Few days will make an alumna feel as old as bid day does. Every year, bid day is the proverbial Christmas of the Greek system. Overnight, you’re given a gift: an entirely new group of gorgeous, fun girls to love and befriend. You go through weeks of screaming your sorority’s recruitment chants at the top of your lungs, talking to hundreds of girls in search of your future little, or grand little, or *shudder* great grand little, and ingesting unhealthy levels of caffeine because you’re barely sleeping. It all culminates on the fateful eve following the day after recruitment ends.
I remember my freshman year of college, when I could barely eat, let alone sleep, out of sheer nervousness regarding bid day. I remember frantically calling my mom approximately every six minutes during the day, telling her how nervous and excited I was. I threatened varying degrees of suicide if I should, for some unknown reason, not receive a bid to my top house. Spoiler alert: I got a bid to my #1 sorority. I wound up spending the later part of that glorious day arm in arm with girls that would soon become my very best friends, screaming our heads off in brand new sweatshirts at the house that would hold the best memories of our college careers.
I remember my sophomore year, too. This time, things were different because I was already in. My nervousness shifted. Instead of worrying about where I’d end up, I worried that for some reason, the girls I loved throughout recruitment would, in a moment of insanity, pref our slutty rivals. Of course, that never happened during my time as an active. Each and every year, we had the most beautiful, perfect pledge class on campus. These pledge classes, of course, contained my perfect little, my perfect grand little, and my perfect great grand little.
As the years go on, it’s easy to become less and less involved in recruitment. If you’re a senior living out of the house, you’re focusing on trying to (kind of) get your shit together and apply for jobs, while blacking out at the bars every moment possible, because in ten months you will be faced with your impending doom: graduation. No matter how involved or absent you choose to be, participating in recruitment is a must. Sure, you only show up when you technically have to, and you use any mixers as a pregame to a night at the bars, but you still absolutely care about your chapter and the legacy you leave behind. There is nothing scarier than the thought of coming back for homecoming a few years after the worst day of your life (graduation), and seeing that your once perfect, beautiful, top tier house has deteriorated into a mid-level sorority, full of “diversity,” which we all know is code for “an enigma containing any girl who dared to pledge.”
Sadly, the only time you truly have a direct hand in recruitment is during your years as an active. Once you’re an alum, you can show up as many times as you want to, but it’s not the same. It gets scarier as the years go on. Eventually you realize the only ties you have left to your sorority are through your great grand little, who, let’s face it, you’ve only legitimately hung out with about ten times. Essentially, you’re left to your own devices to figure out if the new recruitment chair popped enough Addy to help your house maintain its status as campus royalty. It sucks.
Throughout the recruitment and bid day process, most alumnae will have the following routine.
During Recruitment:
Incessantly take breaks from doing actual “work” to stalk Facebook. This will happen whether you’re at an office job, or working on graduate school work.
Become increasingly bitter, but weirdly nostalgic, as the younger girls post statuses about how excited they are, how exhausted they are, and overall how much they love their sisters.
Take a brief break to go cry in the bathroom, while reminiscing on happier past times.
Immediately resort to retail therapy and the use of chemical peels, manicures, pedicures, and spray tanning to make you feel as youthful and beautiful as the new, 18-year-old babies your chapter is about to receive.
On Bid Day:
Excessively stalk all of the actives, anxiously awaiting pictures of the new babies.
Upon appearance of said pictures, mass text all of your pledge sisters and ask for their opinions, which tend to be shared feelings of excitement and jealousy.
Get increasingly irritated at the one girl in your pledge class who’s taken a year off from life and still doesn’t have a legitimate job, enabling her to actually go back to campus for bid day.
Spend hours analyzing every picture you can of the new pledge class, and secretly decide which one you want to be part of your family.
Text your affiliated little and let her know who you like best, and ask for her thoughts.
Post some nostalgic, but wonderful Facebook status about how much you miss your sisters, and how you are so proud of your sorority for getting the HOTTEST PLEDGE CLASS EVER! Extra credit if you can somehow work in a backhanded compliment toward (or covert stab at) your slutty rival sorority.
During Bid Week:
Resolve to go back to campus to visit. So what if it’s not homecoming? You have new sisters to welcome, and cheap shots to drink. Plus, you still have some guy friends that are on the five (or six) year plan. They’ll still be there, so you can justify your trip down memory lane as a trip to see old friends too.
Nice Move193
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