Another retro Elon Story

[GymnastA]

Would you all be interested in hearing another retro Elon story? It's a story that takes place within the last 2 years, so it's very current. I'm also going to use MaggieXi's code names, so you can compare notes! What do you all think?

<3 A longtime lurker

[dgdramadawg]

Originally Posted by GymnastA

Would you all be interested in hearing another retro Elon story? It's a story that takes place within the last 2 years, so it's very current. I'm also going to use MaggieXi's code names, so you can compare notes! What do you all think?

<3 A longtime lurker

Ooh, fun!!

[violetpretty]

Use different names because some people know what MaggieXi's names are.

[Xylochick216]

You'll have to use different names. One group when she was there is no longer around and 3 more are there

[irishpipes]

Change the names, but post your story!!

[GymnastA]

That’s fine about changing the names! I’m sure that you will be able to figure out which sorority is which if you’re familiar with Elon, but here we go. I did gymnastics for 15 years, so I’m going to use names of cities where they have recently held (or will hold) the Olympic Games. The eight sororities on my campus will be known as London, Beijing, Athens, Sydney, Atlanta, Barcelona, Seoul, and Los Angeles (LA). The eight sororities that were at Elon while I went through Recruitment were: Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Xi Delta, Delta Delta Delta, Phi Mu, Sigma Kappa, Sigma Sigma Sigma, and Zeta Tau Alpha.

Here goes… J

[sailboatgirl]

Yeah! This should be fun!

[MaggieXi]

Ok, I want to hear this one!!!!! Start your story PUH-LEASE!

[GymnastA]

I transferred to Elon after my freshman year at a different college. It was a huge change for me, and I’m really glad that I changed gears and decided to go to a school that was totally out of my comfort zone for me. When I was thinking about coming to Elon, the large Greek Life presence really drew me in; I told myself that if I went to Elon, I had to go through Recruitment and just see what it was all about. Actually, I found GC using Google—I think I was looking for recruitment tips and stumbled upon GC, so I’ve been reading since September-ish. During the first semester of school, I was pretty careful; I didn’t kiss any boys that had girlfriends, dance on any tables on bars, and kept my nose clean. I also had class with a lot of girls that were from Barcelona, LA, and Seoul. They were all really nice! The Barcelona girls were especially nice to me and talked to me all the time. They were very careful to not do anything that would be considered a “rush infraction”, but would always invite me to study with them, meet their sisters when we’d all end up at the same place, and would always ask me a million questions, like what I liked to do, what I did on campus, and how I was liking Elon. They seemed great! I was very careful to clean up my Facebook, and I had a pretty good feeling going into Recruitment.
I knew that I had to be careful going into the process, because there were a few different sororities that seemed interesting and that anything could happen. Going into Rush, I had met a ton of girls, and had heard all the stereotypes. They were as follows:

Athens—The only girls I knew from Athens were party animals. They were always the first ones drunk, and the last to leave the party, and they were crazy loud while they were there. But they were a LOT of fun and always had something going on, which I loved! They always were sporting their Athens bags, pins, letter shirts, and random t-shirts, which made me psyched. They seemed very proud to be from Athens!

Atlanta—These girls were very involved. There seemed to be an Atlanta girl in every single organization I was in! They were very sweet and nice, and seemed very smart, which totally made me happy. Their stereotype was that they weren’t the smart girls, or the pretty, or the anything. Their bond was that they were kind of the “leftovers” that didn’t fit any other group, so they were a group based on that.

Barcelona—This group had a lot of very Southern girls, and was considered one of the “hot” groups on campus. They were very nice and sweet, but you never really saw them around, unless you were looking for them. They didn’t wear a lot of “Barcelona” clothing/pins around, and I picked up on that.

Beijing--These girls were the sweet girls that seemed fake. They were always just so damn nice to you! It was hard to talk to them beyond school and sports stuff; they just seemed so focused on being nice that there was nothing else to them.

London—The girls from London were smart. They were in a few classes, and really knew their stuff. They also won Homecoming Queen a bunch of times, and most of the guys I hung out with thought they were cute girls you’d bring home to Mom, but not make out with at a kegger at OT. (A little Elon throwback in there!)

LA—These girls seemed really unfriendly, cold, and all brunette. They seriously ALL were dark haired. They mostly kept to themselves and always had a bad rap for dirty rushing girls and crazy insane hazing. They seemed very close within the sisterhood, which I thought of as something positive, but not if you had to walk through hell to get there.

Seoul—These girls were even crazier than the girls from Athens, if that’s believable. They were the best people to hang out with, because they were always having hot guys at their beck and call and at the center of attention. However, they seemed to party a lot, and I was nervous about my grades if I joined Seoul.

Sydney—These girls unfortunately did not have the greatest stereotype on campus. They were seen as the overweight or ugly girls. All of the girls that I knew from Sydney were so nice and positive about Greek life in general, not just about Sydney.

So, recruitment started on a Thursday morning. I got my nails and toes done, hair freshly highlighted and cut, and went shopping in Raleigh for some cute outfits. The first day, I picked out a black Polo sweater over a pink polo shirt, dark trouser jeans, black flats, and a gorgeous pearl and crystal necklace/bracelet combo that I had custom made. (It was my token “stand out by wearing a different piece of jewelry” tip I picked up from GC!) I was more than ready for Recruitment!

[howtheSunrose]

Yay, another story! Here's to London.

[Ocalagirl]

So loving this thread already!

[gogreekmom]

I am enjoying reading your story. Keep it coming!!

[violetpretty]

I am so excited for this story since I have heard great things about SK's Elon chapter. I definitely have some guesses as to who is who since I have some friends who go/went here and from Maggie's thread.

[MaggieXi]

I am beyond excited about this Elon thread. It's been 10 yrs since I went through recruitment, and although there have been orgs added and subtracted from campus, I think I already know whos who!!!! But am psyched to see you go through the process!

[GymnastA]

Wow! The first day of recruitment was so exciting and so much fun, but long and tiring! We went to 8 parties and learned a little bit about each chapter and met a few sisters. When I got my party schedule, it went like this: Sydney, London, Atlanta, Athens, Barcelona, a break for lunch, Beijing, LA, and Seoul. I was going to be busy!

The first house I went to was Sydney, and I was very glad that it wasn’t my favorite house going into the process. (Yeah, I definitely went into Recruitment with an open mind, but a girl always knows at the back of her head what she likes and dislikes. But I really wanted to give every chapter a fair shake!) We lined up and walked into the house, and I was surprised that the girl actually touched me going into the Great Room. I have no idea what I thought she was going to do, but I was not expecting that! I remember looking up at the room full of girls singing, clapping their hands, and moving to their opening song and being like “What the hell did I get myself into?” Conversation was awkward here, and the girl “rushing” me (Can I say rushing? It’s my story, I’m going to say rushing, damnit!) was nervous too. She was a first-time rusher, and she was just as nervous as I was! She kept telling me that it was okay to be nervous, because she was, and in other setting, I would find that endearing. However, I stood there thinking, “Listen, girlfriend. You have to impress me and sell me on the merits of Sydney, not have me reassure you about rushing me!” I left the house happy to have started Recruitment, but not absolutely loving Sydney,

Next was London. The girls here were all dressed in a variety of color letter shirts, and I loved looking at all of the different patterns and colors that these girls had! The girl that picked me up was awesome. She was animated and talked with her hands, which made me laugh, because that’s so me! She was from NJ, and all of the people that came to talk to me were funny and into the same stuff I was. What a coincidence! I left this house with a really, REALLY good feeling because I didn’t expect to like it all that much, and I did, so I was pleased.

Atlanta was next on my list, so I headed over there and waited in line. While waiting in line, I heard so much negativity about the house, and tried to shut up the catty girls in my head by just focusing on putting on more lip gloss and getting mentally ready to go to another party and answer the same questions about myself. The girls of Atlanta really put on a nice party. They had a few people speak, and then we broke off with sisters to talk. It was SO loud in there, and I have no idea why. I had a splitting headache when I walked out of there. I didn’t have a great time here. The girl I was talking to kept asking me about finances, such as “It costs X to be an Atlanta. Can you afford that?” Um, if I’m going through, I’ve looked into the cost and wouldn’t be going through if I wasn’t prepared to pay. Duh. I didn’t want to come back and was pretty sure the girl hated me, so I was excited to cross them off the list in my head.

I headed over to Athens, and was startled to hear the girls before I saw anything. Apparently, these girls bang on the door for a good 5 minutes while you’re standing there! I had a pretty good feeling about these girls. While meeting the girl that was going to rush me, she made an offhand comment to me, and I just didn’t like it. All of the girls here that I spoke to were very nice, but they were so loud that I wasn’t that comfortable here.

Finally! Barcelona! I was so excited, I was SKIPPING to the Barcelona house. I was so ready for this. I couldn’t wait to see my friends! I went in and they did their song, and a girl I had met in passing picked me up. We probably had the best connection out of anyone that I spoke to all week. We talked about everything under the sun, and I left there with just a great feeling and a smile on my face. All of my good friends had left their girls to come say hi to me, and there were a LOT of girls, so I was psyched! The girl rushing me asked me my name and how to spell it again at the end, and from reading GC, I was excited because I just knew that they basically had put me on their short list for bids and I was like, the happiest little PNM ever.

We had lunch next. I had a weight watchers ravioli dinner, because there were like 600 girls at Harden, and nothing else was open.

Getting back into the swing of things, I headed to Beijing. I expected to absolutely love this house, but I didn’t. They rarely take sophomores, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up at all. The girl rushing me seemed bored, like she didn’t want to be there. I was kind of surprised to see that these girls were super nice in class when it didn’t matter, but during Recruitment, she would have preferred to take a nap than talk to PNMs. I left this house feeling very under whelmed, but unable to rank them all in my head just yet.

LA was second to last, and I had heard that you walk in, 5 at a time, into a pitch black room. They chant their sorority’s name and all of a sudden, scream at you. I was ready for it, and still got spooked out! The girl I met was really nice. She was a sophomore too, and we had a really animated conversation. She asked me like 8 times how to pronounce and spell my name and I was pleased with that, like she wanted to make sure that I came back. I was pretty indifferent about LA going in, but I liked who I had talked to!

Finally, I went to Seoul, and an acquaintance picked me up. Before I could even be like “Hey, are you…” she spouted off my name, hometown, major, who she knew from my high school, and asked about my boyfriend. This girl meant business! She was very nice though, and was a COB in the fall, so she was new to all of this, too. She introduced me to a lot of her sisters, and seemed bored with the whole process, but had me meet a lot of different girls. I left here thinking that I wasn’t crazy about the house, but I knew it was a top house, so I’d try to keep them around.

Elon has you rank your top 5 in any order, and then your bottom three in order, so if you don’t go back to your top 5, they know what you like and don’t like. I ranked my sororities like this (I put my top 5 rankings that I had in my head in parenthesis):

Top 5:
(1) Barcelona
(2) LA
(3) London
(4) Seoul
(5) Beijing

Then my Bottom 3:

1. Athens
2. Sydney
3. Atlanta