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  #1  
Old 09-24-2014, 01:46 PM
skgirl47 skgirl47 is offline
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A mom's Ole Miss Candy Crush Rush Story

I'm the mother of a freshman at Ole Miss and who had a tough experience during my own rush in college. All I can say is, though I ended up where I was supposed to be, it was excruciating! In short, I ended up getting cut from all the houses I liked and I dropped from rush. It was like a knife in my heart, daggers to my soul, and I thought my life was over at the time! But a new sorority colonized on my campus the following year and I joined and it turned out to be the best of all my college experiences!! So it had a happy ending, just as so many rush stories do.

As all you moms out there know, sometimes it's harder to be a mom watching your beloved daughter go through the system. You know she's beautiful, inside and out, and smart, talented, and perfect, but you have no control, no say in the outcome and you have to sit by quietly and watch! (usually from your home so far away!) And anxiously wait for texts, IMs, calls, etc… without being able to do a thing!!

So, all I prayed for during rush at the notoriously competitive recruitment at Ole Miss was for my daughter not to get her heart broken as I had! Here's my daughter's rush story:

There are 10 sororities at Ole Miss. In no particular order, they are:
Reeses
Butterfingers
Snickers
Kit Kats
3 Musketeers
Tootsie Rolls
Milky Ways
Peppermint Patties
M & Ms
Hershey's Kisses

I'll personify my daughter as Little Red Riding Hood, making her way around the Candy Crush forest, trying not to get eaten by the BBW!

A bit about Little Red: First of all, she's from out of state, which, for some sororities, is a handicap! Second, she knows very few actives at Ole Miss when she moves into her dorm on move-in day. She has a good friend in MilkyWay, knows a couple of Kit Kats and one 3 Musketeers. Her mom (that's me!) has scoured her friends and acquaintances and gotten 5-8 rec letters and LOS to each of the houses except M & Ms, where she only has 2. Red has a 3.5 GPA and has been pretty active at her high school, and has several awards. Note that Ole Miss has a delayed Recruitment, not starting until Sept. 14.

Please keep in mind this is "as told to Mom", so I may have the days or number of parties slightly off. This is based on many emotional convos, so I'm doing my best!

Day One: Little Red goes to all 10 houses. She loves M&Ms and Milky Ways the best, ranking them top two, followed by Kit Kat, Peppermint Patties, Tootsie Rolls, Butterfingers, 3 Musketeers, Hershey's Kisses, Reeses, and Snickers. Her rationale is that, even though they sort of ran together, she can see herself in most of the houses except Snickers and Reeses, which didn't fit her personality at all.

Day Two: Her Gamma Chi tells her one house has cut her, and it's Milky Way. Wait a sec, that's the house where she has a good friend! She calls me to tell me about it. You could have knocked me over with a feather when she told me it's OK, she's not going to let it bother her! She still loves M&Ms and she's going to focus on what she has, not who cut her. I'll tell you, as a mom, I couldn't sleep that night, I was so upset! But, it's not about me and I just praise my sweet daughter and tell her how proud I am of her!! She goes back to eight parties, because Snickers had her high on their list and she's put back in, even though she dropped them the first day.

On Days two and three, it's Philanthropy Days, and she still likes M&Ms the best, followed by Peppermint Patty, Tootsie Rolls, Kit Kats, Butterfingers, and 3 Musketeers. Again, she is not impressed with Snickers and ranks them last, and with Hershey's Kisses she is completely turned off with because, although she had a nice convo with some of the girls, she hears from some of the other PNMs that they were asking inappropriate questions. Questions such as: Did you go to public or private school? What kind of car do you drive?, ect… A definite turn off. so she drops them as well.

For Days Four and Five, Little Red gets her party list and she has been dropped from Butterfingers. This stings a little, but is OK because it wasn't her favorite house. Her party list includes M&Ms (still her top choice), Kit Kats, 3 Musketeers, Tootsie Rolls, and Pepermint Patties. She drops 3 Musketeers, because she doesn't feel the girls are "real", they come off as rather snooty and Red doesn't feel she would fit in.

When she does her list for round three, she ranks M&Ms first, followed by Peppermint Patties, Tootsie Rolls, Kit Kats. She is afraid she might get dropped by M&Ms which by now she totally loves, because the girl she knows the best in that house has picked her up twice. Even though she has met the president and recruitment chair of the house, she is afraid she will be picked up by someone she doesn't know and the convo won't go as well! She feels very nervous, but excited.

Turns out the parties go very well, especially for M&Ms, where she is so happy, she cries to me on the phone that she wants that house the most! The skit there was so well done, almost professional quality! Overall, all the skits were amazing.

Next step: Preference! She gets her party list back from her Gamma Chi, and surprise! She has a full list! Now she has to pick her top two. Without a doubt, she puts M&Ms as her favorite, with Peppermint Patties as the second.

Preference Day… She cries at M&Ms and the girl who preffs her cries, too. It is a very emotional night! She loves Peppermint Patties, and wishes she could somehow pledge both, but knows that it can only be one. Her roommate also preffs M&Ms, along with Kit Kats. They are very excited to think they could be sisters!!

Big day tomorrow… I'll post soon!
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  #2  
Old 09-24-2014, 02:27 PM
clemsongirl clemsongirl is offline
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Love that you wrote the whole thing out at once! Hope your daughter gets M&Ms!
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  #3  
Old 09-24-2014, 05:19 PM
KDCat KDCat is offline
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Your daughter has a good head on her shoulders.

Whatever bid she got, it sounds like she is going to have a great experience!
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  #4  
Old 09-24-2014, 08:41 PM
Alpha O Alpha O is offline
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I'm rooting for Reese's since that's my favorite type of candy from the list
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  #5  
Old 09-24-2014, 09:09 PM
Cheerio Cheerio is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alpha O View Post
I'm rooting for Reese's since that's my favorite type of candy from the list
Sorry, think she dropped Reeses on Day Two. She was dropped by one of the ten for Day Two, and could only go to eight on Day Two, so she dropped Reeses.
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  #6  
Old 09-25-2014, 01:58 AM
LAblondeGPhi LAblondeGPhi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by skgirl47 View Post
She goes back to eight parties, because Snickers had her high on their list and she's put back in, even though she dropped them the first day.
ETA: Wait - does Ole Miss have the girls see which houses they are invited back to and THEN pick which parties to attend? That seems so time-consuming the day of. Ok, if so, OP can disregard my below post (except for the fun football analogy), but folks going through basically any other campus can pay attention.

Flag on the play.
Offense: Common misconception about how recruitment works.

Not sure why I decided to do a sports thing there, but it seemed kind of fitting for this time of year. There are some GreekChat pet peeves that come up over and over again during recruitment stories that we like to correct.

Your daughter is not "cutting" any chapters at this point - she's ranking them. Any one of those chapters can show up on her schedule the next day if her higher ranked chapters don't invite her back. The chapters are creating release and invite lists, and at this point they are not ranking PNMs in any order on those invite lists. So - PNMs are ranking, chapters are doing the cutting. It's still mutual selection, but there are some differences on how the two sides handle things.


Loving your story! Please continue!!!
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Last edited by LAblondeGPhi; 09-25-2014 at 02:02 AM.
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  #7  
Old 09-25-2014, 08:42 AM
Sciencewoman Sciencewoman is offline
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It's certainly a relief that she loved both of her Pref chapters...sounds like she'll be happy either way!
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Old 09-25-2014, 08:58 AM
Katmandu Katmandu is offline
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Although I am enjoying hearing about Ole Miss recruitment, this story is confusing, because it implies that PNMs are "cutting" chapters AFTER they receive their invitation list, which I don't think happens.

This is how we did it back in the stone age at OSU--we physically looked at ALL of the invitations we received and then selected up to the maximum allowable from that pile, but with RFM and computer systems, it's pretty universal for the PNMs rank chapters and receive an invite list based on the combination of their rankings and their invitations from the chapters. PNMs aren't cutting anyone, especially after they receive their party list for the day. Or at least if they do, they face dismissal from recruitment--unless Ole Miss has different procedures in place.
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Old 09-25-2014, 09:11 AM
Sciencewoman Sciencewoman is offline
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We did it that way during my "rush," too, but unless you're an active volunteer, alumnae usually aren't hip to the current terminology/process. Because my chapter is recolonizing right now, our alumnae FB page has been very active, with many sisters asking a lot of questions because they're trying to figure out how recruitment works nowadays (including a couple moms with freshman legacies). I try to educate gently, but I also cut alumnae a lot of slack, because there have been many changes over the years.

Continue on with the story, please...can't wait to hear where your daughter ends up!!
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Old 09-25-2014, 09:30 AM
AZTheta AZTheta is offline
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This past spring/summer Theta offered an educational webinar for alumnae regarding recruitment. Sciencewoman is spot on. The majority of alumnae are not volunteers, are not involved, and there is a plethora of misunderstandings and misperceptions based on old knowledge ("we did it this way" "legacies don't count any more" "recs aren't important" etc.).

The old terminology persists, too. Education is key. The PNMs rank chapters in order of preference for those they'd like to be invited to return to, and the chapters release PNMs. As was previously pointed out, there is mutual selection of sorts going on; however it is the chapters who are doing the "cutting" (I prefer the term "cull" myself but don't see that ever becoming used due to its noun definition, although in some sense that fits, but I am on one of my detours). The PNMs can "cut" in the sense that they can choose to withdraw from recruitment, not sign a MRABA, or not accept a proferred bid.

Now for the love of Mike, skgirl47, PLEASE tell us where your daughter ended up!
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  #11  
Old 09-25-2014, 10:59 AM
CMDelta CMDelta is offline
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I would definitely cut skgirl47 some slack, although it IS important to correct her & continually educate everyone, because even one of our local panhellenic officers & past president texted me during a recent recruitment to say her daughter "cut" a chapter and it ended up back on her schedule and she asked me how that could happen! I thought, really? And here you are an officer and regular reference writer!
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  #12  
Old 09-25-2014, 12:22 PM
skgirl47 skgirl47 is offline
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OK, thank you for all the feedback, and you are def right, CMDelta, I need some slack! Kidding, you are all correct- my daughter was RANKING the sororities, not cutting them. That's what happens when you "rushed" back in the dark ages, you don't always know how things have changed… and all you moms know how much detailed info our daughters tell us (not).

SO, to get back to my story, Little Red was over the moon about M&Ms and Peppermint Patties, both, but she put M&Ms first on her pref list, as did her roommate. And now it is time for BID DAY!!

It's a gorgeous early fall day on the Ole Miss Campus. A couple thousand people are piled in The Grove- excited, nervous PNM's, excited, nervous moms, and dozens of Gamma Chi's (tho they may be called something different- my brain's fuzzy with all this excitement) who are ready to re-associate with their respective sororities. The sorority house lawns are filled with excited, screaming actives, fraternity guys, a few dogs, and lots of photographers. Right, you got me… how do I know this? I have split up with my daughter's roommate's mom. Roommate's mom is waiting in The Grove, to capture the opening of the bid cards on camera while I have stationed myself outside M&M's lawn to (Hopefully!) film my daughter and her roommate as they race to their new sisters at their new home. If it ends up she gets a bid from Peppermint Patties, I'm not sure what I will do, but I have a good feeling about this!

Drum roll……. Little Red and her roommate run up to the roommate's mom and tear open their bid cards. Roommate starts jumping up and down. It's M&Ms!! But Little Red stands there with a shocked look on her face. What?

She has read the wrong line of the bid card and thinks she's been asked to pledge Jr. Mints, which she has never heard of!! But, roommate saves the day and points to the sorority which has asked her to join them….. M&Ms it is!! Little Red jumps up and down with joy and both girls tear out of the woods over to the M&M house, where I have given up filming them bc I think all the PNMs have made it to the house by now! But it's all good! We reunite and everyone's overjoyed, especially our Little Red and her roommate!

Lessons learned, moms… Recs ARE IMPORTANT, but just bc you have 5 best friends who write your daughter glowing recs doesn't really mean much and if you only have one or two recs from people who don't know your daughter well it doesn't mean much either. It's really who she knows in the house. I recommend you put all the energy I put into finding recs instead into finding her some connections if possible. In Little Red's case, her orientation leader was her connection. They just hit it off and Red met lots of the girls' sisters, which helped seal the deal.

My best of luck to all you moms out there, I hope your girls have a great rush next year! It's truly been a pleasure!
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Old 09-25-2014, 12:26 PM
skgirl47 skgirl47 is offline
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One more recommendation… If you haven't read it yet, Google "Sorority Girl 101" and read her blog. This is a Greek mom with two daughters who are also sorority women, one who went through at Bama and who knows the system. She has excellent advice, especially for those who are new to all this Greek stuff!
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Old 09-25-2014, 01:04 PM
ChioLu ChioLu is offline
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and M&M's is ....
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Old 09-25-2014, 01:31 PM
Stellastar1 Stellastar1 is offline
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Originally Posted by ChioLu View Post
and M&M's is ....

Please, please!!!
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