<p>it's that time of year for the '09 girls. I was wondering if anyone who went through it personally or whose child did it has any advice? I'm not really sure what to expect besides a huge time commitment next week, and probably lots of smalltalk.</p>
<p>With the addition of the 7th house, there hopefully will be less agnst and everyone who wants a house will get into a house. The best advice that I could offer is be yourself and try to be on good terms with everyone. You'll defintitely see that the world is a little smaller as someone from one of your classes may be a member of one of the houses you visit.</p>
<p>from what I remember:</p>
<p>The rush process is 2 rounds of visits, pref night and bid night. the grils are broken down into groups and are assigned a Rho Chi, their Rush counselor and go to person for any questions or concerns that they have. This person does not take part in any of the deliberations, or events from her house (as a matter of fact, she is supposed to be neutral and cannot even tell the rushees which house she belongs to).
D said that they could not wear jeans or flats to any of the rush events, and many of the girls were scrambling over the "what am I going to wear" thing</p>
<p>Round 1
Each young lady is required to attend the parties with their Rho Chi at all six (now 7) sororities, regardless of her own personal leanings or athletic affiliations. The parties are about 45 minutes where they make rounds in the house and try to connect with as many of the sisters as possible. Daughter told me at schoolshuge schools where there are a lot of houses, the parties are only about 15 minutes.</p>
<p>At the end of the evening the sisters vote on who to invite back every thing is computerized so the next day the rushees see their Rho Chi and find out where they have been invited back. It can get sketchy as some young women were only invited back to 1 or 2 houses. Some committed "suicide" by focusing all of their efforts into 1/2 houses and when those did not come through, the ended up not getting called back to anything. </p>
<p>Out of the 6 houses, D was invited back to 5 (one house she said she really did not like and made no effort, so it did not bother her not to be invited back). Of the 5 houses she has to choose 4 (Max) to visit for round 2 (she then felt hurt of the concept of "rejecting" someone who had accepted her). </p>
<p>In a real classy act she told be the the rush chair of the house she did not selct for round 2 sent her a really nice e-mail telling her how much they liked her and was sorry that she had not chosen them but they still wished her all of the best in the rush process.</p>
<p>(I was able to correlate it to the college process where some people are focused on the HYP and don't put the time and effort into showing love for the match and safety schools.)</p>
<p>Round 2</p>
<p>D said that some of her friends also got round 2 invitations to some of the same 5 sororities, so she feels a little less stressed because she is going through the process with her friends. There are some parts of the process that she does feel is a little shallow; you get evaluated on how you dress because each night you should be stepping it up a little more (this may be the longest period of time that they have gone without wearing flip flops). </p>
<p>Rush activities took place in the afternoon and the forecast was for rainy/misty (joy -joy traisping around in heels).</p>
<p>The girls go to all of the houses which they have been invited back to (up to 4) selected to and the process starts all over again. End of round 2 , the rushees, select their 4 preferences of houses , the sisters vote, everything goes in to a computer and the results come out. Out of 4 houses she requested, she got "prefed" for 3. She call home in tears as even though the house was not her first choice, it was hard for her to think that someone was "rejecting" her. </p>
<p>We had a long talk, I asked her what was it about that particular house that she liked and she could not want to come up with any concrete answers. My second question was did she get called back to the house which was first choice in her mind? She said yes. I asked her if she wanted to continue on and she said she would go through the entire process and then decide as to whether or not she wanted to pledge.</p>
<p>Pref night
She goes to visit the 3 houses (it happens over 2 days) and they spend an hour at each house. At the end of the second day they list their top 2 preferences. The sisters vote, everything is computerized.</p>
<p>I think they now have to wait until 5 pm the next day to get their bids. She goes to pick up her bid and got bids from both choices. In the end she went to her first choice. She ended up with 5 other RA's and many of her friends so it did all work out for her. </p>
<p>During their pledge process, she got a lot of baked goods from her big sister and little gifts . The pledges had a bake off as a fundraiser. She and one of her friends decided to make peach cobbler and they one a prize. Their pledge class seems to have really bonded and for the most part very happy. Yeah, there was a time where the pledges had to come over to their house to clean the house. Even then,she clean the fridge with one of her friends and it gave them an opportunity to talk and get to know each other better.</p>
<p>You already know that Dartmouth is small, so you never know what person could be a potential sister.</p>
<p>I also told D that it is important to maintain a sense of balance; just because she had decided to pledge, she did not have to give up her non-greek friends or friends who would go into other houses. Happy to say she took this advice; while she has a great group of friends in her house she has maintained all of her ties with her non-greek friends and friends who pledged other houses.</p>
<p>A year later she is still happy with her choice, she has a great group of friends (she's feeling a little sad because she and many others are off campus this fall, and missing those who are on campus) and it has all worked out.</p>
<p>how's this process work for guys and frats?</p>
<p>From what I have heard for the frats, it is a much simpler process. You meet there is a shake out (??) where they invite you to pledge. Maybe isacc will chime in as his son pledged a frat last year.</p>
<p>thanks sybbie!</p>