No GC during Recruitment

[shadokat]

I don't know if I'd have felt comfortable as a rushee going into rooms that didn't look like a college student actually lived in them. I mean, my room was used as a model room in our house, and I had a computer and a mini fridge and such. The room was really big and really nice, and I had tons of D Phi E stuff, but it looked like a college student's room.

Don't the women ask if it's really someone's room? It just seems odd to me!

[PhiMuNursie]

I think it's really interesting how schools are so different. When I rushed, I didn't realize that there were no appliances there and every chapter on my campus' sorority rooms look about the same. I concentrated on the sorority themed paddles, etc. not the trash can. But I must admit the rooms look amazing during recruitment. The night before ALL rooms in the house have to be "rush ready" and the national officers walk around and double check. Of course the rooms aren't fully done until LATE into the morning hours, but the national officers give us tips on things to hide that we wouldn't think of. The funny thing is we hide the garbage cans but all the perfume/makeup/etc. is allowed to be out, as long as its neatly arranged and not extremely cluttered. Rush week is the last week the entire year that every room in the house is spotlessly clean, so we have to get the full effect of the rooms during that time. After that all hell breaks loose!

Anyway, I just think it's so interesting how some chapters do things differently. I'd like to see how rush is done on other campuses. For example, at UF we do "walk outs" to exit the houses, but at other campuses, they've never heard of them. Personally I'm a "walk out" freak...it's on of my favorite parts! I mean who'd think you could get your entire chapter of over 120 out onto the front lawn in perfect order in 16 seconds!!! Rush is a sheer miracle when you think about it!

Ok, I'll stop now.
Tara
I have a Phi Mu castle...

[ROWDYsister]

Originally posted by PhiMuNursie

Anyway, I just think it's so interesting how some chapters do things differently. I'd like to see how rush is done on other campuses. For example, at UF we do "walk outs" to exit the houses, but at other campuses, they've never heard of them. Personally I'm a "walk out" freak...it's on of my favorite parts! I mean who'd think you could get your entire chapter of over 120 out onto the front lawn in perfect order in 16 seconds!!! Rush is a sheer miracle when you think about it![/COLOR]

"Boobs to backs, all of you!" regarding the walkouts, I hear. Big beautiful smiles, coordinated outfits, perfect like a beauty pageant. I love how the girls RUSH out of the houses and grab rushees like it's guerilla warfare. My first house when I rushed the PXs hyped the rush outs so much they even counted down the exact second the door would fly open! I thought something was going to explode! :: But it was okay. And I remember Pi Phi doesn't grab, we call names. Relieves the "will I ever get picked" panic like in gym class.

[italianaxo]

i don't understand, what exactly are walkouts?

[ThielGirlie]

Originally posted by FuzzieAlum
I guess if I was on a house tour and didn't see any computers, I'd wonder if the girls were serious about school! It seems like a not so great idea to me.

I agree. If I walked into a house as a rushee, I would really wonder why there are no computers. It would make quite an interesting topic of converstation for me, though!

[PhiMuNursie]

I guess I could explain what walk outs are. Basically your entire chapter lines up inside the house at every exit door, or the main door, depending on how you do it. When the party officially begins, the doors fly open and the sisters basically prance out of the house very fast and stop abruptly, like ROWDYsister said, boobs to back with our hands either down at our sides (not swinging casually, but directly at our sides) or with our hands resting on our behinds. We are all on top of eachother within a matter of seconds, last year it was 16 seconds for 120 girls to walk out of 3 doors onto the bottom half and middle half of our lawn, stairs, and front porch. We make it look like a pretty display, like a beauty pageant of our sisters. Then one sister welcomes the girls to our chapter house and we all rush the tent to "pick our PNM". Practicing walkouts is a HUGE part of work week and probably takes the most amount of time because timing has to be perfectly so you can utilize the most time talking to the PNM not walking out of the house. Some chapters get nasty and squirt their sisters who mess up with water guns. Now I think that's a great idea, but not when you're getting squirted in the face!! I do understand though, when someone messes up, the whole chapter has to stop and re-line up and start all over again. I could go on about this all day, so I'll stop now.

Our PX didn't do a very good job of explaining the "rush" or "walk out" to us, so I was super shocked the first time I saw it. But it's really pretty to watch. And very calculated, each sister knows exactly which blade of grass to stand on basically!

ROWDYsister, ya'll call names for round 1 too?! Maybe I'm forgetting but that must be super hectic since we don't get the rosters very early for round 1 to know who's coming through. On the other hand, maybe I'm thinking of prefs...

Tara
I have a Phi Mu castle...

[dggirly]

During rush at my school. We do hide a lot of stuff, just not computers. I guess we don't have a problem with microwaves because we do not have them in the bedrooms, all our microwaves are in the Kitchens and we do not show those during rush. We do however have to turn off phones and clocks either have to be put away or in such a place where we can not see the time(we are not allowed to wear watched either).

One major plus about the DG house at my school is that our house looks like a house. Our rooms are really big, not like dorm room style so we want our rooms to look homey too. So we figure that if we took away all computers and clocks it would look less homey. During rush though certain computers are on and there screensavers have little DG messages on them. We always show our whole house, except for all the bathrooms, during rush which is hard to do because we only have a little over 20 minutes to do so, so at times certain girls do not get to see everything which sucks. And since we show are whole house the house is cleaned everyday for a week before just to make sure it does not take a really long time on house tours days.

[nauadpi]

Sadly to say at Northern Arizona University we dont have sorority houses, all the sororities and most of the fraternities live in one large res. hall. We each though have a chapter room. So for recruitment instead of walk outs, we are lined up on either side of the door to our chapter room (on the inside of the room). As we are standing there we are singing and prancing(dont ask about the prancing ) except on the first night, because we are not aloud to sing that night. The factor is that on the first night we dont get to show a house or anything, so we just talk to the girls.

[ROWDYsister]

Originally posted by PhiMuNursie
ROWDYsister, ya'll call names for round 1 too?! Maybe I'm forgetting but that must be super hectic since we don't get the rosters very early for round 1 to know who's coming through. On the other hand, maybe I'm thinking of prefs...

I don't remember which round they started calling names but I remember feeling relieved.

The watergun thing must be sooo irritating after a couple of times, esp. if you're already irritated with practicing walkouts...

[FuzzieAlum]

On my campus, they didn't hold rush in the houses (only about ten years ago no one had houses, so that's why) but in common rooms on campus. And our rush rules forbid any sister from leaving the room once the party starts. So we didn't do anything like walkouts. We would usually stand in the room and chant to welcome them in.

It just occurred to me that this spring, for the first time, all sororities on campus will now have a house. I wonder if they'll move rush into the houses? Personally, I don't think it's a good idea. The houses are reflective of what the unversity chose to give that sorority, and one house in particular is a dorm-style rather than a house-style and would surely suffer in comparison. (Plus it's a 15-minute walk from the other houses! I can just imagine coordinating shuttle vans!) If the chapters were responsible for their own houses, I might feel differently.

Sorry, that was a digression!

[JMUduke]

well we dont have to hide anything, just make sure everything is neat and organized. i remember rushing and being in one girls room and seeing a screen saver with our letters on it. it made me think these girls were really into it, which I took as a good sign....other than that, I liked how the girls rooms looked, it was cool to see another side of it, and it made me excited to be able to live in the house eventually.

[douthit]

From a fraternity standpoint, we don't "hide" anything, but the rooms that we do show are clean ones. For this upcoming fall rush, I think we will show one empty room that has recently been recarpeted and repainted, and one member's room who has done something unique with it. In the past, we have showed a room that had a mini-bar installed in it, and one in which the member had his bed hooked up to a pulley system, so it could be raised up to the ceiling when he wasn't using it.

All of this rush talk, sororities and fraternities, is getting me realy excited for the fall! It also doesn't hurt that we are expecting the biggest freshman class ever at Montana State

[jharb]

Originally posted by douthit
All of this rush talk, sororities and fraternities, is getting me realy excited for the fall! It also doesn't hurt that we are expecting the biggest freshman class ever at Montana State

Me too! Butler also has the largest freshman class ever. They don't know where to put them because they ran out of dorm space! I'm just glad to be living in the house so I don't have to worry about housing this year!

Jess

[ohdollypop]

Wow...I must say, these "walk outs" seem kind of impressive! Thinking back to rush on my campus...all the houses on our campus greeted you with a peppy, cheery song for the first round of rush. If there was a staircase at the front door (as my hosue did), the girls were lined up on that, all smiles. There were some unique songs at each house (I do not miss singing "boom boom boom boom....I wanna be an Alpha Chi!" ) but mainly people clapped and sang the greek alphabet song, as a sign of greek unity across campus. The PNMs lined up at the door, single file, and the sisters (lifetime members!) were would walk up one by one and pick the next girl in line.

For the first round, rush generally took place downstairs, but each house did a tour of both the downstairs and upstairs. You saw a variety of sisters rooms, they were all decorated nicely. This was the best part of rush, IMO. The sorority houses on the Syracuse campus are all beautiful, and it's just a great experience to actually get to see the insides of these old homes! Also, I think it's important to do room tours, because I think seeing how every sorority truly lives and conducts itself, could help to dispel certain stereotypes rushees may have prior to starting rush/recruitment. I do remember having to hide clocks, not being able to wear watches, turning off phone ringers, lowering answering machines, but as for computers? Those pretty much had to be at the very least signed off of the internet. And stereos were out, too...pretty much everyone has music playing (softly) to set the "mood" for their room.

For the second round, which was skit round when I rushed (I believe it is now "philanthropy night" at my alma mater) everything was done downstairs. Then for pref round, everything was done downstairs, except each house did a sort of "one on one" with a sister you had sort of clicked with, upstairs, in different bedrooms.

I have to say, I actually enjoyed rush. Maybe I was a masochist, or I just love smiling until my cheeks hurt, but it was so exciting to see all those young women, so eager to meet you, so happy to finally be starting a new phase of their college career. And so much fun to finally meet the newest faces of your chapter!!!

Ahhh, the things you miss when you're out in the "real world"!!!

[IvySpice]

>>Some chapters get nasty and squirt their sisters who mess up with water guns. Now I think that's a great idea, but not when you're getting squirted in the face!! I do understand though, when someone messes up, the whole chapter has to stop and re-line up and start all over again.

Water guns?!

I've been in Broadway-style musical productions where a chorus of 60 had to learn perfectly unison dance steps, quick entrances, etc...so I know about long, hard rehearsals and having to get an elaborate performance up to speed in a short period of time.

That being said, if any director had ever squirted me in the face for messing up during rehearsal, I'd walk out of the production and never come back...even if I were the star. That's something you do to a dog that jumps on the couch. That's not something you do to humiliate or punish a fellow adult. I can't even imagine my sisters doing something like that to me.

Ivy