Did everyone LOVE formal recruitment?

[erniegurl00]

I guess I didn't mind going through FR too much. I really had no clue what to expect. I was never asked the daddy question, but some houses didn't treat me too well. At one house the girls didn't talk to me. I was directed to a back room and basically two girls "rushed" me. (aka they talked to themselves). That was really my only bad experience.

I loved getting to know the different sisters that I met. I'm a sucker for greek life. I love looking inside all of the houses and learning all the different facts of the different chapters.

I also really enjoy rushing from the "other" side. I love singing those silly songs and decorating the house. Yes, although it was stressful, I enjoyed being in charge of Pref my senior year. It's always the best on Bid Day when you meet your newest sisters, which is true when you're going through recruitment and you finally find your home.

[mommag2]

I never went through formal rush and I'm really happy that I didn't. I went rushed in the Spring when rush is informal and not all sororities do rush in the Spring.

My sorority is an associate of Pan-Hellenic at my university so we only do information night. If information night is indicative of what the rest of the week is like then I'm REALLY, REALLY glad that we don't formal rush.

I feel so sorry for the girls that go through that first night. They are rounded up like cattle and cannot talk until they get to their next room, (info night is held in the math building), then there is loud singing and each org tries to outdo each other by getting loder and louder.

By the time info night was done my sisters and myself had major headaches. We had seen over 200 hundred girls that night.

I know that for some of you 200 might not seem like alot, but with a small greek community like ours that is more than enough.

[mu_agd]

Originally posted by sugar and spice
I can't even imagine houses asking "How much does your daddy make?" or anything along those lines. Here, one house asked a couple girls in my rush group what their parents did for a living (I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt; I think they were just nervous and ran out of questions) and everybody thought that was incredibly tacky. Wow.

my old roomate got asked that when we were going through rush. put her in an awkward situation since her father had passed away in a plane accident years before. part of the reason i really hate that question.. it's tacky and it can bring up a horrible situation.

[PinkRose1098]

Originally posted by 33girl
What is "leg line"? I'm picturing a line of sisters shaking their legs at the PNMs in unison.

Yes, leg line is the line of sister that get the pleasure of talking to all the legacies (or other girls that we're really in or that are a royal pain in the butt) that come through our door during the week. I think one of the reasons I was there was because I was one of the few who could answer pretty much any question about our sorority and chapter on the spot. At least I hope thats why.

[lyrelyre]

Maybe I'm a huge dork, but:

I LOVED formal rush! I loved every second of it. Going through it and being in the house during it. I couldn't get enough. I looked forward to it all year and was bummed when it was over. I'm still the recruitment advisor at my chapter. I would love to be a national recruitment chair for my organization.

Yep, nobody has to say it: I am a huge dork!!!

[KillarneyRose]

Originally posted by honeychile
Well, I don't know how anyone else would answer that question, but my response would have been (with a laugh), "Daddy does just fine, thank goodness!" or something on that line.

Darnit, Honeychile, you're GOOD!

I'm not going to mention the GLO, but one actually did your basic Dun & Bradstreet on me when I was rushing.

I bet I know

[TrueBlueKappa]

Originally posted by ZTAngel
I had even more fun as an active. I really believe it's more stressful for the sisters during recruitment than the PNMs. You have to watch what you say to the PNMs so it doesn't get misconstrued into a verbal bid, remember all the entrance and exit song/dances, and keep a smile on your face the whole time. You're dead tired because you just dealt with Spirity Week and now you have to be at the house everyday at 8am and you're not done until 1am. Still, I loved it. Recruitment time always made me closer to my sisters and it always reaffirmed my reason for joining.

I completely agree! I never went through as a PNM-I joined my chapter at colonization. Because of that, I never realized how stressful recruitment really is- for everyone. And despite all the late nights, hard work, and everything I put into it, I spent a wonderful week bonding with my sisters. It brought us all so much closer.

[CarolinaCutie]

I did not love formal recruitment when I went through. I didn't hate it, but it was pretty tiring. I was excited, but it was also a lot of nervousness that I didn't enjoy.

But I do love formal recruitment as a sister, for some reason.

ETA: OK, maybe I'm slow, but I don't see the point of knowing how much money someone's daddy makes. Yes, we all want prompt dues-paying members in our chapter. But while I'm sure it's nice to have a rich girl, I don't really see why it matters. Is it the clothes & nice car & stuff? Is it an image thing? I don't know what girls are rich in the other chapters at my school, and we've got a small Greek system. And if I do know that they're wealthy, it doesn't really impress me. I don't know, I just don't get it. The only possible benefit I can imagine of having a rich girl in my sorority would be if maybe her daddy would buy us stuff outside of our budget, like donations and stuff. And of course, if she was also cute and had a sparkling personality...

[sairose]

I never went through NPC recruitment, but a good friend of mine (now an AOII) did last year. She told me this story. The first night of Rush, she was wearing a pair of Tiffany earrings that she borrowed from a family member. They aren't rich or anything; the earrings are a family heirloom. Anyways, when she went to XYZ's party, one of the girls told her, "we knew you'd make a good XYZ when we saw the Tiffany earrings!" Not surprisingly, they were the first house she dropped.

The good news is, that was the only gorup she had a bad experience with. She enjoyed the other groups.

[kk_bama]

Originally posted by sairose
I never went through NPC recruitment, but a good friend of mine (now an AOII) did last year. She told me this story. The first night of Rush, she was wearing a pair of Tiffany earrings that she borrowed from a family member. They aren't rich or anything; the earrings are a family heirloom. Anyways, when she went to XYZ's party, one of the girls told her, "we knew you'd make a good XYZ when we saw the Tiffany earrings!" Not surprisingly, they were the first house she dropped.

The good news is, that was the only gorup she had a bad experience with. She enjoyed the other groups.

Why does that NOT surprise me? I swear, some of the chapters here...I wish they would just get over their materialism sometimes.

[astroAPhi]

Originally posted by honeychile
This is terribly interesting!! One of the things that most of my sorority friends brag about as they graduate & are in the Real World is their ability to talk to just about anyone, and the other skills learned during Recruitment!

I gave campus tours and then started giving Engineering Lab tours that are a bit more personal during my senior year. My boss, who was the Director of Engineering Labs, figured I was good at it from campus tours. I told him it was actually from recruiting girls for my sorority. Needless to say, he was pretty impressed that we pick up skills like that, and I think he'll take a harder look at Greeks when it comes to doing jobs like that.

[astroAPhi]

I LOVED Formal Recruitment too because I liked how it laid out all my options for me. I had no experiences with sororities whatsoever, and I liked that I had a fair chance to meet all of them. The biggest stress was that I liked BOTH groups and when you only have 2 choices, I think it makes it harder for one to stand out. My mind wasn't made up until I filled out my Pref card.

Ok, having to wait til the next day drove me crazy too, because I REALLY wanted Alpha Phi.

I'll admit, however, it's not too hardcore at my school. Designer dresses? Please, like we would know what one even looked like. What does your daddy do? He's poor from paying outrageous tuition prices. The Recruitment Counselors don't do stuff like not allow the girls to talk between parties or anything like that, although I don't think some of the representatives of the groups are exactly the type of people I'd want to come up to with a "OMG I don't know who to pick" type situation. I think our school needs to work on RCs leaving their own personal biases at the door.

[blueGBI]

I would never want to ever go through formal recruitment again but I learned a very important skill:

How to start a conversation out of the air.

I'm a very nervous person and I'm uncomfortable when I first meet people. But having to spend 20-30 mins in with one chapter talking to 3-4 ladies and having to find a common interest to talk about forced me to abandon my nervousness and start talking to people. I can say that out of all the chapters I met, at only 4/20 did I have a problem starting/continuing a conversation. I've used this in applying for jobs and for APO rush (I'm the person they put in front of the rushees who weren't sure if they wanted to rush or not because I'm considered to be such a good talker.)

[ASTLuv21]

Going through as a PNM I enjoyed. I got to meet so many different people and I was a freshmen who didn't know anyone. I happend to find one of my good and now very close friend (who is also a sister of mine, we pledged together) through formal recruitment.

As an active now, I am so-so about it. I have fun but at the same time I just wanna pull my hair out. I tend to call it Hell Week because that is what it seemed like to me last year because I was busy with classes, work and formal recruitment. This year will be another Hell Week too because I am one of the ones to actually run our parties and make sure everything goes smoothly. And since we are a small chapter compared to the rest of the sororities on campus, it's gonna be a lil hard.