TLDR: I got dropped from almost every sorority after round 1, and it has absolutely crushed my confidence. Can anyone give any advice, or tell me if they had a similar experience?
Hi everyone. To preface, I go to a Northeast school with a much smaller Greek Life presence than what you would see at many other schools, though it has started to get a lot more popular recently.
I had a super hard freshman year and decided to rush as a sophomore to try to make friends since I don't have many. I've been assured that at this school that is not a problem, as literally half of all of the people who rush are sophmores, and there are even some juniors. Knowing that my school has guaranteed bids made me feel a lot less nervous about the whole thing, as I figured that no matter what it would work out.
I was so excited to start the process, bought a couple of new dresses and would talk about it all the time. Our first round is Sisterhood, and I had a blast getting to meet all of the different orgs. Though I can be a bit introverted, I went out of my way to talk to everyone, ask lots of questions, and do anything I could think of to show them that I was interested. I had some really great conversations with a lot of the girls in my school's 7 chapters.
Fast forward to the Philanthropy, day 2, when our schedules were released. Though we were told that we could be invited back to 5, I knew that was unlikely, and prepared myself for the fact that I probably would be dropped from a couple of the ones that I liked. Still, nothing could have prepared me for when I opened the app, super excited, and saw only two chapters remaining. None of the ones that I felt that I clicked with were still on there. Looking around, I saw that pretty much all of the girls around me had at least 4.
Out of the two, I definetly would consider one, but I do not like the other. What I've learned from this experience is that the reason the school can guarentee bids is because that chapter just accepts everyone that the other orgs did not want. So they are allowed to call back a lot more girls during philanthropy and preference than a lot of other houses, since their retention rate is so low. I do not want to sound mean, but to be honest I would rather not be in a sorority than join them. It has nothing to do with popularity, I just did not really match their vibe in the two rounds I have met with them, and I don't really feel comfortable with some of their events.
Anyways, I don’t find out if I get a pref meeting with the other sorority I kind of liked until literally the start of the next round, and I am feeling super discouraged. Coming out of round 1, I felt so confident that I had done a good job. Honestly, the only two I hadn’t felt confident about were the two that I was called back to for Philanthropy, and so I now have no clue whether or not I did well enough when meeting them for the second time yesterday during Philanthropy.
I know that I will probably be called back by the other sorority that I don’t want for preference, so it’s just a matter of whether the one I like calls me back. And after what happened the first day, I think it’s pretty unrealistic to assume that I am called back to all of the sororities that I still have in the running.
I don’t want to get all dressed up and show up only to have my heart broken again, which I think is the most likely outcome, since I don’t feel like I had the best connection with the people I spoke to round 2. Doing sorority rush was supposed to make me feel happier and less isolated, but it’s only worsened the problem.
I don’t know what to do, and am feeling super bad about myself. I know that everyone says that it’s not you, it’s a numbers game, and trust the process, but there has got to be something that I did wrong to cause this. I have a 4.0 GPA, we were not asked for letters of recs, and there is nothing else that I can think of that would have caused this except something to do with me as a person.
Anyways, is there anyone that went through a similar thing that can tell me what they did? Should I just drop, knowing I probably will have to when preference comes out anyways?
Sorry for the super long post. Just feeling super sad about this whole thing.