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  #16  
Old 07-27-2018, 11:55 AM
_RushPuppies_ _RushPuppies_ is offline
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Arrow BID DAY!

My recruitment group went out to breakfast with our recruitment guide on the morning of Bid Day. There were a few sorority women milling about in the place that we chose, but none of them were from houses that I could possibly be receiving a bid from, so I didn’t feel too uncomfortable. I arrived at the opening of the bids with two of my roommates. Our fourth roommate had been given a snap bid to Cuba, but had decided to decline it, thinking that she might go through recruitment the following year. Her GPA, although decent and from a large, competitive high school, had probably held her back from the houses that she had hoped for - and she knew a lot of the girls in a lot of the more competitive houses, so she had set her hopes fairly high. All of the women opened bids together…

My roommates were two very happy new members of Costa Rica

And my bid said…
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Dominican Republic

Also known as…

Wait, what? *record scratch* It wasn’t Ecuador?

My initial reaction was just...shock. I had loved Ecuador all week and based off of what I had heard from the girls that I talked to, they had loved me too. So many thoughts were spinning around in my head. Knowing what I know now, as a collegian with quite a bit more experience in Panhellenic life, I can say that I was dirty rushed and that Ecuador had said and done many things that go against NPC Unanimous Agreements. Although many of the girls in my recruitment group and many girls from the local area (including my roommate who also went to preference there) had said over the week that I would make the perfect Ecuador, it wasn’t meant to be. Having heard the things that the women said to me and then not having gotten my bid from them crushed my spirit for the initial thirty seconds. Everyone in my group was asking each other what they had gotten and I was the only one to receive my second choice, although I tried my hardest to play off the shock as excitement. We ran to our new pledge classes and got t-shirts and everyone else in Dominican Republic seemed so excited. There was even one girl that I had been line buddies with whose older sister was a recently-graduated Dominican Republic sister. I was happy to see her and happy to have one person with whom I felt a connection in my house.

The next few weeks were...just okay. Having read a LOT of GreekChat before recruitment, due to my lack of knowledge about Greek life in general, I knew that I had to put in a lot of effort if I wanted to make Dominican Republic my home. I went to every sisterhood event, always tried to sit with new people at chapter, went to football games with my sisters, went out to dinner and sat in dining halls with them, the whole enchilada. I even found a girl who I thought could be my big - and she wanted twins and had also bonded with my line buddy. But try as I might, I just didn’t feel connected to these girls. My desire to be studious and involved on campus wasn’t being fulfilled - the one group I was a part of just seemed to not be the right one for me, and the campus I went to was terrible at advertising student organizations and ways to get involved, so if you weren't in-state (I wasn't) and didn't already know someone in the group, you were SOL. I won’t go into too much detail, but the personality of the chapter and my personality just didn’t seem to line up, and I felt that it would be better to resign before receiving a big or going through initiation. I had talked to the girl who I thought might be my big about my doubts and she even admitted that she didn’t really like being in the house very much and wasn’t sure if she was going to stay. Even my line buddy, who was a chapter legacy, was very much doubting if she was going to go through initiation. I felt that if I was going to lose the two people in the chapter who I got along with well, then there wasn’t really a point in me going through initiation. I talked to the New Member chair and the President and turned in my pledge pin.

But the personality of the chapter wasn’t the only thing pushing me to resign. My choice in college didn’t really seem to be the right one. I had absolutely loved a school eight hours from home that was smaller and in a bigger city, and I had initially accepted the offer of admission and put a deposit down. However, when I received the scholarship at the big school, I was in a very weak time in my life. I was scared to go far from home and scared to go to college without at least one friend with me, so I chose the bigger school that offered a bigger scholarship because I knew that I could give it the “good old college try”, literally, and have one of my best friends from high school there with me. It was really just the wrong choice for me - I’m someone that loves to be hyper-involved in a lot of organizations and I need a challenge academically. I really wanted a community where I could wave to someone on the way to class, and at this big school, I walked a mile to my closest classroom and shared a lecture hall with over 400 students. None of the professors knew my name - not even in the Spanish class I had with only 12 other students - and I felt so much like a number. I wasn’t content to just live life as a number for four years, and my desire to transfer to the smaller school that was farther from home came around three or four weeks into the semester. I went home for the first time at the end of September and told my parents that I wanted to transfer to the smaller school that I had LOVED, and neither of them were surprised. If I transferred at semester, I could keep the scholarships that I had earned as a senior in high school, so I pulled the plug and turned in my transfer application. Best of all, I knew that I could do it, because due to my acceptance senior year, I was guaranteed admission as a transfer student. I left Dominican Republic and the big school behind…

But my sorority journey was not over yet! My new school had deferred recruitment in January and I was able to sign up! I was absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to move into my new dorm early, acclimate to the campus before it filled up again, and most of all, to get involved from Day 1 at my new school through Greek life.

More to come

Last edited by _RushPuppies_; 07-27-2018 at 01:18 PM. Reason: had to fix a typo; it was driving me crazy
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  #17  
Old 07-27-2018, 12:38 PM
FloMo Mom FloMo Mom is offline
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What a plot twist!

Can't wait to find out how this story continues.
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  #18  
Old 07-27-2018, 12:48 PM
GreekOne GreekOne is offline
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Wow! I didn't see that coming...can't wait to hear more.
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  #19  
Old 07-27-2018, 01:53 PM
stef831 stef831 is offline
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Oh my gosh!! I sure did not see this coming either but so proud of you for doing what you felt in your heart was the right thing. That is a huge step into adulthood and something very mature. I am very anxious to see how this story end.
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  #20  
Old 07-27-2018, 04:23 PM
TheGreenHeart TheGreenHeart is offline
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"Un poco" loco?! This is pretty darn loco! Can't wait to hear how things ended up!
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  #21  
Old 07-27-2018, 06:21 PM
phoenix16 phoenix16 is offline
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Wow, that was not at all what I was expecting! I can't wait to see how your story actually ends!
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  #22  
Old 07-27-2018, 06:46 PM
Sister Havana Sister Havana is offline
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Major plot twist! Can't wait to hear the rest!
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  #23  
Old 07-28-2018, 01:52 AM
FSUZeta FSUZeta is offline
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Wow! I didn’t see that coming. I am sure it was a hard decision to resign, but I understand why. Please fill us in on rush at your new campus.
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  #24  
Old 07-30-2018, 12:55 PM
ChioLu ChioLu is offline
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And ...?
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  #25  
Old 07-30-2018, 06:01 PM
IrishLake IrishLake is offline
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So help me if this becomes a Pink Sequins story...
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  #26  
Old 07-30-2018, 06:30 PM
_RushPuppies_ _RushPuppies_ is offline
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Recruitment, Take Two (omg please don't compare me to pink sequins!! that lady was crazy)

I was thrilled to be starting off a new year at a new school. I had loved this college since the first time that I stepped on campus and was feeling overwhelmingly positive about a new beginning in the right place. I was assigned a roommate and moved in the day before recruitment was due to begin. It was actually pleasant outside for early January for the first few days - high fifties and sunny without a single snowflake frozen to the ground. We had meetings with our recruitment counselors that night and I met the majority of the girls who lived in my hallway after we came back from those. I even went out to get ice cream with a few girls that night (but the McDonald’s ice cream machine was broken, so we went to the Walmart next door and grabbed pints of Ben and Jerry’s). Nights like this are some of the most fun in college - just relaxing with your girls and eating Phish Food on the floor of a dorm room.

We started recruitment bright and early the next morning. Some of the girls in my hallway offered to “give me the lowdown” about each of the sororities before we left for parties that morning. I tried to shrug it off as an advantage that I could really be bias-free as I went through recruitment, since I didn’t know a single soul in a sorority at this new school, and asked them for the “lowdown” about the fraternities instead.

There are seven sororities at my school. In keeping with the theme of my Spanish major, I’ll give them names of Latin dances (I debated naming them after foods, but I decided that reading about "Preference round at Burrito" might just be a little too weird):

Cha Cha Cha
Merengue
Rumba
Mambo
Plena
Salsa
Tango

The first party in my day was at Cha Cha Cha. I was excited to actually see inside the gorgeous homes that line Greek Row, since I had only seen the exteriors on campus tours. This house was a positive start to my day. I started off with a Cha Cha that was in one of my majors. She was extremely down-to-earth and relaxed and carrying on a conversation with her was fairly easy. She was an international student who was spending all four years at my new school and I loved asking her questions about her home country. The second girl I talked to was less prepared when it came to conversations. Cha Cha had set up a small game for sisters and PNMs to play to keep the conversations going, but this girl would draw a question, answer it for herself, and then draw another one. It was like watching someone play solitaire, but eventually I got a few questions in.

My next party was at Merengue. The inside of this house is absolutely stunning and very unlike the other chapters, which was helpful as a little thing to remember. I talked to three girls here: the first was a student in our school’s biggest and most competitive program who loved Merengue because it allowed her to balance school and fun by providing her with sisters both inside and outside of her major, the second was a vivacious girl from a nearby big city who reminded me of one of my awesome older cousins, and the third was a girl from way out on the East Coast who loved Merengue because it really got her engaged in campus life. The three were very different from each other but it was cool to see a house where the girls were less cookie-cutter.

The third house that I visited was a different dynamic. Rumba reminded me of Panama from my previous school - they were a little more aggressive in their recruiting style. I was seated in the kitchen/dining room (Sorry! We just call them kitchens here hahaha) with one woman and four other women came up at various times throughout the conversation. Each looked practically identical to the one before, and with each I had the exact same conversation. The girl who was sitting with me had asked if I liked to travel and what my favorite country that I had been to was, and each time that a girl would come over and introduce herself, the girl would say “Oh, this is _RushPuppies_ and her favorite place is Switzerland!” and the other Rumba sister would say, oh, what did you like about it, we would chat about it for a second, and she would leave. This happened four times and I left Rumba feeling like I had been running around in a revolving door for thirty minutes.

The fourth chapter was Mambo. Right away, I got the feeling that this was a quieter chapter. I talked to three different girls and we watched three different videos from their national organization about the sorority. It was all pretty day-one in conversation; lots of what’s your major, where are you from, why did you transfer, et cetera. The girls seemed friendly but not as outgoing as the other three chapters that I had visited, but having done it before, I knew that anything could change throughout the week.

We all had a lunch break, which was so welcome - after fourteen sororities at my previous school, I wasn’t sure why I was so worn out after four, but luck was on my side and there was a break party built into everyone’s day. The break was between Mambo and Plena for everyone, so we all had different breaks based on rotation, but mine was right after lunch so I had two hours to eat and relax before finishing up the first day!

Party five was at Plena, which had a gorgeous exterior, so I was ready to see what was inside. We broke off into small groups of four sisters and four PNMs and squished into the various bedrooms in the house. We played icebreaker type games as a group, which was something that I hadn’t really been prepared for - how were these girls judging us based off of one-word answers to goofy questions? After a handful of rounds, we split up and had one-on-one conversations. We ended up standing along the walls in a room that had been cleared of furniture to talk, which just struck me as odd, and we stood the whole time, so I was glad that I had worn comfy boots. The girl that I talked to seemed funny and ambitious and I left Plena feeling like there was definitely potential here.

Salsa was one that I had girls say over lunch that they were enjoying, so I was eager to see if my experience was the same. The girls here seemed very peppy and type-A; they were very polished in their conversations and did a good job of not repeating the basic questions. I don’t remember too much from this day, but I remembered that everyone in the house just seemed to genuinely enjoy being there and they seemed to like each other a lot. I left with a smile on my face.

Last of the day was Tango. This party was wildly different from any of the others in terms of energy and appearances. The girls reminded me more of the girls at the first school - they had definitely been coached on how to prepare for recruitment in terms of makeup, clothes, and conversations. It didn’t seem terribly genuine at first, but they did do a great job at asking unusual questions to keep a conversation fresh, and they seemed like they were having oodles of fun doing it. They asked me all kinds of things about myself and kept the mood light. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about Tango yet, but I decided that I would like to know more about them.

We met with our recruitment counselors that night - mine was a soft-spoken but fun junior who was extremely caring. She asked me if I needed anything or had any questions about my new school and promised to be a completely open book with me if I needed it because everyone else had gotten a semester to size up the chapters and decide if going through recruitment was the right thing for them and I just kind of dropped in and said “let’s do it”. She was a great resource throughout the week and made it fun for the girls who were waiting while she talked in the hall with individual PNMs, which just made the week that much easier.

We were allowed to attend six parties the next day, so I ranked mine accordingly:
1s: Cha Cha Cha, Merengue, Rumba, Plena, Salsa, and Tango
2: Mambo

I was SOOOOOOO ready for bed after having moved the day prior and spending the day traipsing along Greek Row. Some of the girls in my hall were all hanging out in each other’s rooms but I decided that I would sleep now and socialize later (and I didn’t want to hear any tent talk!!!).
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  #27  
Old 07-30-2018, 06:42 PM
phoenix16 phoenix16 is offline
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And the process starts again! It sounds like you had a great mindset going in the second time.
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  #28  
Old 07-30-2018, 08:20 PM
33girl 33girl is offline
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Sorry if I missed this detail, but did the sorority you started pledging at school #1 have a chapter at school#2?
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  #29  
Old 07-30-2018, 08:39 PM
_RushPuppies_ _RushPuppies_ is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 33girl View Post
Sorry if I missed this detail, but did the sorority you started pledging at school #1 have a chapter at school#2?
Nope, Dominican Republic does not have a chapter at school #2. However, all of the chapters at school #2 had chapters at #1, so I was vaguely familiar with philanthropies, names, etc.
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  #30  
Old 07-31-2018, 09:02 AM
IrishLake IrishLake is offline
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I'm assuming if you transfer schools, you're no longer bound to your bid card at your first school? (Not a situation I'm very familiar with).
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