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Old 05-04-2020, 09:01 PM
Leora Leora is offline
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Join Date: May 2020
Posts: 9
Where the Dream Takes You: An Atlantis Recruitment

Hey! I remember stumbling upon this site as a freshman, and after discovering the vast number of recruitment stories, proceeded to ravenously devour as many as I could. So now that we're all stuck at home for the most part, I thought I'd return the favor and share my own. I am an alumna of my sorority and didn't take any notes while going through recruitment (regrets), so this is by no means going to be a perfect recollection, but I'll do my best.

The theme is Atlantis: The Lost Empire after my favorite underrated Disney film. <3

Background: I graduated high school with a high GPA, not the best, but high. My grades had suffered a little from all the time and energy I had spent on my activities (dance and cheer). I decided to attend a smaller college, "Atlantis," not too far from home, but not too close either. No one in my family was a part of Greek life, that I knew of anyway, but a woman who had just graduated from Atlantis suggested I go through recruitment and even offered to write me a letter of rec for her sorority. That planted the idea in my head - hey, maybe I should - and after doing some research, I finally decided, why not. If I didn't end up in a sorority, no harm no foul, at least I could say I had tried something new.

There were nine chapters on campus, all part of the NPC, and formal recruitment was in the fall, over a weekend, shortly after classes had started. Round 1 - Friday, Round 2 - Saturday, and Round 3 - Sunday.

Here are the chapters in random order:
Milo
Rourke
Kida
Vinny
Sweet
Sinclair
Audrey
Packard
Mole

Since this was fall recruitment and I'd barely been on campus, I didn't really have any preconceived notions about the chapters. One of my classes did have some non-freshmen in it, and the actives made sure to wear shirts with their letters on them to promote their chapters, so I did take notice of that, but it didn't really tell me all that much about them. However, one of the girls in my recruitment group (she stood right next to me in line) had gone through recruitment the previous year, and she gave me a rough idea of who was at the very "top" and at the very "bottom" of the totem pole. That's all I knew going in, oh, and that I had a recommendation too. I looked up to my rec-writer and was eager to meet her chapter.

Round 1:
Call it what you like, I decided day one of recruitment that I wasn't going to wear any makeup. No foundation, no mascara, no lipgloss, no nothing, because the stereotypes I'd heard about sorority girls had gotten in my head, and I was determined to see if they loved me for me. As an active on the other side, I wore a full face of makeup, dress to impress and all that, so I laugh about this now. Do I regret it? No, I ended up exactly where I was meant to, but I am curious if my list would have looked a little different or not if I'd bothered to do more than wash my face and brush my hair. We'll never know.

Anyway, going into recruitment, I was both excited and nervous, and had absolutely no idea what to expect. I'll note here that I only remember for sure which chapter I saw first, and which I saw last, and everybody else is somewhere in the middle.

Rourke was my first chapter of the day, and as a result, they became the chapter that I compared every other chapter to...and boy, did they set the bar high. Okay, admittedly, I had a moment where I stepped in, saw all the actives chanting, smiling, and clapping, and thought I'd accidentally wandered into a horror film, but then I was led to a seat by an active and the talking began. As it turned out, the active had a lot in common with me, including a dance and cheer background, and when the time came for another active to tap her on the shoulder, I did not want her to leave! I still had an enjoyable conversation with the other active, but Rourke #1 was my girl, my future big, I could envision it now, my whole future as a Rourke. I had it bad.

Walking into Vinny, I noticed the atmosphere seemed calmer, less energetic than Rourke. Honestly, calmer was more my style, but it felt like coming down from a caffeine high. Anyway, the active that picked me up, right away, I noticed that there was something familiar about her. We started talking, the usual surface-level introductory stuff, and then it hit me: we had attended the same dance studio! To be more specific, the active had been one of the star dancers there, several years and levels above me, and thus, had been one of my dance role models. I tried to be casual about it: "Hey, didn't you dance at 'Lost'? I danced there too." Her whole demeanor changed. Before she had been warm and friendly, but now she was cold and distant. She completely brushed off the topic, as if I'd never even spoken, and continued on with whatever she'd been talking about before. I was stunned...and hurt. Honestly, I hadn't had the best experience at Lost, so looking back, I imagine even as one of the director's favorites, she'd had a hard time there too. But I decided right then and there, that I never wanted to be a Vinny, and the other active I talked to there did nothing to change my mind.

Audrey was the chapter I had most looked forward to because it was the chapter that my rec-writer had belonged to. They performed some extra-snazzy motions to their chants that made them stand out from the other chapters in my mind. An active stepped up to lead me to a seat, and as I didn't know exactly what a recommendation from an alumna entailed, I didn't know that this active had been specifically selected to talk to me because she was my rec-writer's friend. The conversation started out great, everything was going smoothly and I felt like I could picture myself as an Audrey, and then she dropped this bombshell: "Are you a Christian?" I froze. In short, the answer was yes, I considered myself to be a Christian, but I didn't go to Church anymore because the institution didn't sit well with me (mostly the sexism I'd experienced within the Church). But I didn't want to get into the details with her, so I just said, "Yes." It was like she'd kept it all pent up inside of her, the active practically exploded with all her great passion for God including her participation in the various Christian clubs on campus, etcetera etcetera. I was cringing inside the entire time, doing the whole smile and nod thing, and while she was polite about it, she could tell by my short "mhmms" that I didn't share her feelings on the subject. Now, I didn't completely cross off Audrey at this point, as I admired my rec-writer and this had been her chapter, but that conversation had definitely not gone the way I thought it would.

This is the part where I admit I remember absolutely nothing about Packard. Nothing about the decorations, about what we talked about, what the actives looked like, nothing! Needless to say, they didn't make much of an impression on me, unlike their animated counterpart.

The beginning of my meeting with Mole was rather unusual (like the character, haha), or at least, in comparison to the other chapters I had met. Instead of immediately sitting down for conversation, the PNMs were bunched into small groups and led around various tables where actives spoke about the chapter. This wasn't a bad thing, necessarily, but the whole thing felt very rehearsed to me and I became rather bored. Finally, the actives pulled us aside to talk, and the active I spoke with also had a dance and cheer background. Yes! Something I could talk about passionately. As it turned out, her cousin had also attended my high school and was on cheer with me (small world, huh?). Unfortunately, I didn't get much time to talk with Mole #1 because of the whole tables thing, and another active stepped in after we'd only just begun to get into what I considered to be 'the good stuff.' With Mole #2, all we had time for was introductions, and then the bell rang. I'm not going to lie, that made me despise their set-up. How was I supposed to get to know them, and how were they supposed to get to know me when we'd barely had any time to talk?

Sinclair was really impressive, decoration-wise. The active I spoke with was friendly, but it became clear to both of us that we didn't have a lot in common. She mainly spoke about the different philanthropy events, which I was interested in, but was a bit strange considering it was only day 1. I left Sinclair not in love with them, but I didn't dislike them either. Maybe I'd get paired with someone I had more in common with next time? Or maybe I wasn't a match for this femme fatale.

Unfortunately for both the Kida active I was paired with and myself, the chapter had a standing set-up instead of seats. The active was tall, I’m talking, taller than most guys tall, and I was on the shorter side. So here we were, the tall active in heels, and the short PNM in flats, trying to meet each other’s eyes. Her chin was tilted all the way down, mine was tilted all the way up, and it was hardly a position conducive to pleasant conversation. I’m pretty sure I mumbled “wow, you’re so tall,” several times during the conversation, something she didn’t appreciate. Thankfully, I did have the opportunity to speak with another active who didn’t have the same height discrepancy with me, and the conversation was okay. Not good, but not bad either. Still, I had a feeling that Kida #1 wasn’t thinking so positively of me.

Oh Milo. Remember Mole’s set-up? Milo did the same thing, speeches by the actives with the PNMs switching from table to table, but there were no conversations at all. The actives did allow us to ask them questions once the speeches were exhausted, but that was it. I was confused: weren’t the sororities going to rank us like we ranked them? If so, how were they going to rank me since they didn’t know me either way? Some of the PNMs were asking a bunch of questions to make themselves stand out, but it felt obnoxious to me. Looking back, Milo was smaller than all the other chapters and they had probably thought this was the best way to handle round 1. But I didn’t know that at the time, so the whole thing left me feeling disappointed and annoyed.

Finally, I ended the long, long day with Sweet. Admittedly, I wanted nothing more than to crawl into my bed at that point, but knew I had to suck it up if I wanted to make a good impression on the actives. My impression of Sweet was that it was full of cool, casual girls, which wasn’t a bad thing at all, but Rourke still had my heart, so Sweet seemed low-energy in comparison. Of course, I had met Rourke at the very start of the day, and met Sweet last, so it was wrong of me to think that they lacked enthusiasm when we were all exhausted. After speaking with several actives, I retained my cool impression of them. I thought they were easy to talk to and was thankful that I could relax a little around them, that’s how tired I had felt.

All nine chapters, visited and done, which meant it was time to rank them! My recruitment counselor summoned each member of our recruitment group one by one to rank electronically. We were to select our bottom three, and the rest would be our top six. Easy enough? I knew Rourke was my top, even if they’d technically be one of six. I never wanted to see Vinny again, Milo’s set-up had left a bad taste in my mouth, and my conversations with Kida hadn’t gone so well. There they were, my bottom three.

(Top Six - everyone else)
1. Kida - The first conversation had been awkward, yes, but the other active I’d talked to, hadn’t been bad. Maybe I should give them another chance.
2. Milo - While I hadn’t enjoyed their set-up, at all, it wasn’t like I really knew the actives, so I couldn’t say I disliked them as people.
3. Vinny - I had this strong feeling that the active who had attended the same dance studio as me never wanted to see me again, and the feeling was mutual. I couldn’t see myself in this chapter, at all.

All in all, I’d had a good time and surprised myself by actually feeling things. So much for not getting attached.
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