[Mouse Mom]

This is a mom’s perspective on her daughter’s 2020 recruitment experience. I’m sharing (with her blessing) because we benefited greatly from the advice and stories here on GC. Her situation involves several factors that can impact a PNM’s recruitment including being a legacy, coming from far out of state, and in her year, the entire week being virtual.

This may end up longer than I intended but I decided to sacrifice brevity for thoroughness. I’ve done my best to maintain some anonymity, including changing the number of chapters and slightly altering descriptions. I know this may break some best practices for GC recruitment stories but felt it was necessary. I hope the story will still have some value.

So without further ado… I introduce you to “Minnie Mouse.”

Like nearly every PNM at Fairytale University, Minnie is smart, accomplished, cute, and friendly. Throughout her school years, she excelled in academics and sports. She was heavily involved in community service and is easygoing, and level-headed. Minnie likes almost everyone and tends to look for the good in people and situations. She’s in the honors program at Fairytale and was chosen to be part of a selective leadership program there.

One of the main reasons Minnie was interested in joining a sorority was for the sisterhood. She has always had close groups of friends and she believed joining a sorority would be a good way to find that at a large school where she didn’t know anyone, other than one relative who is three years older.

Though she doesn’t know any other Fairytale first-years or much about recruitment, Minnie was very lucky to have several NPC ladies providing advice and support before and during the recruitment process:

Merryweather: A family member by marriage, Merryweather lives near Fairytale U and is a very active alumna of her sorority, including as a past recruitment advisor and leadership roles in her local alumnae club. Sweet but tough, Merryweather is a straightshooter and doesn’t mince words.

Fauna: Mom of an incoming Fairytale Princess, Fauna and I met in a social media group for Fairytale parents. She is from (and still lives) in my hometown and her daughter, “Daisy Duck,” was also a PNM. It was nice to find someone whose new Princess was going through the same thing as Minnie, especially with so many unknowns regarding how/if recruitment was going to take place and just the angst and uncertainty that goes with being a parent of a child going away to college for the first time.

Flora: A friend of Fauna, Flora is very well-connected in her area’s Panhellenic circles, a region which is well-represented at Fairytale. Though Fairytale doesn’t have a chapter of her sorority, Flora offered to help Minnie and Daisy with preparing for recruitment and making decisions during the week if they needed a more objective sounding board (i.e. not mom).


BEING FROM FAR OUT OF STATE

Though she had much in common with other PNMs, Minnie was different in one obvious (and objective way). She would likely be the only PNM from her home state—a state more than one thousand miles from Fairytale U. Our family has strong ties to Fairytale which stretch back more than a century. Minnie’s brother graduated from Fairytale about five years ago and she’s known since she was little that she wanted to be a Fairytale Princess. Though her brother wasn't Greek, his wife was in a sorority at Fairytale and was excited to help Minnie. I attended (and rushed at) Fairytale before a medical issue prompted me to transfer to a school closer to home (where I affiliated.)

Minnie wasn’t raised in a place where Greek life is part of the culture. Here in Miceville, sororities and fraternities are seen as an activity reserved for the college years, more like a club. There’s no Panhellenic Alumnae Association in the entire state, despite University of Mice having numerous NPC sororities. Formal recruitment there is very casual so other than her brother’s wife, me, and our members, Minnie did not know anyone who had been through a very competitive recruitment.

Though I’ve lived in Miceville for many years, I was born and raised in a place which takes sorority involvement very seriously and with countless sorority women in our family, I had an idea of what Minnie might need in terms of the application, resume, rec letters, etc. Without this awareness, I think Minnie might have been at a significant disadvantage in going through formal recruitment at a large school.

Despite Greek Life being somewhat under the radar here (and University of Mice only having four chapters in common with Fairytale), Minnie was able to find quite a few women here to write recommendations for her, many of whom were excited to help as they’d never been asked before. DIL assisted with the houses she was lacking, connecting Minnie to her friends from Fairytale who had been in other sororities. Minnie spent quite a bit of time over the summer chatting with these women on Facetime and writing thank you notes.


BEING A PNM WITH A STRONG LEGACY TIE

When putting together Minnie’s packet, one of the topics we pondered was whether to include her legacy information and if so, the extent to share. As mentioned, our family has a very strong association with one NPC organization, especially at Fairytale. Minnie would be a triple legacy with many aunts, cousins, in-laws, and relatives belonging to the same chapter. We weren’t sure what to do.

On one hand, including (at least some of) that information might be helpful in showing that Minnie understood the commitment of being in a sorority and wasn’t someone from faraway who would join and then get homesick and leave during the first semester. On the other hand, there was a fear of Minnie being automatically snubbed by other sororities who would assume she was only interested in that chapter and wouldn’t be worth investing time in getting to know. This was made all the more complicated to us by several sororities (including mine) announcing changes to their legacy policies shortly before recruitment started.

Flora advised that we exclude it. We didn’t want chapters making snap judgments about Minnie based on legacy connections. Houses might assume she was only interested in her legacy house, even if that sorority was one which no longer gave advantages to legacy PNMs. “Other chapters might see all the ‘Elsas’ in her family and count her out automatically. You don’t want this to be an easy reason for them to release her during the big cuts.”

But Merryweather suggested we include it. “They will know anyway, whether you put it on there or not,” she said firmly despite my skepticism. Minnie was one of hundreds and hundreds PNMs. How would they know? “They will. They absolutely will,” she replied, unmoved.

We had two very knowledgeable ladies making opposite suggestions, and both their rationales made perfect sense. In the end, we did include the very basic legacy information.


VIRTUAL RECRUITMENT

Fairytale had announced a hybrid recruitment. PNMS were invited to submit an optional one-minute video (which Minnie did). She wasn’t really sure what to say but she did pretty well in talking about how she was looking for a sisterhood and hoping to be very involved in her chapter’s philanthropy.
Again, Minnie was a lot like every other PNM. How could a one-minute video show who she really was?

Some of the ladies who had done recs for her shared what they had written. There were phrases like “A loyal and true friend,” “With Minnie, there is no drama or bragging. I’ve never heard her say about bad word about anyone.” “Confident and kind.” High praise and qualities that might be reflected when talking with an active in person. But could they be conveyed in a short video and Zoom chats? She would just have to do her best and hope her true self came through.