If you are a freshman girl at Vanderbilt, you probably spend a lot of time talking, thinking and worrying about sororities. Over 42% of students participating in Greek Life; the fraternities dominating the party scene while the sorority women wearing their recruitment shirts at least once a week, making them impossible to ignore.
I am here to write to you about my experience with the Greek stereotypes at Vanderbilt and why they should be ignored during the recruitment process.
When I was a first semester freshman, I avoided sorority stereotypes and "rankings" like they were the plague. My sister, a freshman at a different university, would talk about different sorority tiers at her school and claimed that Vanderbilt must have tiers, too. All I had to do was look them up online.
That was not something I wanted to do. I believed what the older students said, that I would be happy with wherever I was meant to end up, and I did not want any stereotypes getting in the way of that.
A year later, I'm telling you why this was the right attitude to have. After I went through recruitment, I let people tell me which sororities were thought to be "good" and which were "bad," and it is honestly so ridiculous.
In every sorority, there are women you are going to relate to and want to be friends with, women who are going to bother you, women that make your sorority look good and women who make you wonder why they are even there. It's impossible to find a group where every woman is your ideal, beautiful, preppy sorority sister (and do you even want that?).
Each sorority is filled with unique women, and you will find a place where you click the most. You will not know which one it is until during or after recruitment, but you will feel at home once you do. No matter what your attitude is going into it, the recruitment process is tough. A lot of my friends who went into it with stereotypes struggled through recruitment, because it's not possible for everyone to get into what they consider to be a "top" sorority.
Personally, I went in with no preconceived opinions but quickly determined which sorority I wanted to be in just from my conversations during the rounds. My friends and I were terrified throughout the week that we would get cut from our favorites, and it honestly worked out for most of us (including me). My friends who were disappointed at first with where they ended up - mostly because of stereotypes that they had heard before they went through recruitment - are happy now and could not picture themselves anywhere else.
At Vanderbilt, your sorority does not determine who you have to hang out with or which fraternities you can associate with. It is just a group of people who support each other and a place where you can feel at home. So please, do not worry about stereotypes or rankings, because the only people who actually care about them are first semester freshmen.