<p>OP, forgive me if you’ve already checked in and I missed it; how is your daughter doing now? </p>
<p>Hopefully she’s feeling better and has joined a club or something that will give her a sense of community. </p>
<p>The first semester of freshman year is rough, so many life changes for a young adult. When my daughter and her friends got together over Thanksgiving break it was a little hard for her because the girls who pledged a house were excited and spent most of their time comparing houses and telling stories about socials and parties with fraternity boys. DD was bored to tears after an hour of the same story being retold by each friend. However, when they came home for summer break nobody talked about sorority stuff.</p>
<p>Update on my D: One of the 2 houses she did not choose, not because she thought she was better at all but because she did not feel she would fit in there, ended up to be the house her best friend chose. Her friend has since invited her on outings with some of her new sisters and she has gotten to know them and liked them. There is now an opportunity to join due to open spots and my D will have the chance to join that sorority if she chooses to. I honestly do not know if she will decide to but I hope she does because she has found it hard to find her place when most of the dorm is out for lunch, dinner and parties with their new sisters.<br>
I have read many of the back and forth posts regarding the pros and cons of greek life and it seems to be dependent on what each child makes of it. My daughter is a very beautiful, very talented girl but she is shy and she is not one to join things on her own. I think feeling a part of this group will actually give her confidence to join some of the clubs where she might meet others with the same interests and career goals she has.
The first 2 weeks of freshman year has been a roller coaster and it is hard to believe we are only 2 weeks in to the next 4!</p>
<p>This maybe a bit long, but it needs to be told:
My son is a freshman at my alma mater his friends wanted to rush. But since he is an engineering major and has been told by the Engineering department not to rush during his first semester he has no intentions of rushing.</p>
<p>During rush week as most guys do, he went with his friends to a couple of houses. He was honest with them and told them he had no intentions of rushing this semester. The brothers seemed ok with the idea. So he went to a couple of houses and just enjoyed the parties with his friends. For some reason a brother at the second house told him hhe was not a good fit in their house. He was a bit taken back and told him hey no problem I am not interested anyway. He emailed me the next day and told me what had happened. He was totally ok with it, but told me “who do these guys think they are? they dont even know me.”</p>
<p>A day or two after this another mother called my wife and told her that her son had rushed and visited 11 houses. This boy is a super cool kid, tall good looking he has it all. For some reason he was rejected by all 11 houses. The next day on his birthday he went back to the house that he liked the best and spoke with the president and asked him to please let him in. He was flat out rejected he even told the pres that today was his birthday and he really wanted in. He was told no.</p>
<p>I know he shouldn’t have gone back. But he did. How in the world could this pres just say no. Couldn’t he have just said come back in the spring or maybe our pledge class filled up on the second night of rush and there was no more room. Of course that would have been the nice and tactful thing to do.</p>
<p>Folks I am afraid our society has become less nice and caring. It is sad but true.</p>
<p>I shared this story with my son. His response to me was: Dad unless I have a friend at a frat and I am invited to join they can drop dead. He told me I would only join the frat to start changing this rush process.</p>
<p>This is the kind of person my son is and this is why we are so proud of him.</p>
<p>So I urge all future parents to walk slowly and be cautious dont oversell the Greek experience. Keep this in mind: this isn’t your Daddy’s school any longer.</p>
<p>famlip: Thanks for the update! For sororities, for the most part, you really end up being friends with your pledge class, rather than the girls that were already there, so if she likes the girls in the pledge class that would be great. One of the biggest advantages, from my perspective, of the sorority was that my daughter got to live in the house for a year and a half. The rent was extremely reasonable (much cheaper than the dorm), and I felt she was safe. I think what she liked best was the date dances, exchanges, and sisterhood events.</p>
<p>famlip, I am glad to hear that she is giving the group a second chance and that she is beginning to fill her days with acitivities. I did not want to imply that your daughter thought she was too good for the houses that she walked away from, but know from experience that sometimes you don’t “feel it” until the pref ceremony. It sounds as if she is being gracious to the group and may have an opportunity to join. Since you said she is shy, I imagine that she won’t hold an uncomfortable conversation or to at recruitment against them. I hope she finds a home.</p>
<p>As for fraternity recruitment, I really don’t know what to say. I will understand it better next year when my DS goes through it, but even knowing Greek men, the way they choose is foreign to me. As to it not being your Daddy’s school, I am so glad that it isn’t our Mommy’s Recruitment. Before RFM came into play in sorority recruitment fewer girls got placed and there were always those small houses/popular large houses on campus. Now it is much more balanced because the “less popular” houses have more opportunities, and PNMs that rank a house low on the first couple of rounds get the chance to view them again in the later rounds. It is not perfect, but it beats the days when a girl would go to her favorite houses all the way to pref then “bam” no bid.</p>
<p>gator4ever- I’m sorry your son’s friend had a crappy rush. If he is at an SEC or other very “southern/fratty” type school, I have heard from friends who are familiar with the process at those schools that most of the fraternities have parties during the summer, and extend the vast majority of their bids then. Pledge classes are pretty much already formed before school starts. To get in when school starts is difficult unless you have someone of influence in the house pulling for you.</p>
<p>@ gator4ever
I think the whole greek life thing is for the birds. My son obviously has some friends that have been pushed to “rush” (where the heck does that term come from anyway??), and I guess they’ve been urging him to do the same…but I told him no freakin’ way. Why the heck does anyone spend even MORE money on a purely social membership?? I never ever wanted to be in a sorority…I am very much an independent lead-not-follow person, and so is my son. I was disappointed that he even ASKED about joining.</p>
<p>The problem with this, is that for whatever reason, they did not want this person to join their fraternity. By making an excuse, the young man is being strung along, and they seem to be saying that they will not invite him to join. I think that the sting up front is better than lying to him.</p>
<p>famlip: I’m glad to hear your daughter is considering Greek life again and that her college experience is getting better. I myself had a negative sorority recruitment experience the first time I went through–I actually ended up catching a bad case of the flu (this was during the 2009 swine flu scare, too) and tried to power through recruitment, but ended up not receiving any bids to join. I felt very dejected and upset because many of my friends rushed with me and were happily enjoying their sorority experiences with their new sisters. However, I was determined to rush again and come back a stronger candidate–I bumped up my grades the following year, joined new and interesting student groups, and even studied abroad the summer before recruitment so that I had a lot to talk about and felt very confident going through the second time. Some of my other friends who rushed the second time around also felt a similar sense of confidence that comes with knowing what to expect. I hope your daughter gives this chapter a chance and is willing to open her heart to the sisters who seem to enjoy her company too! :)</p>
<p>Maybe he was showing some independent thinking. Thinking that all members of sororities and fraternities are followers and not leaders is just silly thinking. Perhaps he knows better.</p>
<p>^^^Great point! Individual chapters/schools obviously vary greatly but it’s clear that greek life often develops leadership traits in kids who had never before had the opportunity to be leaders. That’s one of the life-long benefits many adults believe their time in a sorority/fraternity has bestowed upon them.</p>
<p>I just really wonder about people who have no first-hand knowledge of greek life, yet are so very certain it’s so terrible. Seems very defensive, to me.</p>
<p>Joblue: I agree with you! Greek organizations are actually the largest and most successful leadership development program in the nation (members often manage organizations of up to 200 members with housing facilities and annual operating budgets that run into the high six figures!) and actually have the largest network of student volunteers (on my campus alone, fraternity and sorority members have completed more than 10,000 hours of service towards the community ranging from reading to children to cleaning up parks and beaches). Additionally, Greek organizations are the largest, most visible, and most active values-based organizations on campus today. Greek life is full of opportunities that I hope every student takes advantage of.</p>
<p>“Maybe he was showing some independent thinking. Thinking that all members of sororities and fraternities are followers and not leaders is just silly thinking. Perhaps he knows better.”</p>
<p>Your opinion. I’ve known far too many frat boys and sorority sisters to ever consider them to be terribly “independent” people. That’s my experience. Yours may vary.</p>
<p>Again, this thread is titled “rush disappointment.” If you have no interest or direct experience with the Greek system why in the world are you even bothering to read this thread? The compulsion to be negative when not called for or appropriate on CC baffles me. Get a life, people.</p>
<p>Sorry, I’m usually not so insulting. But I truly wonder if people are too obsessed with CC and chime in on things that really they shouldn’t. Deep sigh.</p>
<p>Mine does, considerably. The group of women I befriended through that experience include women who went on to do the following: SVP at major PR firm with significant public exposure, PhD in public health who routinely wins awards for her college teaching, reporter for NYTimes, VP at major consumer products company, various management consulting positions, professor of communication disorders, owner of yoga studio, anesthesiologist, dentist, pediatric immunologist (nationally renowned in this subspecialty), chief legal counsel for major cable company, law school professor, US bankruptcy judge, pharmaceutical researcher, producer of series of popular reality shows, chief admin officer of a university, minister, psychology professor at UVA, medical researcher in the UK, Tony-Award-winning costume designer on Broadway, founder of theater troupe that specializes in bringing theater to children with autism. From a graduate degree perspective, in my class of 30, several became doctors, several became lawyers (all at top-14 law schools), several went on to get PhD’s and go into academia, and several went on to MBA schools (including what was the #1 rated b-school at the time). And of course, many have served their communities in volunteer work as well.</p>
<p>But, go ahead and think it’s all Legally Blonde / Reese Witherspoon ditziness if it makes you feel better.</p>
<p>Yeah but PizzaGirl, those women didn’t white knuckle it through those first weeks of freshman year hoping they would make a few friends so they wouldn’t be stuck in their dorm room on Friday night with nothing to do but miss their family and hs friends. Instead, they were proactive and joined a social group, therefore they can’t possibly be considered ‘independent’ people or leaders forevermore. Surely, you can see the logic in that analysis. :)</p>