One VERY Long Recruitment Story :)

wildcat10 · #1 08-26-2009, 07:17 PM

Hey everyone! I just want to give y'all a little background info, since I'm pretty new here. I've been "lurking" for a month or so, but only signed up a few days ago. I really love the Panhellenic atmosphere on this site, and my favorite thing to read so far has been the Recruitment stories, so I thought I'd share mine. It's pretty long, complicated, and strung out, so bear with me here! I've already written it all up in Word, so I plan to be posting at least once a day, maybe more, depending on how bored I get during class and if you all want me to post more, haha.

I grew up in a small town where most of girls pledged a certain sorority we'll call RED. (I'm using colors to differentiate the sororities, by the way... I'm not terribly creative, and I figured it would be easiest to keep up with... but don't read too much into my color choices, because I'm picking them at complete random!). My mom pledged RED when she was in college, but left the sorority while on bad standing. I don't know a lot of details about what happened, except that it left a bad taste in her mouth for Greek Life. My aunt (who actually raised me) is a ORANGE alum, & that particular sorority happens to include nieces as legacies. Remember this-- it's important later!

I started college at a tiny little school about an hour away from home. It's considered pretty prestigious around here, but also has a reputation for being a party school. When I did my overnight visit in the spring of my Senior Year of high school, I completely clicked with the girl I stayed with. She happened to be the president of LIME, a sorority whose girls I quickly fell in love with. I knew a few of them from home already. Two other girls from my hometown were members of PURPLE. My aunt's sorority was also as this school, as was another group who we will call SLATE.

Several weeks before school started, I began to converse with other new students on Facebook. A question about Rush came up, and I mentioned that I really loved everyone I had met in LIME. Facebook at this point was still fairly new, so I didn't really take etiquette into consideration. Rush is deferred at this school just a few weeks, and until then, none of the actives are allowed to have any sort of contact with PNM's. However, word got around to me that the two actives from my town (keep in mind, it's VERY small) from PURPLE had seen the Facebook post and were really angry with me and had already said there was not a chance I would join their sorority. Um, yikes!

So, rush hadn't even begun and I already had sorority drama...

wildcat10 · #2 08-26-2009, 07:36 PM

Okay, so now with all the boring background info out of the way, we can start the actual Rush story

I kept a diary of this whole experience, so fortunately I have a pretty detailed account.

My roommate, who I'll call Alex, was pretty rebellious and completely anti-sorority, but she signed up for recruitment because I was doing it.

So the sororities at this school are:
ORANGE
SLATE
LIME
PURPLE

The first day was Open House, and we went to each of the sororities. Each sorority has a designated hall in lieu of houses, and for Open House they each had a different room on campus.

Alex & I were in the same Rho Gamma group. The first sorority we visited was PURPLE. I was absolutely terrified of their screaming and shouting! Our Rho Gamma had warned us it might be a little loud, but I still wasn't prepared. I saw the two girls from my hometown, and neither one acknowledged me. I started to feel a little sick-- I absolutely hate any sort of conflict, & it was killing me to know they thought that I didn't want to join their sorority, and even more so, it killed me to know that there was nothing I could say or do to let them know that I had simply made a very childish and naive mistake in posting that comment on a public website (for the record, the comment didn't say anything negative in the least. It was more along the lines of, "I'm so excited for recruitment, I already really love LIME!" Still naive, yes, but not negative in the least). Anyway, the girl who talked to me didn't seem to be very interested in anything I had to see and spent most of the party talking to Alex because they had a mutual friend. She did tell me that she knew who I was and that I had gone to high school with the other two girls. I left the party overwhelmed and confused.

My next stop was at LIME, and I couldn't have been more excited. Girl #1 from my hometown met me at the door and led me to a table. Girl #2 from my hometown stopped by to say hi, and brought the president over. I fell even more in love with the girls during this round. They were all so bubbly and excited to see us, and really made me feel special. I left the party knowing this is where I wanted to be.

Next up was SLATE. I had heard they didn't have a very strong membership, but I was met at the door by one of my orientation leaders, and she introduced me to several of her sisters. Their philanthropy was something that I really care about, and I LOVED their mascot. The next girl I talked to gave me a really weird vibe, though-- almost like she was kind of angry that she had to be there. I left with pretty mixed feelings about this sorority. On the one hand, I loved my orientation leader and the philanthropy, but on the other hand, the second girl was kind of awkward and they didn't have the best reputation on campus (don't judge me too harshly, I was 18 and admittedly very immature/naive!).

My last stop was at the sorority I was a legacy to, ORANGE. I had heard very little about them since I had been on campus. I was met at the door by the cutest blonde girl. She really reminded me of a Barbie doll, and that's even what I wrote down in my rush diary that night. They had some of the best decorations I had seen, and a very cute song. I really liked the girls, and they made me feel special because they only had one other legacy that year (I found this out later), but I still felt like LIME was home. Of course, I had two more nights to go...

At the end of the night, I didn't have too much trouble ranking them. My sheet looked like this:

1. LIME
2. ORANGE
3. PURPLE
4. SLATE

We could go back to three sororities the next day.

baci · #3 08-26-2009, 07:42 PM

I am ready for the next post!

twinkle555 · #4 08-26-2009, 07:51 PM

I'm hooked...more please?

chitown · #5 08-26-2009, 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by twinkle555

I'm hooked...more please?

Agreed. If it's already written...can you just post one section every five minutes? That would be great. Thanks.

wildcat10 · #6 08-26-2009, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chitown

Agreed. If it's already written...can you just post one section every five minutes? That would be great. Thanks.

Oh, but what fun would that be??

I'll post more often... I do have to go in and change the colors into html codes-- is that what it's called? Whatever, y'all know what I mean! So that does take a little bit of time to sit down and do, but at the moment I'm a bored college student, sooo expect a new post shortly!

wildcat10 · #7 08-26-2009, 08:33 PM

Our recruitment took place in the evenings, so I had a very long day of class before I got my schedule for the night.

Alex & I sat in a corner and opened our papers together. We had both listed the exact same sororities in the exact same order, so we were pretty confident we would have similar schedules.

Alex's face immediately dropped when she opened hers. She had really loved ORANGE the night before. Her schedule only listed PURPLE and SLATE.

I opened mine next, and surprise surprise-- PURPLE had cut me. However, although I was disappointed, I was also excited because I had a full schedule with the other three sororities, and I did get asked back to my top two favorites. Mostly, I was just frustrated over such silly drama. I later learned that PURPLE and LIME are huge competitors and rivals, which explains why they took such offense to my Facebook post.

On this night, we were to visit the sorority halls. The first one I visited was ORANGE. Since all of the halls are in the same dorm (and it's a very small dorm, at that), you could hear the other sororities cheering and clapping. ORANGE was one of the smaller two sororities on campus, and they didn't seem as enthusiastic as the others did. I was still excited to visit them, though, especially since I had such a great experience there the night before. This time, I was met at the door by a Junior who co-taught my "Freshman Experience" class. I hadn't even realized she was in ORANGE until the previous night. Not only was she an ORANGE sister, she was also Recruitment chair, so she was able to talk to me a lot about leadership positions (something that was/is very important to me). We had an okay chat, but I still just didn't feel like the sisters were being very enthusiastic. They were very nice to me, and they all asked about my aunt's experience in ORANGE, but overall, I felt a little letdown, considering how wonderful I felt the night before.

Next stop was LIME. This time, I was picked up by Girl #1's big sister. You could hear the LIME'S over all of the other sororities, and I was blown away by how excited they were. Tonight, their decorations were the best, and I talked to so many sisters, I couldn't keep them all straight. Some of the girls talked about "when" I was a LIME instead of "if" I joined LIME, and being the super analytical person I am, I took that to mean I was definitely getting a bid.

Last stop of the night was the SLATE hallway. You could hardly hear them at all over everyone else's screams, but they looked like they were having a little more fun this night. Nothing particular stuck out about them this night, other than I talked to a sweet girl who I hadn't known before and that her bedroom was decorated really cute.

I had an easy time ranking them, again. Tomorrow night, we would go from three sororities to two for Pref night.

I ranked:
LIME
ORANGE

Basically, my opinions hadn't changed very much from the night before. I thought a little less of ORANGE, but I already knew where I was headed, anyway, so it didn't really matter. If nothing else, I figured I would come out of this whole experience with a bunch of wonderful LIME sisters and some new friends in ORANGE and SLATE.

Stay tuned! I'm headed out for the night, so I won't be back until tomorrow.

P.S. I know my school(s) (consider that a hint) are pretty obvious, and I don't really care if you know where I am, but I'd really like to keep it a surprise until the end for the people who haven't figured it out. Thanks

KSUViolet06 · #8 08-26-2009, 08:40 PM

Question: Did you not rank SLATE, or did you just forget to list them in your post? I don't see them in your rankings. No big deal, I'm just confused.

qbt1990 · #9 08-26-2009, 08:43 PM

Loving this story AND how quickly it is moving!

wildcat10 · #10 08-26-2009, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

Question: Did you not rank SLATE, or did you just forget to list them in your post? I don't see them in your rankings. No big deal, I'm just confused.

Oops! I did rank them... I put them last. I didn't mean to leave them off, thanks for catching that!