I said this countless times during the recruitment process and it still holds true in the aftermath: I don’t think I would have rushed anywhere but Emory.

Ok. so that might not be completely true, but I would not have rushed anywhere with a different recruitment process than Emory’s. I for sure would not have flown to school early in order to rush, and even now I am daunted by the idea of what it would have been like to rush at the start of my first semester. Going to school so far from home where I was the only one who really knew me was by far one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. I needed time to assimilate myself to this new life and all these new people in this brand new city. Rushing first semester would have tethered me to the first impressions I made and the first people I met; in a stark contrast, rushing second semester allowed me to make friends unbridled by affiliation and be undeniably me.

As it was, deciding to partake in recruitment was not a big or momentous decision for me. I continuously saw and heard plenty about Greek life during my first semester, and was attracted to both the philanthropic and sisterhood focuses of the chapters at Emory. I grew up in a family populated with strong women, in a home dominated by a strong woman, and surrounded in my friend groups by some of the smartest young women. When making a group at college proved harder than it had been at home, I sought the interconnected and reliable base of a sorority sisterhood.

Coming in blind, I made a conscious effort to go through the process blind (i.e. not getting too emotionally invested in one house or another, regardless of how hard that became to do). I see now on the other side of it all that as stressful as the process is, it is designed so that you end up with “your people”; whether it’s the sorority you loved from the first day or the last one you expected to see yourself in, recruitment is near identical to the college decision process.

I ended up in a different sorority than my two best friends here, and much like coming to college on my own. that was a hard concept to grasp. But I ended up in my dream sorority with the girls who made me feel completely at ease and home even before the first day of recruitment. Moreover, I ended up alongside my field hockey teammates who over the course of the first semester had become some of my favorite people. As sappy and cliché as it sounds, when I ran to the row on bid day, it felt like a huge puzzle piece of my life had settled into place. I went Greek to find a place in a sea of people I had never met, and my people in a city far from home.