How to encourage younger sister?

newsun · #1 08-05-2002, 09:36 PM

Does anyone have any good suggestions on how to encourage a younger sister to rush?

My younger sister would benefit greatly by joining a sorority, but she likes to do everything different now that she is in college and away from the parents if you know what I mean. She was an honor student and VP of her class in high school and made friend easily, but she is now basically coasting in college. Undeclared, taking cake classes, no goals other than seeing her boyfriend every weekend. She has made no new friends at college. She only hangs out with some high school friends, and none of them rushed.

I suggested to her that she should just check out rush, but that went in one ear and out the other! There are a lot of great houses on her campus. Even though she will be a sophomore this fall, I think she would receive a bid if she rush. I have thought about printing out info on each group and talking to her directly about the benefits and fun it would be to join a sorority. But I wanted to see if anyone else has been in this situation and what they did!

XOMichelle · #2 08-06-2002, 01:57 AM

My sister is going to college and I too would like some ways to tactfully bring up rush to her, since I think she would like being in a sorority... Any suggestions?
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dzsaigirl · #3 08-06-2002, 02:12 AM

I don't know...I am currently trying to get my brother to rush. He is also going into his sophomore year and just transferred to the school I went to from the school where he was (where my sister goes...yes, there were 3 of us in college last year!). My mom said she is thinking of bribing him somehow into rushing! My parents think it' s a great idea...I am really trying to get him to go to a rush event this week...they rush pretty much all summer...this is driving me nuts! He's already been invited out by 2 groups, but he hasn't stepped a foot on campus yet! If he would just go, he could basically take his pick...this is really frustrating!

Let me know if you are able to find a solution!

FuzzieAlum · #4 08-06-2002, 11:52 AM

I encouraged my little sister to rush. At the time her school had two locals and one national. She didn't like the locals (not because they were local, but because of the girls in them), and since there was no formal rush she COBed the national group. Well, everyone going through except for her got a bid, and they told her they need to know her better. She can be pretty quiet and shy around new people, and I'm sure that was a big part of it. She's very easily discouraged, too, so her senior year when another national colonized, she didn't even tell me about it, because she knows I would have told her to go do it! (And as we know, getting into a new colony is not that competitive, so her shyness wouldn't have hindered her.)

The funny thing was, the school she really wanted to go to had a strong sorority system and she stayed with one chapter when visiting. She really liked them and I'm sure would have rushed there. She got in to the school, too, but decided to stay closer to home. I think she realized pretty quickly she wasn't at the right school for her, but she stuck it out.

I still wish she were Greek! I know she wouldn't be an AXD, since none of the schools she considered had it, but we're all Greek together as they say.

I think the biggest influence you have is that you're the "older" sister so she still looks up to you at least a little. Talking up how great your experiences are may make her want to have them for herself.

violets · #5 08-06-2002, 07:44 PM

Good question. Actually my friend had her sister visit a city where there happened to be three alums from her chapter. They all got together and had a fabulous time. There was no specific talk about Rush, they just talked about their memories and their current close friendships spoke for themselves.
Invite your sister to a weekend and invite some of your sisters along. No pressure, the fun and the friendships will be totally obvious.
Good luck.

sairose · #6 08-07-2002, 06:57 PM

I would tell your younger sister about how much fun Greek Life is, how many friends you'll make, etc etc. Just tell her about the benefits and if she's still wary of it, tell her to rush and if she doesn't like it she can drop out of rush.

Remember, don't pester her. If she doesn't want to go greek, you can't change that.

ChiOqt · #7 08-07-2002, 08:09 PM

My younger sister is going to be a freshman at my university in the fall...and she's rushing. It's weird, I'm not sure how i would feel about her in my chapter, but I'm know she'll be the most amazing addition to any one....as far as encouraging her, show her pictures of how much fun it is. Talk to her about it, tell her how different it's made college. Good luck

KerriMarie · #8 08-07-2002, 10:45 PM

I agree with not hassling her too much - I am the daughter of two Greek parents, and they really wanted me to go through formal recruitment. I had decided that Greek Life was not for me, and managed to avoid it almost entirely until the spring of my sophomore year. One dinner at Kappa, and an embarassing phone call saying "Mom, I got a bid, what do I do?!" and I realized how wrong I had been. But nothing that anyone could have said would have influenced me to look into going Greek earlier. I regret not finding my home until halfway through my college life, but I'm grateful I found it at all.

fire1977 · #9 08-10-2002, 06:54 PM

Well, my sister just kind of ignored me and my parents did too. I was a little irritated and I looked up the scholarship info for my sorority and the alumnae panhellenic and sent the web pages to my dad. A week later my dad was calling me up and asking me what sorority I was in (Parents!). "I know one is a triangle and that last one is an "e" isn't it, what's that middle one again?"

I think she'll do it once she gets to school this year and gets a chance to see what it is like.

SigEp42 · #10 08-10-2002, 07:52 PM

I’m trying to get my sister to give rush a chance. My older brother is very anti Greek, when I was pledging he told my parents they were going to brand me with a hot iron and haze me. My parents have no idea what Greeks do. They hear all the stereotypes from my brother and all the good things from me. They were very confused for a period of time. My sister doesn’t know much about it either. She goes to an all girl catholic school and the teachers actually told them that sororities were evil and they should never join; basically called them dens of sin. I guess it’s a good thing my sister doesn’t listen to anyone.

I really didn’t think my sister was thinking about rushing until she came to visit me at college she stayed with me in the house and everyone treated her like she was their little sister, they gave her and her friend shirts from our last party. She got a chance to meet real live sorority girls and on the 4 hour drive home she and her friend kept asking questions about being in a sorority.

She still has a year before she goes to college but when ever I bring up SigEp or a sorority she is really interested. Except for the show sorority life she never watches it but that could be a good thing. But overall I would say exposing Greek life to her really helped kind of put a name to the term “sorority” and “fraternity" and helped with the sterotypes.