A Yummy Slightly Old Recruitment Journey

[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.

[greekmom2]

Now she had a quandary or thought she did. She had decided that if she got Root Beer Floats and Donuts for preference she was going through with this thing all the way because she would accept a bid to either one. If she got Donuts and Brownies she thought she would drop out and apply(? not sure if that's the word) for the colony because she didn’t see herself at Brownies and she liked Donuts but she didn’t think she felt strongly enough about them. She had no idea what she would do if she got Root Beer Floats and Brownies for preference. She was worried that if she went to both preference parties, but got a bid to Brownies (which she felt she would turn down), she couldn’t apply for the colony. She thought (she doesn’t know to this day if this was the case) that if she single preferenced and didn’t get a bid, she still would not be eligible for the colony. I don’t THINK this is accurate from what I remember reading on here, but she thought it was at the time.

She spent Monday morning in class, stressed about it. Her Rho Gamma had to let her know before practice where she was preffing, so she could meet them at the chapter house. She texted at 2:30 – Root Beer Floats and Donuts. She called me happy and relieved for once. She knew that one way or another she would be in a chapter she liked tomorrow.

I know from the stories on here that sometimes preference changes minds. In her case it solidified what she knew. Donuts had a lovely ceremony, and she knew if she got a bid here she would be good, but she felt special at Root Beer Floats. She felt like they went all out. They called the girls in individually. The layout/food was beautiful. Her rusher talked to her about why they liked her and what they loved about their chapter. She isn’t a crier, so she didn’t do that, but it was meaningful to her. She wanted Root Beer Floats badly.

[greekmom2]

Aaannnd without further adeiu- here is the last entry for this very, very long rectruitment story.



Let me just say that I am a lifelong Baptist tea-totaller, but after two years of this I was in need of … a BIG bottle of vodka or scotch…or maybe Jack Daniels. On bid day I had morphed into a full-blown stressed out fruit-cake mother, and she was fine. She told me that they would go to the rec center for dinner, and they would open their bid cards after dinner and the Rho Gamma reveal. She warned me that they would go immediately to bid night activities, so I probably wouldn’t hear anything from her until later that evening. Longest evening of my life outside of my children’s birth. Around 10 I got a call. I heard happy voices all around her from excited girls. She was walking back to her dorms with some of the girls in her new pledge class….


..........













Root Beer Floats.


On that night I wrote my first entry on this forum…a thank you for all of the great information we had gotten. It wasn’t always what she wanted to hear, but it helped her. It still helps me understand her world a little better.

Under my regular user name I am AXOmom and my daughter is an AXO at the University of Oregon.


The first thing she did was send a facebook message to her Rho Gamma at Party State telling her how much her support meant to her and how well it all turned out. The Rho Gamma wrote back and told her how happy she was for her and that the message made her cry. She and the Raspberry Parfaits were Kappa Kappa Gammas.


The Donuts that she also preffed at U of O and loved at Party State were Kappa Deltas. Her roommate pledged them and was very happy there.


The Apple Pies were the one group very close to their code name – Alpha Phis. When her boyfriend asked to pin her, an Alpha Phi was with her- she, along with Brooke’s KD roommate and a Candied Apple, were the only non-AXO’s that Brooke invited to that pinning.


The Chocolate Cakes were Pi Phis. A very different group on her two campuses but she she liked both.

The Sorbets/new colony were Tri- Deltas. They got a house the following year right across the street from hers, and as expected did a beautiful job with it. They are doing well as far as she knows.


Two years later the Chocolate Strawberries were added as a colony. They were Kappa Alpha Thetas and next fall will be their first formal recruitment.


Jason, who gave her the good advice, was an SAE.


The first boy she met on campus- cute, clueless boy(about sororities at least) - was a Beta Theta Pi. He’s the guy who pinned her a year and a half later.


There have been members of many, many other sororities and fraternities who affected, influenced and changed her outlook on the whole thing during this last few years and whom she counts as friends.


She had her ups and downs in her sorority. There were days that she loved everything about it and days she thought she made a big mistake (those were rare). She had girls she loved and girls that from time to time drove her up and down every wall of their chapter room (I’m sure she drove more than a few up the walls as well). She became social chair one year (hence the emphasis on social priorities), and it led to a change in her career path. She decided she wanted to become an event planner and she’s pursuing that. It isn’t an experience she would give up for anything and although the road to get there seemed eternal (like this story), she’s always been glad she made it.

[Tulip86]

Amazing story

[FSUZeta]

hooray!!! i loved this story. thank you so much for sharing it with us.

[Gusteau]

I enjoyed this story!

I had an inkling that it might be a Pacific Northwest school from your comment about recycling and bike trails, lol. I adore the state of Oregon, but am sorry to say that that love was born in Corvallis!

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Thanks for sharing! I'm dying to know, why do you say the KD house "fits the campus culture"?

[ElieM]

Great story

[AXOmom]

DeltaBetaBaby - because to me it always looked - from the outside at least - sort of like a big, beach house - kind of a rounded, sweeping porch and just a very, casual pretty as opposed to traditional, colonial. Not that I don't love seeing pictures of the traditional, big houses- they are beautiful, but U of O is a very, casual, easy-going sort of atomsphere and as I've mentioned in other threads - non-traditional, and not far (an hour) from the beach, so it all fits for me. I just really like it. WCSweet has put pictures of it on here somewhere.

Gusteau - it's hard for me to believe that someone's first experience in Oregon would be Corvallis and they'd still come away loving it - but hey, to each his own. Actually, I know the least about OSU's greek system, but my favorite co-worker was a Kappa Kappa Gamma there back in the day and her daughter was a DG (and now their chapter advisor, I believe).

[ellebud]

I have so many positive comments on this thread: I love your dispassionate maturity. The this is how it is attitude. I completely respect the way you did it the old fashioned way: you named houses...real houses aligned with real people. Wonderful.

[AXOmom]

^^^^Well, I was trying to tread that fine line between honesty and protecting the innocent or at least those who shouldn't be unfairly painted by the sometimes superficial brush of a, then, 19 year old mind and so many, many of her views on these houses and the people in them have changed multiple times over the past few years. Fortunately, she's grown up and changed a lot too, and we are pretty far removed from the experience, so it makes it easier to be objective.

[Leslie Anne]

This is one of the best Recruitment stories I've read. Thank you so much for sharing it with us! I do love a happy ending but I also loved your commentary. You maintained that line between honesty and protecting the innocent expertly. Brava, AXOmom!

[MaryPoppins]

Thank you for this story!

[AXOrushadvisor]

All I can say is LOL!!! I started thinking maybe I had heard part or all of this story at some point!!! Maybe, just maybe my dd will also become a part of that sisterhood IF she decides on University of Oregon the ONLY school she is looking at that has an AXO chapter!

Thanks! I loved your story and you didn't react/act any different then I would have. BTW, I am thinking I'm just going to be on propofol the entire week. I think I might know of a Doc that has some time on his hands!

[southbymidwest]

My head is nodding like a bobblehead doll agreeing with all the comments about your wonderful story. I am so glad that your daughter had the happy ending, the real life happy ending that we all hope our daughters will have. And big, big pats on the back for you and your handling of the roller coaster ride.