Retro Recruitment:: a brutally honest story

[aprocess]

I have been completely brutally honest in this thread about everything. I always reread my posts (and YES i know there are many spelling errors!!!!) after I post them.

I have not been completely honest about one sorority in the last post. I guess I almost feel ashamed to say why. However, I have chosen to be brutally honest, and I stand by that. The sorority that I did not COMPLETELY say the w-h-o-l-e truth on wassssss:














Marissa Cooper

Yes. I wanted to be a loyal to my friend, but that really was a cop out of telling you GCers why I really did not want to be a part of Marissa (sorry guys, won't happen again, love you!). but there is another reason why I no longer liked Marissa. This is kind of shameful to say outloud unless you know where I am comming from. Like I said in my initial post, I wanted to be amoung a diverse set of girls. Marissa had a stereotype of being pre-dominantly asian. I did not notice it at all my first year because I was blind to it (I never got the chance to hear the stereotypes). However, now that I knew it exsisted, i saw it. I would say about 85% (not true stats at all) were asian. And what makes it worse was that there was one group of caucasions (like 5-6 girls) in the sorority that you could tell were only friends with each other. It was this wierd segregation and it did not make me feel good.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by aprocess

Like I said in my initial post, I wanted to be amoung a diverse set of girls. Marissa had a stereotype of being pre-dominantly asian. I did not notice it at all my first year because I was blind to it (I never got the chance to hear the stereotypes). However, now that I knew it exsisted, i saw it. I would say about 85% (not true stats at all) were asian. And what makes it worse was that there was one group of caucasions (like 5-6 girls) in the sorority that you could tell were only friends with each other. It was this wierd segregation and it did not make me feel good.

Random question:

How do you not notice that almost every girl in a sorority is Asian? Did it just happen that you didn't talk to any Asian members during your first rush?

[aprocess]

I woke up and went to eat. I remember kind of being lonely. Last year, I went through recruitment in a big group of floormates. Now I was just kind of doing my own thing. Of course I made some PNM friends this year who would meet up with me during the day to talk to me about their schedules and stuff (even though our group leaders 'discouraged' that), but it wasnt the same. I got ready and remember a happy shock came over me. I thought: "in 48 hours, I won't be doing this alone."

I walked out to where we met our group leaders. We were allowed a max of 4 houses. If even one of my top four were on there, then i made myself believe that today would be a great day.

I remembered thinking "I should open up my schedule in the same spot as yesterday, it made me lucky yesterday...". blah, sometimes i think i'm OCD. So I walked towards the sorority houses, paper still folded.

I got to a spot where my nerves felt the most comfortable at and opened up my schedule to see....

[FSUkappaLOVE]

nooo!! how could you leave us like that!!

[aprocess]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

Random question:

How do you not notice that almost every girl in a sorority is Asian? Did it just happen that you didn't talk to any Asian members during your first rush?

During my first recruitment, I was SO clueless toward the entire process. door chanting, pretty glasses of water, beautiful houses. EVERY HOUSE was like disneyland, I just walked in the door and waited 'in line.' I was not looking at race. I was primarily looking for 1) parking for my boyfriend to come visit and 2) a place to party with fun, gorgeous girls. DO NOT get me wrong, the girls of Marissa are gorgeous. Afterall, they fit the bill my freshman year.

But my priorities changed my second year. my boyfriend and I broke up and I spent my freshman year partying. If I wanted to go out, i did not need a sorority to do that. Now I just wanted to find a place to 1) make me feel part of my large campus 2) be proud of: this means that i would be proud of calling myself a _____. I felt like I missed out on a lot of what Cassie got to experience. I wanted that.

Now-my second year- that I knew the stereotypes, I found myself actually looking to see if it was true. It bothered me that the caucasions would hang out with each other and the asian girls had their own group (I saw this at parties I went to during the year). It made me feel uncomfortable.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

Random question:

How do you not notice that almost every girl in a sorority is Asian? Did it just happen that you didn't talk to any Asian members during your first rush?

This made me LOL.

But I think it may be - when you're going through rush the first time - especially if the sorority isn't all wearing the same thing, you have a room full of girls and don't always know who is rushees and who is sisters.

And I know it sounds odd, but I DO know what she means about not noticing that all the girls are (tall, Asian, blonde) until you hear someone say it. From her clue she is in an area of the country where there are a lot more Asians in general so seeing them is more common and not something you really think about. It would be kind of like someone saying on your or my campus "did you notice all the RST sisters are Italian?"

[myopicsunflower]

A cliffhanger before bedtime...aaahhh!

I've really enjoyed your story and look forward to the rest.

[WCsweet<3]

I can't wait to read the rest! Maybe a little treat for breakfast?

[kchaptergphib]

awesome, AWESOME story. I can't wait to hear more!

[tangelo212]

PLEEEEEEAAASSEEE keep going! I am so enjoying this!
And I like your little strategy about walking away from the recruitment group where girls are opening lists and instead just going over to the houses so that you don't back out! Smart idea.

[baci]

You have me wondering how things would have been for me and others, if we waited until our second year to go through the process again.
Excellent thread!

[NAU_OPhiA]

Ahh! I thought I would get to read the whole story at once!

I'm curious to see how it turns out, good luck!

[tld221]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

Random question:

How do you not notice that almost every girl in a sorority is Asian? Did it just happen that you didn't talk to any Asian members during your first rush?

i know you already answered this, but maybe another reason you didnt notice it has to do with your region? like, i think in another part of the country that detail may stick out a little more. but hmm, i think i would notice from day 1 that "hmm, all the XYZs were ____________," esp. if it was "about 85%" of the chapter.

which leads me to ask (and maybe this will give your location away, so no pressure), is this house historically Asian or historically White that happens to have lots of Asian sisters?

(i know i know, let's cringe over the semantics of that one but still be on the same page)

and yes, im enjoying this one too!

[aprocess]

Originally Posted by tld221

i know you already answered this, but maybe another reason you didnt notice it has to do with your region? like, i think in another part of the country that detail may stick out a little more. but hmm, i think i would notice from day 1 that "hmm, all the XYZs were ____________," esp. if it was "about 85%" of the chapter.

which leads me to ask (and maybe this will give your location away, so no pressure), is this house historically Asian or historically White that happens to have lots of Asian sisters?

(i know i know, let's cringe over the semantics of that one but still be on the same page)

and yes, im enjoying this one too!

This house is NOT historically asian. In fact, at my campus, there have been several recruitments since mine and the house is actually wayyyyy more diverse. Since I only went to day 1 of marissa (where we were picked up at the door and given a mini house tour), they were not all standing together for me to notice. I was pretty much concentrating on the girl I was speaking too.

Since I made it to day 2 of recruitment this time, I got to see their mini skit. So all the actives were lined up around the room watching the performing actives. It was easier to see everyone. HOWEVER, I know for a fact that if I went to marissa day 2 my freshman year, I would not have cared that the girls were primarily one race. They were gorgeous girls. and that is what I was looking for my freshman year.

[aprocess]

A FULL SCHEDULE!!!!!

Serena
Ryan
Seth
Marrissa

WHY WAS SERENA AND RYAN KEEPING ME?!?! I was so stoked! a 50% chance to end up in an amazing home. That stat made me so happy! SERENA!!!! YAY!!!! I could not wait to step through that dark, cozy house and meet more girls! what sophomore gets a great full schedule??? a lot of the freshman did not even have full schedules!

Reactions to houses that I got cut from:

Blair Waldorf- not too suprised. Cool house. Would have been proud to rep their letters. But was not crying over it. Afterall, I was going through as a sophomore. It's understandable.

Jenny- WHAT???? I wasn't really sad or anything. Just a little suprised, I just thought I made a good impression and I know my floormate was routing for me. Rumor has it that this house usually only takes freshman... well thats what I choose to believe . ha.