter mom and offered to drive down the first two days, help her get ready, drive her over near Greek row, and drop her off so she wouldn’t have to worry about the parking which would make her the only PNM that year getting dropped off by her mom. Surprisingly she agreed to this.

[southbymidwest]

Great story, love your telling of it. Believe me, I found myself as a mom of a collegian, nodding my head in agreement with your observations.

[greekmom2]

^^^One of the reasons I love reading recruitment stories and reading threads from moms whose daughters are going through recruitment is just knowing she wasn't the only one and neither was I!!!

*****

Again, I don’t remember the order of the groups she visited (well I do remember who was first). I know she saw eight groups over two days and heard a presentation from a new colony.
As I mentioned, Brooke had done a lot of growing up in her year with us. Because of that, the things she was looking for in a sorority had changed radically. All she wanted this time was to find a chapter where she could make friends with people she thought she would like and whom she felt liked her.
Here were her impressions in ranking order

Root Beer Floats – LOVED! She thought the girls she spoke to were funny with sarcastic senses of humor. Always a winner for her. They seemed like straight shooters and she liked the fact that there didn’t seem to be one type of girl in the house. She had great conversations with all the girls she spoke to – it just felt like home right away. She was also impressed that they made sure their outfits were all coordinated. It seems like a silly thing – but to her it said they were putting a lot of effort into this.

Raspberry Parfaits – She loved this group as well largely because they seemed very similar to Root Beer Floats in that they had similar senses of humor and again, the girls seemed diverse – not all the same type. It also helped that she had such a good impression of them at Party State even though this chapter’s personality was different (still good though). They came in slightly behind Root Beer Floats.

Apple Pies – She enjoyed her conversation here, but she only spoke to one girl. She wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. It wasn’t love like it was with the first two but she liked them fine and she did want to go back.

Candied Apples – the group she expected to love here and….she liked them. They were very nice, but she and her first rusher spent 10 minutes discussing toothpaste. No, she wasn’t that interested in toothpaste. She had no idea how they got on the topic, and she couldn’t get her rusher off of it. When she left, they all said goodbye to her by name which was sweet. They seemed young. She would be happy to go back, but not going back wouldn’t hurt her.

Chocolate Cake – She liked them fine. The conversation with the first girl she spoke to was a bit awkward but the second conversation went well. They seemed like the “very involved in student leadership and academics” types. Totally different than the chapter at Party State. She didn’t think their personality fit her, but she also thought they might be good for her.

Donuts – She had walked herself over to the Greek life office during summer orientation to ask some questions and the Donut president happened to be there, so she talked to her for a minute or two. She thought she was gorgeous and seemed to know her stuff, so she had a good impression of this house to start with. She liked them and thought they were nice girls who seemed to have a close sisterhood. They struck her as the type of girls who would love to curl up on couches together on a Friday night and watch movies. She would like that once in a while but not all the time. She wanted to go back though.

The Sorbets – This was the new colony. Initially Brooke was resistant to the colony idea. She felt she would be missing out on some important elements of the sorority experience that she really wanted, but this group wowed her. They brought up a group of girls who clearly knew what they were doing. They had an incredible presentation, a good plan, and they were freakin’ adorable. She stared thinking this might be something to consider.

The Brownies – the Brownies were the closest thing her campus had to a struggling house (she had figured out that much), but they weren’t on death’s door by any means. She thought the girls were nice, and she did keep an open mind. They weren’t like the Lemon Bars at Party State who interests were just odd to her. Instead she would have described them as genuinely nice girls who were introverted, but close to each other – kind of a more extreme, not quite as put together, version of the Donuts. She didn’t think it was her, and as with Donuts, she thought she wanted a group that was more outwardly social (that word has come up at least 15 times in this story. It was a big part of Brooke’s personality and important to her), but she would be happy to go back.

Ice Cream – This is where who is rushing you comes into play. Her roommate was also rushing. She and roommate had immediately clicked because they had so much in common, BUT they had completely different reactions to this chapter. Roommate LOVED it. Brooke had a bad vibe the minute she walked in the door that she never shook. Didn’t like it at all and really would have preferred not to go back.

I asked her much later why she thinks she got such a bad vibe. As it turned out – this was the first house she visited. She had barely gotten there on time. She was already exhausted from practice. There had been some miscommunication between Greek life and her Rho Gam’s, so they had reported her absent to the house and they had to correct that when she got there. It was just stressful, so she thinks that affected her outlook somewhat. In addition, while she thought the house was beautiful on the outside, the inside was very dark and modern looking which she didn’t like and didn’t seem to match the outside. It was really crowded which bothered her, and she says that to this day, she cannot remember one thing she talked about with her rushers.

[AXOrushadvisor]

I'm curious about one thing. You are using the same codes, but are the groups the same or different?

Really fun story. You had me hooked at "my daughter"! I also like the fact that your not stringing this out

[sigmagirl10]

Originally Posted by AXOrushadvisor

I'm curious about one thing. You are using the same codes, but are the groups the same or different?

Really fun story. You had me hooked at "my daughter"! I also like the fact that your not stringing this out

I am guessing that the groups that she uses the same names for, they are the same group.

[*winter*]

THIS is amazing. Thanks so much for sharing. As a transfer, there's a lot I can relate to in the story.

I'm also curious- is a Donut at this school the same sorority as a Donut at the last school? Not that it really matters, but I'm just curious.

And all this dessert talk is making me hungry!

[greekmom2]

1) Yes, the code and chapters they represent are the same. University of Tie Dye doesn't have a chapter that isn't also at Party State. It was interesting for her and proof that even schools that are fairly georgraphically close (8 hours) can have chapters that are significantly different in personality.

2) No, it's too long to drag out. I've been the victim of drug out recruitment stories that end abrubtly. I promise I will finish this one today.

*****
Saturday – At 11:03 I got a call (yes, oddly enough I still remember the exact time). “Mom, I think I’m going to drop out. I just don’t think I’m meant to be in a sorority. “ I asked her what happened. They could have six on their list. She had four which was fine given she was a sophomore by credits, a junior by age, and she had something like a 2.8. One was her first choice, the Root Beer Floats. She also had Donuts, Chocolate Cake (both of whom she liked fine) and the Brownies (whom she wasn’t sure about but wasn’t against). I wasn’t seeing the problem. I knew she was a little disappointed about Raspberry Parfait, but she had gone into this with much more realistic expectations, and without a group she was dead set on getting.


I asked her why she wanted to drop out when her favorite group was still on her list. She said it was because this had happened before, and she was sure they would drop her tomorrow. She figured it would be easier for her to drop before they cut her. Okay.


Two unlikely sources changed her mind. She had a break at the beginning this round, so that left her with about an hour to decide for sure whether she would drop out of rush or stick with it. Amy, the teammate who went with her to the fraternity party had a brother named Jason in another fraternity. Brooke had met him, and they had all hung out on a couple of occasions. Amy lived in Brooke’s dorm and they had gotten close. Brooke called Amy to tell her that she was thinking about dropping out and why.


Amy, the independent, told her to rethink that. She told her that Jason hadn’t gotten a bid to a fraternity where his HS buds ended up, but had gotten one to his present fraternity. He wasn’t going to accept, but their mom told him to give it a chance, and now he didn’t want to be anywhere else. She told Brooke she could drop out any time before she signed a bid card, so she might as well see it through until pref. 30 minutes later Jason called. He reiterated the same story. He asked what sororities she had. When she mentioned Chocolate Cake he told her how much he respected (yes, I swear a 20 year old college boy did say respected) that group in particular and liked the girls. She started to think she needed to give this a little more time, so she decided to give it another day.

[sigmagirl2000]

I keep checking back at my laptop almost every hour for updates on this story. Thanks for posting in a timely manner and please keep them coming!

[greekmom2]

She got ready and headed out for philanthropy day

Here is the summary in the order that she ranked them

Root Beer Floats – Once again, she loved them. She loved the girls and she really loved the philanthropy. It was something she knew she could get behind.


Chocolate Cake – She had a great conversation this time. The girl she was paired with had been a gymnast like Brooke, so they had a lot in common. She was glad she came back to this house. She didn’t like it quite as much as Root Beer Floats, but she definitely liked it. She liked the philanthropy too, and they seemed very into it.


Donuts- She liked Donuts as well. She still wondered if they might be too quiet, but she wanted to come back. The girls were sweet, and she thought the conversations flowed. She liked their philanthropy as well.


Brownies- The girls were nice again, but the conversations were just okay- nothing that stuck out, and she didn’t feel as strongly about the philanthropy. She would still be fine going back.

[ellebud]

I love this thread. That is all.

[AZTheta]

Originally Posted by ellebud

I love this thread. That is all.

+1
ditto
me too!

*waves @ ellebud!!!

[ladybug12]

Originally Posted by AzTheta

+1
ditto
me too!

*waves @ ellebud!!!

Me three!

[greekmom2]

Thank you! Glad you're liking it. I know it's long. Believe it or not I did edit, but like I said - this was more about the journey than the recruitment and kind of what she and I both learned through it, so...it was hard to cut out too many details. Two more entries after this one and I'm done - I'll post them pretty fast.
******
Sunday - I got a call about 11 (actually during a Sunday school class). “I got back Root Beer Floats, Donuts and Brownies.” I figured that since she had lost Chocolate Cake, she would be completely discouraged and ready to quit again. I asked if she was okay. She seemed annoyed I would ask. “Well of course mom, I still have Root Beer Floats. They’re my favorite and I can’t believe I still have them, and I like Donuts too. Why wouldn’t I be okay – I feel really good about it!” I was done trying to figure her out.
Sunday was house tours.

Root beer floats – She loved the house. It was huge, and she could totally see herself living there. She liked that there was a sleeping porch, but also double and single rooms. She loved the girls. Hadn’t met one she didn’t feel connected with yet. There was not one thing on any day she didn’t love about this chapter.

Donuts – Their house is my personal favorite on the outside. I think it fits the campus culture perfectly. She liked some things about the house, but didn’t like the fact that everyone but the president slept on a sleeping porch. It wasn’t a deal breaker though - she had a good overall impression of the chapter and felt she could be happy there.

Brownies – Outside this house is pretty – very English cottage looking. Inside she thought it had the most potential. It was old and had some unique rooms, but she didn’t feel they had done much with them, and she thought it was in need of a remodel. (which I believe they have done at this point) Actually she spent most of the tour playing interior designer in her head and thinking how the rooms could be redone. She had kept a pretty open mind this time, and she did understand and appreciate that they didn’t have to invite her back and did – so she assured me she made as much effort here as she had at every other chapter, but taken as a whole, she just wasn’t feeling this one. She wanted to join a sorority but not at all costs and after her last year, she felt confident that while she would be disappointed if she didn’t find a home – life would go on, and she would have other things. Given that, she had started thinking that she wouldn’t feel comfortable accepting a bid to this chapter.