“I didn’t expect to join a sorority”
“I never pictured myself in Greek life”
“I wasn’t the sorority girl type”
As a freshman going through recruitment last winter, I heard these words spoken over and over again by girls in each of the houses.
Well, this was not the case for me. I was that type. Back in high school or even middle school, I admired my camp counselors, cousins and friends’ older sisters as they sported their Greek-lettered sweats and “I <3 my big” t-shirts. I listened intently as they told stories of life in the sorority house, or cheered on their sisters in various endeavors. When choosing where to go to college, finding a school with an active Greek life played an important role. I didn’t have to think twice before completing my recruitment application at the end of first semester last year.
So, yes, I always pictured myself going through rush and becoming a part of Greek Life. But what this experience would actually look like, I could not have predicted.
In the beginning weeks of freshman year, we all heard stories from our friends at state schools about rush and mixers and pledge events. We sat on Facebook looking through their Bid Day pictures, admiring the smiles, t-shirts, posters and group hugs, and waiting for our turn to experience it all. Any of my friends stalking my Bid Day pictures last year would have seen all those same things: me, smiling widely, dressed in my new sorority zip-up with my arms wrapped around girls from my new pledge class. But there is more to Bid Day than what was shown in those pictures. The rejections, the tears, the splitting up of friends, the devastating outcomes that no one ever talks about in the time leading up to rush.
After two drama and emotion-filled weekends of recruitment, I had ended up in a sorority I really liked, but was separated from all but one of my closest friends. Some had gotten their first choices, while others hadn’t accepted bids at all. As I glanced around the DUC that day at all of the new pledge classes, I questioned why I had been looking forward to this experience for so many years. In my own pledge class, I saw a group of laughing, chattering girls I didn’t know, that I was not a part of. Across the room, I saw my best friends with their arms already around new girls, finding a new group of friends. I remembered the girls who weren’t anywhere in the DUC, but back in their dorm rooms crying to their families. In that moment, I thought to myself that sorority life wasn’t as great as everyone said, and almost regretted going through rush at all.
Now, after a year has gone by, I can say with a smile that everything I was thinking that day was entirely wrong. The girls who were sitting in their rooms alone are now happy and thriving, some in sororities and some not. My best friends who stood across the room wearing different letters than me are still my best friends. And the strangers who had posed in my pledge class pictures that day, they are now my sisters. I look back on my choice to rush with no regrets, as joining my sorority was one of the best decisions I have ever made.
So, it turns out I was right from the start. I am “the sorority girl type,” and I would never change that.