Not many get the privilege of being a recruitment counselor, but for those who do know that it's the best/hardest thing that any sorority woman can do. Although most sorority women think that being a Gamma Chi, Pi Chi, or what ever you call it at your university, is easy, they are sadly mistaken. It is filled with emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausting activity, just on the opposite side.
We act as mothers, best friends, nurses, and more to women going through recruitment. No two days are the same, and with each day seemingly having a unique experiences than the next; we have to be prepared for everything under the sun. We've seen tears over having coffee breath, women not liking the chapters they got asked back to and taking off in a sprint (and us having to chase them in heels), and even women fainting or even needing EMS. This job is not for the weak-hearted, shy, or lazy. We hold their hand through every heartbreak throughout the week, every awkward conversation in the chapter room, every nervous breakdown (especially the ones at 3am), and every happy tear and homeward bound tackle on bid day.
We cry when our women cry because they have become like our children during throughout the short time that we've known them.
We don't become recruitment counselors to do less of recruitment, we do it to feel its effects ten times more deeply.
Just like women putting on recruitment in the chapter houses, we don't get much sleep either. We spent countless hours working on the ladies' work schedule, class schedule, and more. We forget how numbers even work after counting out so many t-shirts (and re-counting them after losing track 34 times). And not to mention spending extra time for cute photo ops.
While we deal with all of our women's problems as they go through recruitment, we also have to deal with our own problems as well. We have temporarily given up our letters to help other women find theirs. As beautiful as that sounds, it is one of the most painful things you can do in the greek community. Going through campus on that first week of class and running into your little, whom which you cannot speak to? Heartbreaking. Going through a break up during recruitment and not being able to text your sisters about it for advice? Gut-wrenching.
And what makes it worse? The whole time you are struggling to keep up with disaffiliation, the girls going through recruitment are trying to test you and figure out what chapter you are in. They will constantly try to trick you in simple conversation to give them hints about what your greek affiliation is.
It's like you are constantly trying to build a complicated tower while someone else is strategically pulling away the cornerstone pieces in hopes that it will crumble. And smiling through the whole thing...because if you cry, you'll ruin that perfect makeup that you did 36 hours ago and never took off because you were too exhausted (and just applied new makeup on top of). You have to keep a stone cold poker face when they guess what chapter you are in. Over and over. If you wear your emotions on your face, even in the slightest, this position isn't for you.
This is the hardest thing you can do as a member of sorority life.
But do you know who you can rely on when those walls are crumbling? You're other Gamma Chi's, Rho Chi's, Pi Chi's, or whatever you call them. These girls who you haven't even known for a year become your lifeline when things get tough during disaffiliation, recruitment, and beyond. It's truly beautiful that a bond of wanting to help others find their greek home is the baseline of the lifelong friendship.
When bid day comes around, we want to join our chapters again, but we also want to keep our affiliation a secret so that we can be recruitment counselor sisters together just a little bit longer. Ripping off that jacket and revealing our letters is one of the most breathtaking and exhilarating moments of all time, but we also mourn the loss of those recruitment counselor letters. It is the definition of a bitter-sweet feeling. We honestly don't know if we are crying happy tears or sad tears; all we know is that we have been so blessed to have such a beautiful moment in front of us.
But to be honest, that sisterhood from recruitment counseling really never goes away, even years after serving your time. We share a bond unique to any other
Sororities always say that sisterhood built upon similar values is the most unbreakable, and that's what we have as recruitment counselors. We don't do it because it is easy. We do it to feel its effects ten times more.
