A not all that "retro", retro thread :)

[Kaydee_cutie]

Well ladies (and a few gentlemen), after a few days of reading everyone else’s retro recruitment threads, I have decided to post my own. I don’t know how exciting it will be, because it occurred in the fall of 2002, not exactly “retro”, and I originally posted a thread on here while I was participating in recruitment. Lets just say that I didn’t have the greatest of recruitment’s, so my original thread kind of lagged off in the middle.

It's so interesting to look back at how I thought and felt back then, because they are so different that they are now...I was a rho gamma myself this past year and have made great friends in all chapters, and could honestly see myself in almost all *maybe not 1 * of these chapters...

Anyway, here goes nothing:
I am from a very large, yet mostly commuter, state school in the Midwest, and while it has a large student population, very few actually join fraternities or sororities. Because of this, the campus only has 6 sororities:
Chi Omega
Delta Delta Delta
Kappa Alpha Theta
Kappa Delta
Kappa Kappa Gamma
Theta Phi Alpha

For the sake of fun I will name these chapters after the Disney princesses. So we have Cinderella, Snow White, Jasmine, Pochohontas, Belle and Sleeping Beauty.

I actually started college in the fall of 2001, but didn’t go through formal recruitment, because 1. I didn’t really hear much about it on campus and 2. my boyfriend was very ANTI greek. He was in the military and thought that if I joined a sorority I would leave him. I can’t believe that I listened to him, but thankfully everything turned out well in the end.

Fast forward to spring quarter of freshman year: I was still struggling to make a lot of friends, because I was a commuter and wasn’t on campus very much, and one of my friends finally talked me into going through COB with her. Apparently all of the chapters were doing informal, but we only visited 1, Jasmine. Why she chose this one, I have no idea, but we visited there 4 times that week (I think), and I had really enjoyed myself. I still wasn’t sure that this was what I wanted to do, but my friend was absolutely in love with the ladies of Jasmine.

We attended Jasmine’s pref ceremony, which was beautiful, and waited for one of them to call us later that evening to see whether we received bids. Around midnight, I get a phone call from my friend who was crying hysterically, she didn’t get a bid. I was confused, because she absolutely loved them and had seemed to fit in great, but I would find out later her grades were less than desirable. I was called about an hour later... and was offered a bid to Jasmine. I told the sister that I would have to sleep on it and would let her know in the morning.

I ended up not accepting the bid, because my friend was so devastated and I thought it would hurt our friendship to join. (I know, I know, dumb decision).

Over the summer, my friend found a boyfriend and we didn’t really hang out very much. I had actually found out that her grades were so bad that her parents wouldn’t allow her to return to school in the fall.

On another side note, shortly after my informal rush experience, I came down with mono. It was horrible, and I missed the vast majority of my last few weeks of classes, so needless to say my GPA suffered greatly....This comes into play, because I decided I made a bad decision with not accepting a bid and decided to register for formal recruitment in the fall.


I'm sorry if this is very long winded, I have a tendency to just keep writing and my english teachers always got on me for that, oh well

I hope that you are enjoying so far, and I will write some more tomorrow!!

[ufpiphi]

Originally Posted by Kaydee_cutie

I'm sorry if this is very long winded, I have a tendency to just keep writing and my english teachers always got on me for that, oh well

Mine did, too. :-)
Keep writing!

[LOVEinZTA]

I guess all the people who used too many words in high school now write on GC because I know my senior English teacher would cut my papers down to half their original length!!!

[Kaydee_cutie]

Ok, now since there are a couple of you out there that seem interested I will go on

On to First Round...

I am a legacy to not 1, but 2 of the chapters on my campus, but it was never pushed on me by my grandmothers and aunts. But they were very happy when they heard I was going through recruitment. My campus’ recruitment is formal,, but not quite as some of the huge southern recruitments we hear about on here. It consists of a philanthropy day, a house tour day, a skit night, pref, and bid day. Only about 200-300 women participate every year, so it’s intimidating, but sophomores and juniors are offered bids on a very regular basis.

I went into formal very confident that I would recieve a bid from Jasmine or a legacy chapter (is jasmine one? and it would be smooth sailing...I was very wrong. House tours was fun, but very draining. I’ll try to remember what happened...

The first chapter was Pochohontas... I was overwhelmed, but felt very comfortable and at home here. They all wore white, and it was a very beautiful effect with how everything was decorated, etc. There house was the smallest on campus, (both the physical structure and chapter size) but I loved everything about it. However when we left this house, the rest of the girls in my rho gamma group didnt feel the same way as me. I was confused as to whether I should believe the talk or not, but I still really wanted to go back to Pochohontas.

Second chapter was Snow White... Honestly I was not impressed at all when I left Snow White. It was probably the girl I was talking to, she was very quiet, and I felt as though I was rushing her. She didn’t seem like she wanted to be there at all, and made no effort at all. Their “bumping” system must have been off too (which of course I found out later) because I was with her the entire party. After leaving I was convinced that this would be the house I dropped.

Next we ventured to Jasmine...oh Jasmine, I was still a bit nervous going in here, but knowing that I had already been extended a bid made me a little less nervous. I talked to many of the girls that I had already known and they seemed extremely happy for me to be back. I left Jasmine knowing I would be there tomorrow.

After a short lunch, we attended Sleeping Beauty’s party. These ladies had a very good reputation on campus, so I was very curious as to what they were all about. I talked to a few girls who were super sweet and I felt like they were truly interested in what i had to say. They had a super cute hawaiian theme and it was very memorable. I really enjoyed sleeping beauty and wanted another chance to meet more of them.

Next was Belle. There is always a chapter that gets a reputation for being popular with the guys. Belle was def. this chapter on my campus. They were all very beautiful and their door chants were very intimidating. I didn’t feel like I was “good enough” to be at the party. They were all dressed in very beautiful cocktail dresses, heels, pearls, and most of the PNMs were just wearing jeans. I did however meet some very sweet girls and wanted the chance to go back.

Finally we ventured to Cinderella. I honestly felt like half of my high school went Cinderella. when we were walking in, girls were yelling my name right and left. While most girls would be flattered, I was kind of offended. Most of these girls were the ones that were “too good” for me and wouldn’t talk to me in high school, but now that I am rushing their sorority house they want to be nice. I was probably grumpy because it was the last house of the day, but I dont really remember having a very positive image of Cinderella.

We had to rank chapters after the parties, and I wrote down (thanks to the notes I took and my previous post
1. Jasmine
2. Sleeping Beauty
3. Pochontas
4. Belle
5. Cinderella
6. Snow White

I left feeling confident, but I should have known better...

more later... I'm off work this week, but I have a bazillion things I need to get done! I hope someone out there is enjoying!

[tinydancer16]

I am -can't wait to know where you end up!

[LegallyBrunette]

I'm enjoying it too!

[howtheSunrose]

Yay, a KD rush! I'm rooting for Sleeping Beauty, my personal favorite.

[AlwaysSAI]

I think she's going to join Pochahontas! YaY!

[maximus406]

I love the code names! Good start, keep it up!

[Kaydee_cutie]

So, I had a little extra time to waste, so I decided to indulge all of you lovlies with another day of my story...so here goes...

House Tours:

For this round, we could attend a maximum of 5 chapters. I fully expected to go back to 5, but was crushed when my rho gamma told me that I would only go to 3. I was cut by HALF of the chapters and really wanted to just leave recruitment because 2 of my top 3 had released me. I would learn later it was because I was a grade risk, but it still hurt at the time. My rho gamma was amazing and talked me into staying in recruitment. So off I went, feeling like an idiot, to visit my 3 chapters of the day... Sleeping Beauty, Belle, and Snow White. Yep, that’s right Jasmine had dropped me (I guess I should have seen it coming, but oh well

I went to Sleeping Beauty first and was the most excited about this house. They did a really cute jungle theme and we went on “safari’s” throughout the house for the tour. I talked to a really sweet girl and all of the girls that I had talked to the day before made me feel welcomed by saying hi and that they were glad to see me again. I was glad that I went to Sleeping Beauty first, because it put me in a very good mood for the rest of the chapters.

After a short break (while everyone else was in parties) I went to Belle. I was a lot less intimidated today, because they were wearing really cute pajamas with their letters on them for a “slumber party”. I was much more impressed today, the girl I talked to was AMAZING and we had everything in common. Both of our boyfriends lived in Oklahoma and we both had seen the backstreet boys about 5 times, HA. I began to fall in love with them today, but at the same time knew that they seemed to all be very beautiful and elite.

Finally, back to Snow White. Lets just say that I was less than thrilled to be going back here after yesterday. But I again was pleasantly surprised. The girls I talked to today were much more engaging and I really liked their house *It belonged to one of their founders, which I thought was cool*. I was glad I gave them a second chance, and while I can’t remember what their theme was now, I had really enjoyed it.

So I ranked them:

1. Sleeping Beauty
2. Belle
3. Snow White

I thought recruitment would get better from here because I had been told over and over again that all chapters cut their grade risks on the first day, but that was obviously not the case...

That's it for now, and I just wanted to say sorry to any of you who were put off by the fact you know where I end up in the end. I was going to delete my signature, but realized my GC name was just a tad revealing also... hehe However, I hope that I am doing an ok job trying to keep from revealing which chapters are which yet

[Ocalagirl]

I sometimes wish they would post it all together so I wouldn't be left hanging. It's like giving me a chapter of a book but not giving me the rest until later. It's torture. But I am enjoying reading this.

[maximus406]

We were always excited to have women in Formal Recruitment who might have considered COB the spring before. But we also always cut for grades after Open and I always hated cutting women that everybody liked and was otherwise a great PNM. You never know where a chapter is with grades, my chapter was really trying to raise our cumulative GPA so we were cutting harder for grades than usual for several years.

Random hijack on grades, sorry. Please continue!

[Kaydee_cutie]

Grades were a HUGE issue, and being naive to it at the time, I had no idea.

I was the absolute last grade risk my chapter has taken, and apparently I caused a lot of drama in their MSS that year, because the advisors didn't want me, but the girls did...

My chapter now drops all grade risks after open house to not get their hopes up, but other chapters don't...which I think is horrible.

This past year, fall 2006, I was a rho gamma and one of my girls was carried by two chapters all the way to pref, where she was quickly dropped because of grades. I tried to keep contacting her about COB and what not, but she was so turned off by her experience of being drug along that I don't think she will ever join a chapter

I know that chapters keep girls they know they won't take to make their parties look full, etc, but in the long run it is just hurtful to the PNMs they are "playing" with.

Sorry, this issue raises so much controversy in my chapter now, I just needed to comment on it

I'll post more later, I promise

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by maximus406

We were always excited to have women in Formal Recruitment who might have considered COB the spring before. But we also always cut for grades after Open and I always hated cutting women that everybody liked and was otherwise a great PNM. You never know where a chapter is with grades, my chapter was really trying to raise our cumulative GPA so we were cutting harder for grades than usual for several years.

Random hijack on grades, sorry. Please continue!

We had one of those random situations where we cut for grades, one grade risk who was cut, and also not particularly liked, was computer glitched back into our parties. Not sure how. After that everyone loved her (perhaps she'd been dropped from her sorority of choice for grades and was nicer now? I have no idea) so she wasn't cut for grades again even though she should have been.

Weird situation. But you're right, sometimes you cut harder for grades in an attempt to bring your average up, but at the same time you can't always afford to cut that number of girls!

[BabyPiNK_FL]

Originally Posted by Kaydee_cutie

Both of our boyfriends lived in Oklahoma and we both had seen the backstreet boys about 5 times,

How cute! ME TOO!!!! Gotta' love my Boys!