"You'll end up where you were meant to"...

[ErikaXO]

I agree to a large extent WITHIN THE LIMITS OF MY OWN EXPERIENCE with the "ending up where you belong" thing. If anyone saw my post in the "Rush experts please reply" or whatever thread I do feel strongly that the chapters pretty much can tell who is going to fit in and who isn't. BUT.....

I think that in the South, it is just plain different. Sheer numbers make the difference. I would imagine that even the "weaker" houses tend to have girls who would be A-list anywhere else, just because there were too darn many of them. But what separates the cute little 4.0 cheerleader who made top tier from the cute little 4.0 cheerleader who didn't? That's where the difference comes in....that's where the sorority's "expertise" counts. Maybe there is a nuance in personality that just clicks better for one girl than the other.

As I mentioned in the other thread, we had a lot of girls at Kent who got stuck on one top-3 chapter when they really fit in better at a different one. Fortunately the chapters were strong enough that if a girl didn't get bid by her top choice, she generally took her bid and did very well at the other house, realizing that in personality/etc. she actually did fit better where she ended up. I think a lot of you saw my own rush story....I had a very hard time choosing between the 3 even til the end!!!!! I probably would have been equally happy anywhere.

But what of the girl who has decided that she is going to go to college and change her image? Maybe she was a really cute, nice, smart girl in HS but she just wasn't part of the in crowd. She has decided that she always deserved better and she's going to go to college and make everything different. Maybe she goes to a large school with a small top tier, a large pool of really great sororities that just don't have the "superstar" status of the elite few, and then a few "weaker" houses. She goes in with her mind set on one of the superstatus houses and gets cut from them all by the end of 2nd. She may be a perfect fit for several of the other chapters, GOOD chapters but not the megaselective ones. She says "ha, not for me" and drops out. This is a girl who has her priorities screwed up and who is not being realistic about herself. Let's face it....there are girls who go through rush thinking that they are going to join a house and it is going to make them popular, beautiful, and datable by the hottest richest guys. These are not the girls who belong where they think they do. If you go into rush for the purpose of getting an image overhaul, you are doing it for the wrong reasons. The girls who come in radiating a relaxed confidence are the ones who go top-ier almost every time.

I stand by what I said before, my line that got quoted again in this thread. But the difference is in recognizing if you really belong where you think you do or not. There are girls out there who are never ever going to get into one of the "best" houses and if they come in expecting to, they are going to be disappointed. On the other hand, there are girls who SHOULD expect it, and those are the ones who are the really tragic cases at places like the SEC schools.

Cutiepie, your post brought tears to my eyes. I know I would have felt the same way you did. I am so glad you eventually found your way into the chapter you loved....I am only sorry that you missed out on the collegiate part.