Girls on the Verge
 

I have this book, and really loved the research the author did all over the country. I had to ask myself, too, if she didn't take a spot somone else would have done anything for. As I read her account, I could see her becoming more and more pulled into the scene, and beginning to care about who she got invited back to. She actually seemed excited to get her bid from a group she liked. I felt kinda sad for her that she was able to see the realness of the whole thing, but then had to leave. Maybe one day she'll become an Alumna Initiate!!

I'm an eccentric theatre major who never ever saw myself in a sorority, but here I am, and loving it... I'm sorry that your friend didn't give it more of a chance. Maybe she would have enjoyed it, and maybe she would have been a great addition to a house.

Hello all...I'm new to GC, but this subject intrigued me enough to join. I was a chapter consultant, and will have to go digging into the archives of my brain for some of those stories, but I do have one from when I was rush chair...

There was a really cute, smart girl going through rush, and everyone really liked her, but she kept asking questions about parties, etc., and probing into whether we had any problems with alcohol/drug abuse at our functions. MInd you, DZ had one of the strictest risk management programs around, so we were a little wary, but answered her questions honestly. Later that night, we found out that she was only taking 9 hours, and she had to be dropped from Rush (our campus required 10 hours).

We would see her on campus occassionally, and tell her that maybe if we did informal in the Spring--she could come to an informal rush party...she seemed interested, but wasn't hanging out with any of us otherwise. Come to find out, very late in the semester, there was a huge drug bust on campus--and she was in the middle of it. No, not a druggie, but an undercover cop! She was going through rush ON ASSIGNMENT!!!! At first, I was very angry, but later realized that if she had pledged DZ, she would have had a very, very boring semester as a narc (we were frighteningly by the book in those days), but she would have had a great time as a sister!

BTW-the people she ended up busting were those bad, bad independents with no one holding their leash! Greeks for once came out squeaky clean. :)

Lol

Me too :)

Hmm....let's see: Weird rush stories....I haven't been on here since our chapter's recruitment, so I'm sure I have quite a few from this year.

There is a "theater" girl who is a good friend of girls in my house. She's a senior who didn't go through recruitment her freshman year. Because she's a bit eccentric, a lot of the women in other houses do not really talk to her. So, this girl decides to go through recruitment and see how people treat her.

Well, we knew she was going through recruitment for a joke, so we were extremely tolerant. Women in other houses apparently really sugary sweet to her. Unfortunately, Kate found it insulting. So, she confronted them with all of their hazing incidentes....in front of PNMs. (And for the record, the hazing is true. It doesn't take a genius to figure that XYZ pledges are being hazed when they dress like babies to go the cafe.) The sisters in the house got really defensive and insulting back. Apparently, it was not a good scene at the end of the round.

I guess going through recruitment as a joke just doesn't work out a lot....

Oh yeah...here's another one. There is a sorority who is tops on our campus. They are such put together, nice girls. Well, maybe not behind closed doors.

One of the sisters in my house lives in a suite with a girl from this sorority (ABC). The girls from ABC said that after an event, some of the sisters started yelling at the others saying that they didn't "act enough." Act enough?! The girl from ABC said that some of the crimes committed of not "acting enough" were not laughing at a PNM's joke, eating more than one cracker, and...(oh god, it's the best)....not giving the desired response. Apparently, they were playing this game where they had to ask, "Would you rather do this or that?" When the PNM answered (no matter what), they were supposed to say "Oh my God! Me too!" and do this hand motion thing. Some of the ABC sisters were soo mad that sisters weren't doing it, they went off. And it started a fist fight. Yeah, that's right....a fist fight.

Well, they must have "acted enough"...they reached quota!

Sometimes I feel like my school is crazyland.

:)

Ew! That's really gross! And people wonder why everyone ends up with colds after recruitment.....hmmmm........

I'm new to Greek Chat and had to add my stories to it....
One girl, who was very sweet but totally did not fit into my house, came to our rush parties and ALL she talked about was her job at Bob Evans (a chain restaurant). She would say" I had to work at Bob Evans last night so i'm tired ..... if i join, will it interfere with my job at Bob Evans...? When asked if she knew a lot of people on campus, she said "no, i just hang out with the people from Bob Evans a lot". Of course, we cut her, and she ended up going to another sorority. I sure hope they all got discounts at Bob Evans.
Another girl rushed us two years in a row, and we offered a bid two years in a row. We figured that something may have happened or she hadnt' been ready the first time. We liked her alot. Well, another one of her friends pledged, and a few months later, this sister calls me (i was on council and the person everyone went to with questions about stuff) and said that that girl wanted to accept her bid now! A few months later!??????????? Of course we told her that wasn't possible.... the rush (which was informal) she came to ALL of our parties until we had to do cuts. Then she was SO upset that we didn't give her an invite to pref. We found out that she had said no the first two times because she wouldn't be able to spend enough time with her boyfriend. WHen she wanted to bid, it was because her boyfriend had broken up with her!
Another girl wore a short dress, and we could see up her skirt the whole time!
I probably have some others, i just can't remember right now

I thought a bid was good for one year from when it was issued ... if they never explicitly turned it down, they could accept it any time during that year.

If bids are good for a year, does that mean that a sorority has to pin down a girl to say yea or nay? It seems like they'd do that so they could bid someone else if the girl hadn't made up her mind.

Bids weren't good for a year at my school, at least for formal rush. In my day, rush was in the fall; bid day was Tuesday, and you had until Friday afternoon to decide. If you didn't sign by then, it was an implicit decline of the bid. You were still bound not to join another sorority for a year.

For informal rush, bids were good for a long time, but if a girl didn't say yes or no within a couple of weeks, we'd put the pressure on her (in a nice way - like "Our new member program is six weeks, so if you don't sign within the week, you can't be initiated until next semester"). We did have a sister whom we bid in the spring; she took the entire summer to decide, and wound up pledging with our fall-rush new member class.

An accident...but NOT a car accident!
 

Kinda long...sorry!!!



So this last fall when I was going through rush I really had no idea what to expect. On our first day we had 14 parties and two breaks, so during the first break, around lunchtime I decide to head back to my dorm to breathe for a minute! So I'm walking back with this girl whom I had met in my rush group and we were chatting and whatnot and then she leaves to go her seperate way. And I LOOK at her as she walks away and I see her make a point to step over this little foot and a half high brick wall (I still to this day don't know the purpose of that dumb wall!!) in front of our dorm. So I see her do that, but do I bother to look where I'm going? OF COURSE NOT!!! So I just completely fall over this little wall thing and end up all over the sidewalk. Fortunately NO ONE was outside the dorm to see me do this, but then I had to walk all the way to the third floor with blood EVERYWHERE. So when I finally examine my wounds I feel nauseous, bruises are already forming on both legs and knees, and on my left leg right above my foot til about the middle of my shin there are these two huge deep bleeding scratches. Gross gross gross. So here I am looking like some kind of war victim and I still have half of the very first day of rush to go! Well my PX tries her best to clean me up but all the cuts just won't quit bleeding, plus it was like 105 degrees out and I can barely walk, I was in SUCH a bad mood I just wanted to cry!. Miraculously, the rest of the afternoon goes fairly smooth anyway, but then I get to XYZ sorority, my last party of the day. The girl who picks me up seems really nice and she was until we were sitting down. Then she looks down at my leg and exclaims REALLY loudly "Eww!! Did you get in like a car wreck or something? That looks horrible!" And then as though that's not bad enough she calls over several sisters to look at it, it was soooooo mortifying. I know it was nasty but I COULDN'T help it, I tried my best to cover it up and sheesh, no need for such harsh comments! Needless to say, I cut this house after the first day!!!

:D :rolleyes:

When I was a rush chair and the head rho chi for my school, a girl had up to 48 hours to sign her bid card. Then the sorority had the option of taking away her bid and giving it to someone else if they chose to. I don't know how informal rush goes though with bids.

I guess I must have been thinking of informal bids ... I know girls who got them and deferred a semester.

This was our deal...

if we offered an open bid, you had 48 hours to SIGN it. However, once you signed it, if for whatever reason ($$, time etc) you decided you did not want to start pledging that semester you could wait till next semester.

I think groups used to do this with student athletes to "lock them in" (and vice versa) so no one else snatched them up. That way they didn't have to pledge during their sports season (i.e. give a tennis player a bid in the spring and she waits till fall to pledge). NPC doesn't really encourage it, but it is permissible.

Well, this happen about 4 years ago when i rushed at ECU. I was at the AOPi house the first day and they had virgin margaritas. The rusher was soo nervous she went to hand me the cup ( plastci margarita glasses) and dropped it on me!!! IT WAS MY SECOND PARTY ( i had 6 more that day and i didn't have a break to go change!!) Well, i didn't let that spoil my time, i loved the AOPi's and just laughed, but it was bad when the next day i was known as the margarita girl. I didn't go to any NPC sorority at ECU, but i was really good friends with A lot of AOPi ( my best friend was one).
We still laugh about it to this day!!

where have I been?
 

It's always been my understanding that ALL NPC bids are good for one calendar year. What's the deal? Do schools have individual jurisdiction? Of course, we had our bid night and pledging half an hour after PNM's got their bids, and when we extended bids during COB we always said "We're having pledging on Friday so you can initiate by the end of the school year," but of course never breathed a word that the bids were good for a year. I think this information came from an advisor or a TC...anyone out there have a green book? I'm so curious now!

Sorry, off topic, but as a chapter adviser I want to make sure I'm getting everything right.

I think the deal with the bids is if you sign a bid card; you can only pledge that sorority in the next year. All other NPC sororities on that campus can't take you.

I believe campus officials but additional restrictions on to keep chapters from stringing girls along. So XYZ can't bid Rhonda Rushee, ignore her for 6 months, then pledge her cause they have a space to fill. Like if we know we'll have 6 Winter graduates, we can't bid 6 more girls in the Fall or Winter but not pledge them till the Spring.

With SK, a girl has 24 hrs to decide to accept or decline a bid. If she accepts, she must be pledged w/in a certain amount of time. (I think w/in a week.)

What I can't remember is if the year rule applies for informal/cob.
Like if we have a Winter pledge class and a girl dp's. Can she rush another chapter in Spring or Fall? Or does she have to wait until next Winter? I don't remember anyone dp'ing in Winter or Spring so I'm not sure that I ever knew the answer to this.

Now that we're heading into Recruitment, let's chill out with these stories and some new ones I hope you'll add! Read these stories and you'll meet such fabulous rushees as the overly relaxed PNM, Mike the Pike, Rolly-Eyes Mute B**tch, and Fork Girl!

And be glad you didn't do what my roommate did...backing up to the back of a couch during prefs and doing a back somersault over it...in a short dress...

:eek:

A couple of my funny recruitment stories...

My junior year, right before preference, my (very long) hair started to catch fire on one of the candles that was too close to my chair. Thank goodness it didn't happen while the pmn's were there! Only a few strands were burned, but we had to open the windows and spray air freshener to get rid of the icky burning hair smell.

Ok, this story is kind of long, sorry! My senior year, one of my sisters was Panhellenic president, so she was disaffiliated during recruitment. On preference night, she had to go to XYZ sorority to talk to them about something, and she got there just as the party was letting out. A few of the girls that we really wanted had preffed there, so she went a few feet away from the house so that they didn't see her and wonder why she was there (since we have sophomore recruitment and it's a small school, it's kind of hard for people to not know what house you're in even if you're really good about following the rules and not being seen with your sisters during recruitment). Anyway, the pmns were being led out by their preference sisters, and each sister told the pmn, "I hope your wish is the same as mine tonight," or something like that. One of the girls we wanted, as soon as she was out of the XYZ sister's earshot (but right near my sister), said, "Yeah, only if your wish is for me to be an AGD!" It was all my sister could do to keep from laughing. Of course, that pmn is now a sister, and we always joke about that story. :)

Anybody else ever experienced the PNM who ran away? Well, I've had two of them, one each year that I've been a rusher.

My sophomore year during first set, each of us was to "grab" two PNMs at the door. I was the last in line and there were three, so I took all of them. This one girl completely wandered off! I tried to catch her, but my other two PNMs were quite happy where they were standing and didn't seem at all interested in moving. I signaled to a couple of my sisters to intercept her, but each of them would lose her, too. It was as if she had her own rotation schedule in mind. She'd stand there and talk to one group for a minute or two, then move on. She was as sweet as could be, met almost everyone that night and everybody knew who she was. We actually admired her spunk and independence; she was the example of a wonderful PNM with lots of questions to ask, determined to make an informed decision.

I, however, was feeling horrible during that party, worried sick because I'd been told never, never to leave a PNM alone. And there was mine, spinning out of orbit. Complicated by nausea that turned out to be a combination of nerve-induced acid reflux and mild food poisoning, I was running to throw up between parties. Overall, not the best time for my first Rush. [Fortunately the Pepto Bismol had kicked in by the third party, when I met the fabulous woman who was to become my little sis.]

During Pref that year, I accidentally knocked over a vase and spilled water all over the girl I was preffing. She suicided elsewhere but didn't match. We snapped her and she depledged after 4 weeks of wreaking havoc in our new member program (she really, really wanted to be across the hall and made her sentiments clear-- we should have known when she laughed her whole way through our Pledging Ritual). I like to think that my spilling water on her was not the only reason she didn't want to be a Kappa.

My junior year during first set, I actually managed to retain both of my PNMs all the way to the food table. This pair of women couldn't have been more different. The one who wandered off was a stunning beauty, for sure, but I watched her size up her average-looking partner, me, and most other girls in the room in a moment. When we got to the food table, this PNM latched onto a very pretty, young, fun alumna (class of 2000) and wouldn't leave her side. Again, several sisters, actives and alumnae tried to pry her off and get her back to me (or any active, really), but she wouldn't leave Cara and she wouldn't talk to anybody else-- especially not her partner. All they talked about was how our school's party scene was in decline. Needless to say, she was gone after that night.

The only other major "oops" that I made during Recruitment was during second set of my junior year, the Philanthropy Round. I was giving a short welcome spiel, just a little bit about what we were doing and what our philanthropy was about. I finished by saying, "If you have any questions about Kappa's local or national philanthropy, ask the actives at your table. And if you don't..." I just kind of stopped there. If you don't have any questions about our philanthropy... um... I stammered for a minute and finally said, "Then humor us and make some up." My advisor chewed me out big-time after that one.

BTW-- at least on our campus-- as far as I know, FR bids are good for 24 hours, unless the woman deferrs, which she can do for 72. If she is snapped by a group not listed on her signed pref card, she is not bound to that group and can depledge (and pledge another group) at any time. COB bids expire upon the woman's graduation, transfer, or withdrawl from the school. But with COB, the woman is not bound to us for a year if she signs a pref card. Her signing it merely allows us to give her a bid. The other thing is that she does not sign a COB acceptance form.

So here's my question (to Barbara or anybody who knows about NPC regs): Do the individual schools have jurisdiction about the rules for FR bids, COB bids, preference forms, COB forms, etc.? Or are those rules laid out by NPC and everyone has to follow them? Is that a matter of College Panhellenic bylaws or NPC? Please advise. I really want to get us on track here, because I think that my group could be hurt the most if our Panhel doesn't play by the rules. (Feel free to start a new thread so that we might stay on topic in this one.)

I'm not trying to be pretentious, but for some reason the post didn't go through, so I'm trying to give it a little help.

OMG I have been reading all these rush stories and laughing my head off! Although the one about the pyscho with the screw driver got me REALLY scared. I am so glad those girls are ok. Anyway, I will be partcipating in rush for the first time this year. While some of the stories have made me a lil nervous, I must say I can't wait until I have my own stories to put up here. I went through COB so I honestly have no idea what rush is like. Plus, my best friendwas a Phi Sig and I had become really good friends and hung out with most of the other sisters during the year. So when it came time to bid me, everyone knew who I was and liked me, so to me the process was really awesome. I can't wait to see what happens when I am a rusher. I am really outgoing, not at all shy, and LOVE to talk so this is gonna be a whole lot of fun for me. Will report back once it starts! :D

KappaKittyCat was talking about the wandering pmn, and it reminded me about how my little sis did the same thing during recruitment. She is really outspoken and opinionated and likes to do her own thing, plus she had already decided before recruitment that she was going to be an AGD. There were a few sisters that she already knew very well, so we intentionally paired her with sisters that didn't know her during the first round of parties. Well, she decided that she didn't feel like meeting new people that night; she wanted to go catch up with those of us she was already friends with. The sister that was supposed to be talking to her got kind of mad that she had run off, but we managed to convince her to give her a chance. At the next round of parties, she came and found me and started talking about how glad she was that she was cut by two of the houses because she really didn't feel like going back there and she didn't really like them anyway. I was trying really hard not to laugh, and I tried to steer the conversation away from that so that she didn't scare the other pmns. It was really nice having her there, though, because she was so hardcore about us already that she practically rushed the other pmns for us. :) She turned out to be an awesome sister, too! :)

One of our sisters was a total nightmare as a rushee!

I was talking to her and having a great conversation. One of my sisters is walking by and tries to do the "Just wanted to say hi!". The rushee pulls her into the conversation. I'm thinking "She's going to make one hell of a rusher but Penney needs to go!" Finally Penney manages to move on and I ask Meghan how long she's known Penney. I'm shocked to find out they'd never met before. Meghan was like that with everyone! Unsuspecting sisters kept getting pulled into conversations. The rotations were getting majorly jacked up. The advisors were freaking out. We can't send in a new sister until the one that's not supposed to be there leaves. No more than two sisters per rushee at a time.

And did she ever get into the group across the hall? How rude to do what she did...if I were in that other group and got wind of what she did I personally would NEVER vote to have her as a sister, someone with such little respect for other GLO's.

KappaStarboy thinks I'm crazy, I'm reading this and laughing and crying at the same time! I can just picture it. He personally thinks that was a great response...but what do guys know :) And the girl who complained about the party scene being on decline...oy...did she know what kind of a school she was at? Did she end up pledging anywhere?

I got rushed by a members of a sorority who was initiated the previous semester during my senior year in college. Funny thing is that she used my little brother to convince me to join my fraternity. Another funny thing, I was wearing an old Rush shirt and she still didn't realized that I'm a member.

Does anybody have any weird stories from this year?:)

Sorry, not from this year but kinda funny...


Panhel was very strictat my school. No rushee could set foot outside of a chapter house with ANYTHING! So I manned the doors at the end of every party to make sure, but there was never a problem...UNTIL

As this one rushee was leaving she had a handful of candy mints. I tried to tell her she couldn't leave with them (Rho Chis are at the door, too, "policing"), but she didn't get it. I actually had to step out the door and block it so she wouldn't leave. But she wanted them so much she stood there and stuffed them all in her mouth at once!!! We called her Mint Girl for the rest of Rush! But she was at our Pref, so we obviously didn't mind it that much! She went another house, though...

I had a girl walk up to me and ask "what's your alcohol policy?" She kind of caught me off guard and I didn't really know what to say. Basically what she was looking for was someone to say it was okay for her to underage drink. During rush I did not even want to tackle that subject matter so instead I told her about our Risk Management program. She did end up joining my local sorority but then she transferred to another school and became an Alpha Sigma Alpha.

I once had a girl sniff her armpits right in front of me -- at first I thought she was trying to intentionally get herself cut, but then I realized she was just plain weird. It caught me so off guard that I didn't know what to say to her after she did it.

a little confusion
 

This was a rather unique thing to happen..
In my Pi Chi group one of the pnm's was hearing impaired, the chapters were advised. Well I go into my first party and they thought that I was her. The girl just started signing to me. When I told her I wasn't deaf she just flew out of the room!! It's all good though because it is the house I am a new member in right now.

During formal rush last year, I was fairly nervous. At one of the early parties, I was speaking to a really great girl that I would have loved to have as a sister, which of course made me more nervous about making a good impression. So the party's over and I want to say something nice like, "I hope you have a good night," or, "I hope you've been enjoying rush."

God forbid anything ever comes out of my mouth like I planned. I ended up saying, "I hope you have more fun at your other rush parties," dropped the girl off at the door, and just stopped dead in my tracks when I realized what I said. She didn't end up in our chapter, but since she went where she was a legacy, I don't feel like it's totally my fault. :p

*bump bump*

This is a happy thread! http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmili...py/roflmao.gif

When I rushed at my former university, I became friends with a girl in another Rho Chi group who was very shy and awkward, and was determined to get her out of her shell. She was a legacy to KD through her mother and sister, but was cut before prefs from all but ZTA. She didn't get a bid for ZTA either (this girl was painfully shy and had a huge fear of even speaking to the sisters). Bid day, she came to my room and told me that she was considering killing herself rather than telling her mother that she didn't get in. Then she says that she'll just wear the KD shirt that her sister gace her - all she really wanted was a letter shirt to wear around kids from home. She started basically stalking my roommate who had pledged KD, following her around trying to get invites to parties, giving her nasty looks whenever she was in the room, and I came in one day to her not letting Jules out of her room until she promised that she would introdce her to some of her sisters. She went through rush the next year but was cut from everything again. I didn't realize that underneath the shy and awkward shell was a complete psycho.

Maybe they do it because they are there to mock us?

Gotta bump this one up for rush season!!!

This is my all time favorite thread. Really funny.:)

Here are some choice stories from last year's rush at my chapter :D :

The too-comfy rushee: I didn't rush this particular girl, but anyway...One PNM literally took off her shoes during one of the parties...That's a little TOO comfortable, thank you!! She then proceeded to stretch and lay her head back against the couch, nearly falling asleep. Nice.

The name dropper: I'm not sure if she actually said anything about it during rush, but I had a class with a PNM during 1st semester (we have deferred recruitment) and in that class, she would CONSTANTLY remind everyone that her brother was president of a popular fraternity on campus. Thanks for sharing, like I couldn't tell by your last name, anyway.

The little rich girl: A girl I knew from high school (a grade younger than me) came to our first round rush party, and this girl had a REALLY bad reputation in high school, so I wasn't too keen on the idea of having her as a sister in general. After the party, I asked the girl who had rushed her how it went, and she told me that the girl barely said a word to her, but when she heard an adjacent pair of girls having a conversation, she totally whipped around when she heard the word "Tiffany's" and totally ignored her rusher and just listened to the other conversation!

The PNM your recruitment chair warned you about: We actually did have a girl go through that asked one of our sisters something along the lines of, "OMG, is your house like 'XY'?" I realize that some girls will do stuff to try and get cut on purpose, but jeeeeeeeez...:rolleyes:

Not that innocent: I rushed a girl who I absolutely loved, so I made it so that the person that would rush her at the next party would be my roommate, who seemed very much like her. When my roomie rushed the girl, the girl asked, "Is it a big deal that I don't really like to drink?" To which my roomie responded (truthfully, I might add) that it wasn't a big deal at all (b/c my roomie doesn't really drink either!). The girl seemed relieved. Well, she ended up pledging another house, and the girls there happen to hang out a lot at my boyfriend's fraternity. So, a few weeks later, I was at a party there, and I ran into this girl. She was WASTED, and proceeded to tell my boyfriend, "This girl is AWESOME. I almost joined her house because of her!" Good to know, hon, good to know...

;)