former rho chi’s perspective

What’s the vestavia fiasco

There definitely gets to be a group mentality. Many times girls that lack self confidence fire themselves up about middle houses so they can only be disappointed in a good way as things unfold. Most tend to keep aspiring to the AXOs, PMs, etc until they start to see the writing on the wall, then start expressing a view that they don’t like them and whatnot. Lots of this is tent talk and face saving.

Vestavia is a Birmingham suburban public school that usually has a good amount of top PNMs. They had a pretty high profile PNM go through last recruitment that got blackballed based on an older girl having a problem because of a boy thing. The PNM had a lot of other connections and was friends with all the other top OTM PNMs. That girl got dropped after second round, I think, and it was a thing that split the house and girls came out crying that night and stuff like that. The girl is killing it at another OR house now. Honestly, I doubt it had any impact on other top OTM PNMs, most of whom were heading in other directions already.

Oh... I forgot to say but it should be obvious. The blackball happened at AXO. The girl went next door.
She was a better fit at the place she ended up, anyway.

Not exactly the story, but close

It also can be affected by the actual Rho Chi leaders without their actually meaning it. My favorite Rho Chi leader was very neutral about certain houses but was very excited for me about others. In the end, I chose a house she seemed ok with, stating that I needed to make a choice based upon what letters I would be more proud to wear. In the end, I found out that one of my houses I was unsure about but kept ranking as a 1 for the first two rounds was her house. I also ranked two other old row houses 2 and 3 after IWT that now I might have been happy in due to her neutrality. I know she tried very hard to be unbiased and really wanted the best for me, but I think leaders are only human and want a good fit for their girls, whatever THEY think that might be.

It can be really tough as a rho chi to hear a girl you like try to decide between houses when you don’t want to bias her but you also truly believe one of the houses is a much better fit.
There was only one girl I outright told her I didn’t think her top choice (alpha phi) would be a good fit for her compared to the other houses she preffed. But I also told her that I’d only known her for a week and it was really most important that she chose where SHE wanted to be.
She picked alpha phi and ended up being pretty unhappy there, it still breaks my heart because I know it was her decision to make and NOT my job to tell her what to do, but i wish I could have gotten her to chose differently.

Totally agree. I was also a Rho Chi and like 99% of the girls in my group were drawn to chapters that weren't mine, and weren't anything like mine, but I knew they weren't the right fit for my chapter and vice versa. I'd much rather my PNMs be happy in a house other than mine than be miserable in my house and drop. And it definitely sucks when a PNM ends up dropping her house, because you wonder if you could have done something differently to help her find a better fit.

But yeah, each Rho Chi group is VERY different, so while I think hearing what everyone's PNMs thought is fun, we all need to take it with a grain of salt. There are thousands of PNMs divided amongst these groups, so just listening to what one group thinks won't give an accurate picture of the entire PNM pool.