Possible Thread: What to Do if You're Released from Recruitment

[KSUViolet06]

Bumping for the season.

There's good advice in the entire thread for those who wind up being released from recruitment/not getting a bid, but the best advice is here:

Originally Posted by AChiOhSnap

This is my brutally honest advice. It's not very nice; it's blunt and it's not sugarcoated. However it IS based off of lots of experience personally dealing with disappointed PNMs, and based on some themes that have been especially prevalent on GC this recruitment season. I think its important for people to hear this straight instead of some of the sugary feel-good BS that people have shoveled to disappointed PNMs since the beginning of time. Here goes:

Handle the rejection gracefully:

It's absolutely fine to be disappointed if you've been released from recruitment. It's even fine to cry. It's crushing to really really want something for a whole summer or longer and have it not play out. Seriously, grab a tub of Ben & Jerry's (or a sheetcake, depending on how much of an emotional binge eater you are) and a movie and feel sorry for yourself for a day or two.

But get over it ASAP. I don't mean that you have to stop feeling bad, but stop dwelling on the rejection publicly. The longer you act like a dejected loser, or the longer you whine about how mean the sororities are for cutting you, the more unflattering assumptions people will make about your personal character.

I know this thread is about PNMs that are released from recruitment, but I've always wanted to say this, and I think I will while we're on the subject: If you got INTO a sorority, but just not the one you wanted, don't cry about it to your new sisters on Bid Night. It's unimaginably immature, rude, and hurtful. Just depledge like a normal person and don't drag other excited actives and pledge classmates down with you. If decide you're going to give the runner up sorority a good old "college try", keep your mouth shut about how bad you really wanted to be an XYZ.

Be honest with yourself:

If you've been dropped from recruitment, was it because YOU cut a lot of the chapters initially or because you had an unrealistic "XYZ or bust" mentality? I'm pretty sure a solid majority of PNMs believe they "belong" in Phi Beta Popular, but most probably don't. On campuses with solidly stratified Greek Life, there are far more "lower tier" chapters than top tier chapters -- there simply aren't enough spaces for everyone to get in the "top" four or five sororities.

And you know what? At the end of the day, the "lesser" chapters stay open, meet or exceed quota every year, win Greek Week, have amazing sisterhoods with great parties, and nobody sits around crying because they don't have Phi Beta Popular letters embroidered on their Vera Bradley tote. So suck it up, be honest with yourself, and move on.

Complete PNM freakshows are relatively rare, and I simply DON'T believe that all of our unsuccessful GC PNMs this season were completely socially incompetent enough to have had such brutally unfair recruitments, as we've been led to believe. I think more often than not, PNMs don't "play the game" right or aim only for the top-tier sororities and end up disappointed. I know it hurts to get cut by all the "popular" sororities, but be realistic. If you're an average looking brunette with average grades, average activities, an average bank account and average clothes (no matter what your mom says), you didn't stand a chance at getting a bid to the sorority that only takes beautiful blonde 4.0 pre-med beauty pageant humanitarians from the wealthiest suburb in the state. You've been kidding yourself if you thought otherwise.

Try, try again?:

COB can be a fantastic option for PNMs who had unsuccessful formal recruitments, and I highly recommend it, if you can have a mature and graceful perspective on the process. This means swallowing your pride -- go back to chapters that dropped you, or that you dropped after the first night! Yes, as MANY as you can....even the lower tier chapters.

No, they don't hate you. No, the chapter is not going to talk about what a desperate loser you are for showing up after you were one of 500 PNMs they dropped after the first night. Show grace, poise, and a general willingness to "wipe the slate clean." Drop all the notions you developed about sororities during formal recruitment. I've often said this but PNMs AND chapters are allowed to shine during COB in ways that they can't during 15min FR parties. Try to see the chapter with new eyes; they're most likely returning the favor in spending more time to get to know YOU.

If rerushing or COBing, don't make the same dumb mistakes:

If you've been cut by every chapter once during FR, don't KEEP setting yourself up for disappointment. Figure out what you've done wrong and what you can do better. Ask your most brutally honest friend to help you out. Do you talk too much? Are you a bad listener? Do you nervously laugh at inappropriate times? Is your voice too loud, or are you so shy that you come across as having the conversation skills of a mouse? Are your clothes smelly? Has some girl in your hall shit-talked about you to a bunch of sorority members because you slept with her boyfriend? Finding out what you did wrong or how you can improve can better inform your strategy for how you'll conduct yourself during rerushing or COB parties.

And for the love of god, DON'T just go to one COB party for the highest tiered chapter holding COB.

Don't hate on Greek Life

Becoming anti-sorority in the wake of being released from FR just makes you look like you've got a raging case of the jealousy virus. Sour grapes are never attractive. If XYZ dropped you, talking crap about them does not help you "save face," it just makes you look juvenile. If you realize sorority life isn't for you after all, then that's great! Move on with your life and don't dwell on the disappointments.

Moving on:

Get involved with clubs, meet people (how do you think re-rushers have successful second recruitments? THEY GOT OUT AND MET SORORITY WOMEN!), put your money where your mouth is about how much you loooooove philanthropy and volunteer for non-sorority philanthropic efforts on campus, study hard, pick your major, start a workout plan, do some research with a professor, get a boyfriend, get a job.... keep your life busy and you'll be that much more comfortable in your own skin. Maybe you'll even decide you're having so much fun at college that the idea of a sorority loses its appeal. Maybe you'll want to be in one even more.

The bottom line is that YOU and ONLY YOU are responsible for your happiness in a given situation. Life doesn't stop because you got dropped from sorority recruitment, and college is not going to suck just because you didn't get a bid the first time you rushed. Life is what you make of it, so dry your tears and get back in the game. Rejection can only make you stronger, and this is not the last time you'll ever be this disappointed. Think of this experience as a class in the School of Life, and allow yourself to learn from it instead of fighting it.

[FuzzieAlum]

Discussion of PNMs? That may be more about any sorority's selection methods than I should know.

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by FuzzieAlum

Discussion of PNMs? That may be more about any sorority's selection methods than I should know.

No, we just draw names out of a hat when we have to decide who to invite back.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by violetpretty

No, we just draw names out of a hat when we have to decide who to invite back.

You use a hat? Think roulette wheel. It seems more sporting.

Oh, I've said to much.

[adpiucf]

Ooh a sorting hat? Like in Harry Potter? Wouldn't it just be easier if a PNM could put on a magic hat and be automatically sorted into her sisterhood?!

[bejazd]

Originally Posted by adpiucf

Ooh a sorting hat? Like in Harry Potter? Wouldn't it just be easier if a PNM could put on a magic hat and be automatically sorted into her sisterhood?!

That thought has crossed my mind more than a few times.

[FuzzieAlum]

LOL, I wish we had a sorting hat, but seriously, if your sorority makes decisions by discussion, I'm betting that isn't supposed to be public information, not like, "Our minimum GPA is this, and you must be enrolled at a 4-year college, and you must be female." I could be wrong; what your org says is OK to discuss may be different than what mine says. But as far as Alpha Xi Delta is concerned, the process of membership selection is completely secret. Maybe we talk to consensus; maybe we have a mathematical equation; maybe we vote y/n; maybe our VP for membership decides single-handedly; maybe we have a dart board. Maybe we discuss and then vote and then the president has veto power, unless it's the third week of the month, in which case we pick 'em alphabetically. All that's public is that we follow NPC and campus rules regarding rush.

[fantASTic]

Originally Posted by FuzzieAlum

LOL, I wish we had a sorting hat, but seriously, if your sorority makes decisions by discussion, I'm betting that isn't supposed to be public information, not like, "Our minimum GPA is this, and you must be enrolled at a 4-year college, and you must be female." I could be wrong; what your org says is OK to discuss may be different than what mine says. But as far as Alpha Xi Delta is concerned, the process of membership selection is completely secret. Maybe we talk to consensus; maybe we have a mathematical equation; maybe we vote y/n; maybe our VP for membership decides single-handedly; maybe we have a dart board. Maybe we discuss and then vote and then the president has veto power, unless it's the third week of the month, in which case we pick 'em alphabetically. All that's public is that we follow NPC and campus rules regarding rush.

I would be shocked and appalled to hear that ANY sorority released PNMs without even discussing them in the sense of asking the sister who talked to them what she thought.

[xoheatherxo]

i think the best thing about ms is that noone knows how more than one group does it. so i know how chi omega does it, but im in the same position as the pnms and their moms about all the other groups out there. ill never know why i got cut by xyz when i was rushing either. so we could speak for our own groups (although none of us would im sure!!) but no other group. who knows...we could all have the same procedure or all have different ones...i guess the world will never know!

[Zillini]

Going back to the original topic, I'd like to offer some advice if not a plea to moms, sisters, grandmothers, aunts and other concerned Rec writers:

As a sister I'm sorry if your PNM was dropped. As an advisor, I beg you please don't call the chapter, advisor(s), Inat'l, Panhellenic or the University and pitch a fit. Please don't threaten to resign your lifelong membership or stop contributing to the GLO/Foundation/University over this. I'm sure your PNM is a fabulous person, but in a large competitive recruitment there are 100's of fabulous PNMs with Recs and (in our case) tons of legacies. We can't extend bids to all of them because there are simply too many.

I'm sorry your PNM wasn't one of the ones chosen. Please remember membership selection is confidential -- even from alumnae. We cannot tell you why your PNM was released. As an advisor, I can only assure you that Inat'l and NPC policies were followed.

[SWTXBelle]

FWIW - I was dropped by a chapter to which I was a direct legacy. It might have been because I was rushing as a sophomore after transfering from another school, it might have been because I burst into tears at the second party because I had just learned my aunt had died, it might have been because I unknowingly wore almost the same exact dress as the Gamma Phis had chosen, it could have been that I was a drama major, and there are some chapters who have concerns about that, it could have been any number of things. I was tempted to drop out of rush entirely, but I knew as a sophomore I would not have many options.

I pledged Gamma Phi, and never looked back. I did all I could to make myself worthy of the trust Gamma Phi placed in me when they gave pinned me with those brown and mode ribbons and the crescent pledge pin.
I can also report that my mother sat next to a friend and sister of this legacy chapter at my graduation. As I was brought forward to receive the Outstanding Senior Woman Award for my class, she turned to my mother and said, "How did we miss that girl during rush?".

If you don't receive an invitation from a chapter with whom you are a legacy, or with whom you were certain you clicked, don't lose faith. It may be that you were meant to be somewhere else. I always advise young women going through recruitment to think - wouldn't you rather be in a group that really wants you, as opposed to throwing yourself against a brick wall of women who, however popular or cool they may be, do not love you the way your sisters should? Read the many recruitment story threads that show women who wound up in a totally different house than they imagined they would at the start of recruitment. Try to be open minded, and look for the place where you will be most at home.

[perfectinpurple]

[QUOTE=SWTXBelle;1693528]
If you don't receive an invitation from a chapter with whom you are a legacy, or with whom you were certain you clicked, don't lose faith. It may be that you were meant to be somewhere else. QUOTE]

This exactly! During my recruitment I was dropped by a chapter I was a legacy to, and wasn't particularly thrilled with my invitations for the day. After a good long cry to my recruitment counselor she told me this (at least this was the gist of it):

"So what if ABC & XYZ didn't want you? Heck! ABC & XYZ didn't want me either. But I stuck with it, no matter how badly I wanted to drop out, or how bad I felt on the inside, or how much I felt like I wasn't as good as all the other girls who did get invited back to ABC & XYZ. And you know what? I couldn't be happier that ABC & XYZ dropped me, because otherwise I may have never become a part of the wonderful sisterhood I'm in now!"

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that a lot of other girls get dropped from houses they thought they were perfect for too. A lot of these girls end up as amazing sisters of other houses, who couldn't be happier, because they didn't take themselves out of recruitment.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by perfectinpurple

This exactly! During my recruitment I was dropped by a chapter I was a legacy to, and wasn't particularly thrilled with my invitations for the day. After a good long cry to my recruitment counselor she told me this (at least this was the gist of it):

"So what if ABC & XYZ didn't want you? Heck! ABC & XYZ didn't want me either. But I stuck with it, no matter how badly I wanted to drop out, or how bad I felt on the inside, or how much I felt like I wasn't as good as all the other girls who did get invited back to ABC & XYZ. And you know what? I couldn't be happier that ABC & XYZ dropped me, because otherwise I may have never become a part of the wonderful sisterhood I'm in now!"

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that a lot of other girls get dropped from houses they thought they were perfect for too. A lot of these girls end up as amazing sisters of other houses, who couldn't be happier, because they didn't take themselves out of recruitment.

This is good advice, but it's probably meant more for girls who don't end up in their top choice, not so much for those who didn't get bids at ALL.

If we had a "what to do if you don't get your first choice" thread, this would be perect for it.

[KSUViolet06]

Bumping for all the GC PNMs to read before 2010 recruitment.

[gee_ess]

Great post SWTXbelle!