Don’t Be Afraid to be Bitchy
Not you, younger girls. You haven’t earned your right to be bitchy yet. Bitchiness increases with seniority. We all know this. But if you are in a house of “nice” girls, you need to set that aside for recruitment. For some girls, they feel bad yelling at their sisters. But here’s the thing…if girls aren’t jumping high enough, clapping hard enough, smiling big enough, or singing loud enough, they’re fucking up. Because I promise you the girls in the house next door are. And if someone’s version of “jumping” consists of shifting her weight back and forth, that girl needs to be corrected and called out. General instructions don’t normally work, because girls don’t know they are the ones who are being spoken to. For some reason, girls think you can’t see them. Call their names out in front of everyone, make them do it by themselves, whatever you have to do to make sure girls are up to par. And don’t feel bad about it. Because there are other sororities that are doing the same thing, and not feeling guilty, and you know what it gets them? The best new pledge class on bid day.
Don’t Take it Personally
The opposite side of this of course is this: you are going to get yelled at, and if you’re doing something wrong, you deserve to be yelled at. This is recruitment, AKA the most important thing you will do all year, possibly in your whole life. If you fuck something up, it’s a big deal, and your sisters care about recruitment, and someone is going to give you what’s coming to. HOWWWWWever, that doesn’t mean you should make a big deal about it. Take your brief punishment, and once bid day comes all the craziness of recruitment should be left behind you. Hold no grudges. Whether you are the scolder or the scold-ee it no longer matters once you have your 50 beautiful babies singing your song on your front lawn.
Don’t Feel Guilty
A lot of girls, especially girls who are going through Recruitment “on the other side” for the first time tend to feel guilty about giving girls bad scores. Almost everyone gets dropped by at least one sorority, and if you didn’t you know someone who did, and it’s a really shitty feeling. As sophomores, you remember last year seeing girls in your rush group crying when they got their lists back, and when you meet girls who are “nice” you feel bad about doing that to them. Here’s the thing…someone out there gave you bad scores once, in at least one house, and they didn’t feel guilty…and you got over it. It all worked out for the best, and now you’re the happiest you can be. You don’t have to like it, (I mean, I do, but you don’t have to) but that’s really what Recruitment is all about. You’re going to be judging people who you don’t know that well, because they are potentially going to be representing your letters, your sorority, and you for the next four years. The bottom line you need to ask yourself, is not “do I want this girl to be my friend?” it’s not “is this girl a cool person,” it’s “do I want this girl to be in my sorority, walking around wearing my letters?” If the answer is “no” then you know what you have to do. And you were smart, and didn’t decide to be a Rho Chi, so you won’t have to deal with the tears. Not everyone can get a bid. You’re not sorry, and you’ve never meant that more.
Don’t Keep a Girl Just Because She’s Pretty
We’ve all been told that a girl “might come out of her shell” throughout recruitment, which we all know means “give the pretty girls a second chance.” But if she is still a dud or a bitch halfway through, it’s time to say buh-bye, even if she’s gorgeous. Recruitment may be superficial, but that’s not the only thing that matters. You aren’t only looking for girls who are going to help your image. You do also want girls who are going to fit in, and be fun, and make your college experience the best most amazing thing ever. Pretty girls are a dime a dozen, but if you don’t actually like her, she’s got to go. And girls who are rude and entitled are even worse than the boring ones. I have no use for a girl who has a pretty face and an ugly heart.
Don’t Get Too Heart-Broken If A Girl You Loved Ends Up Somewhere Else
BUT SHE WAS GOING TO BE MY LITTLE! I know. But no she wasn’t. Your little is going to be your little, and she’s going to be even more amazing. It happens that girls you were obsessed with choose a different, and dumber path. Maybe she was a legacy to another house. Maybe you oddly were able to connect with her about your obsession with Lord of the Rings, and everyone else thought it was kind of weird (I mean…everyone else thinks you’re kind of weird for it, but they already love you so it’s different). Maybe she got overwhelmed by the whole process and dropped out of recruitment, or maybe (what we all HATE to admit), she just liked a different house more. It happens. There are girls you want to see back, and you don’t, but if you get too bent out of shape about it, you could be missing out on meeting a million more girls who are a million times better (Obviously. Since they’re going to be in your sorority. Automatically they are better than everyone else).
Don’t Tell a PNM if this Wasn’t Your First Choice
Why? Because it’s awkward. There are some cases where it can be pulled off, but I really really advise against it. Think about it like this. You’re getting married (omgomgomg finally! Don’t get too excited, you’re not really getting married). Someone wants to ask you about your husband and how you first met. You say “Well, actually, at first I kind of had my hopes set on this other guy, but then things didn’t work out, and my hubby over here eventually won me over, and I realized how wrong for me that other guy was. Now I couldn’t be happier.” Sounds romantic. With sororities, that can ABSOLUTELY be true…but still if the members themselves are saying “I didn’t really want it at first” it just doesn’t look good. Love at first sight may not be realistic for everyone, but that still hasn’t stopped us from seeing Rom Com after Rom Com after Rom Com.
Don’t Forget To Have Fun
It sounds cheesy, but ask any older girl in a sorority. Recruitment brings people together. Maybe it’s all the extra caffeine, or the fact that you are in the same place with the same people for so many hours you forget what it’s like to leave the house, but it’s a really great experience and does amazing things for a sisterhood. You should be bonding and laughing, and telling Recruitment horror stories to each other, not complaining that your feet hurt and your Recruitment chair is a bitch. Through the craziness of it all, by the end of it you should love it all even more than when you started.
Well, it was sooooooo nice talking to you girls. Good luck with the rest of Recruitment!
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