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Thankfully, daughter is by nature a pretty low drama girl. She doesn’t take offense easily and is pretty good about letting the little stuff roll off her back. That gave me some comfort going in to this process.
And then it was time for recruitment! She met her Pi Chi group – Pi Chi seemed really sweet and group seemed nice. The first round took 2 days. She texted me an update at her lunch break on the first day. She was having fun! She absolutely loved one of the groups, but liked all the rest she had been to so far. She was taking notes after each party and had devised her own rating system. That night she called me to tell me about her day. She was exhausted, but excited and enjoying the process. Only the one group had her highest rating at this point, but she had positive things to say about each group except one – her legacy group.
Now, we never had any expectations that she would wind up in my GLO. We knew that the odds of that chapter being a great fit for her were really no better than they were for any of the other groups. But she was looking forward to meeting them and telling me how nice they were. Unfortunately, that was the one group where she felt that they were completely disinterested in her. The gal who was her primary contact never really looked at her – kept just looking around the room - and she met one other sister who was polite but not warm at all. She had visited 12 chapters that day and, while there were places where conversation was more difficult than others, this was the only one where she felt turned off.
My cynical side wonders if perhaps this is partly their means of managing expectations for legacies in whom they have no interest. We understood going in that her legacy group probably had enough legacies to fill a few pledge classes. And we knew that they would be required to invite her back to one invitational round. Of course, as I pointed out to her, it could also be that she got 2 girls who were doing recruitment for the first time from the other side and were just not very good at it yet. But despite the fact that I am really not a conspiracy theorist (I swear!), it seemed odd that that was the only group that came across as not trying. And I certainly did not share my darker suspicions with my daughter!
The next day she visited the rest of the houses. Ultimately, 2 other houses received her highest rating as well. She could visit up to 12 houses in the next round and, when she looked at her ratings, there was a natural break after her top 12. So ranking was easy for her. Her 12 number ones were all places she had enjoyed. The houses that she ranked numerically were places where she just felt the conversation wasn’t quite as much fun. In one case that was really just because she had been moved between 6 people during one 20-minute party and felt that she just had no idea what to think of them! She ranked her legacy chapter last.
So the next morning would be the first moment of truth. We knew that she should not be released that round because she had to be invited back by the legacy chapter at least – although that was clearly not a fit! She went out with her Pi Chi group that night. The Pi Chi prepared them that it was very unusual to get back 12 sororities and to be positive about the ones they did get back. She was exhausted and a little nervous.
I was just nervous…
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