Sorority Rush

[Anonymous]

My sister went to a big, Southern college. Rush was the week before fall classes. She went early and moved in and my mom didn’t stay (she was in a sorority too, so got the process(.

On day 2, after getting called back from about 5 houses, she decided that she didn’t want a sorority after all. Neither did a couple of other girls on her hall.

The 3 of them spent the week together, exploring the town and getting to know each other. 20 years later they are still good friends.

Had a parent been there, she’d have missed the chance to make those friends, and probably felt more pressure from my mom to go through the rest of rush week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP this is the absolute worst forum to ask. Sorry but DCUM is pretty anti-Greek and won’t give you the correct answer. At a large SEC school you will not be out of place staying for the week at a nearby hotel. Recruitment is stressful and she may want/need to get away (and since she is an out of state girl she isn’t goibg to have the “perfect rush” so you may need to remind her that , because of restrictions on the number of bids each sorority can extend, many groups have to make some tough membership decisions before they even meet her, and an out of state girl is an “easy call” to release because she likely has fewer ties to the area and fewer local alums who would be upset by it) But remind her to keep an open mind and just be her friendly fun self and she’ll be fine. And on bid day you’ll want to be there to hug her and tell her how excited you are for her. Northern and mid-Atlantic women will think this is absurd but it’s the norm on a big southern campus...and many groups will invite parents in to see the house on bid day.
Go to greekchat dot com to ask questions of helpful pro-Greek alums if you want real answers. Just don’t include any info about your DD that would identify her in any way. Good luck and I hope your DD has a great rush!

plus 1

[Anonymous]

I did this for my DD, but it was not intentional. I had a business meeting that I had to stay for and it did not make sense to travel home and back. I don't need to get into details, but I did see her a couple of times and honestly I think it was a good thing for her mental health. Rush is brutal and horrible.

[Anonymous]

Brutal and horrible?
Why do we encourage our daughters to sign up for the hunger games?

[Anonymous]

Is this typical at southern colleges? Big southern colleges? my daughter is only 12 but I will keep in mind the idea to discourage her from applying to whatever cohort of colleges at which this is typical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Brutal and horrible?
Why do we encourage our daughters to sign up for the hunger games?

+1. well put.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP this is the absolute worst forum to ask. Sorry but DCUM is pretty anti-Greek and won’t give you the correct answer. At a large SEC school you will not be out of place staying for the week at a nearby hotel. Recruitment is stressful and she may want/need to get away (and since she is an out of state girl she isn’t goibg to have the “perfect rush” so you may need to remind her that , because of restrictions on the number of bids each sorority can extend, many groups have to make some tough membership decisions before they even meet her, and an out of state girl is an “easy call” to release because she likely has fewer ties to the area and fewer local alums who would be upset by it) But remind her to keep an open mind and just be her friendly fun self and she’ll be fine. And on bid day you’ll want to be there to hug her and tell her how excited you are for her. Northern and mid-Atlantic women will think this is absurd but it’s the norm on a big southern campus...and many groups will invite parents in to see the house on bid day.
Go to greekchat dot com to ask questions of helpful pro-Greek alums if you want real answers. Just don’t include any info about your DD that would identify her in any way. Good luck and I hope your DD has a great rush!

This is just appalling.

Appalling that you don’t understand the process? NP but what’s so bad about a mom who offers support to her daughter? I assume the “perfect rush” refers to one who goes through the whole week being invited back by every group because every group wants her to join. This is rare. And do you think if 1500 women sogn up to join a sorority, they can all just pick the same one? How would the other groups survive?? How do you have a 1500-person new member group?? Sorry you don’t understand that there is a process (or maybe just don’t like that there is one) but OP didn’t come here to ask if her daughter should join a sorority or if you approve. She just asked if staying in a hotel was something other parents do.

Not only do I "understand the process" I was my sorority's President. Never, ever again. Ever. What a friggin waste of my time. How do you even begin to justify it?

[Anonymous]

Hmmm. Rush seems fairly low key at many schools and DD has made many friends through sorority. Guess it depends on the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sister went to a big, Southern college. Rush was the week before fall classes. She went early and moved in and my mom didn’t stay (she was in a sorority too, so got the process(.

On day 2, after getting called back from about 5 houses, she decided that she didn’t want a sorority after all. Neither did a couple of other girls on her hall.

The 3 of them spent the week together, exploring the town and getting to know each other. 20 years later they are still good friends.

Had a parent been there, she’d have missed the chance to make those friends, and probably felt more pressure from my mom to go through the rest of rush week.

Cool story, bro. Life is full of “sliding doors” scenarios.
But, of course, the alternate version of this is that Mom stays—encourages daughter to “stick it out” and she ends up pledging one of the amazing houses full of girls who were very excited to extend an invitation to her and made lifelong connections to those girls.
Maybe she also gets to be friends with the other girls on her hall...maybe she doesn’t.
I’m glad your sister is happy with how things turned out. But who knows what was behind Door #3...life is often like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP this is the absolute worst forum to ask. Sorry but DCUM is pretty anti-Greek and won’t give you the correct answer. At a large SEC school you will not be out of place staying for the week at a nearby hotel. Recruitment is stressful and she may want/need to get away (and since she is an out of state girl she isn’t goibg to have the “perfect rush” so you may need to remind her that , because of restrictions on the number of bids each sorority can extend, many groups have to make some tough membership decisions before they even meet her, and an out of state girl is an “easy call” to release because she likely has fewer ties to the area and fewer local alums who would be upset by it) But remind her to keep an open mind and just be her friendly fun self and she’ll be fine. And on bid day you’ll want to be there to hug her and tell her how excited you are for her. Northern and mid-Atlantic women will think this is absurd but it’s the norm on a big southern campus...and many groups will invite parents in to see the house on bid day.
Go to greekchat dot com to ask questions of helpful pro-Greek alums if you want real answers. Just don’t include any info about your DD that would identify her in any way. Good luck and I hope your DD has a great rush!

This is just appalling.

Appalling that you don’t understand the process? NP but what’s so bad about a mom who offers support to her daughter? I assume the “perfect rush” refers to one who goes through the whole week being invited back by every group because every group wants her to join. This is rare. And do you think if 1500 women sogn up to join a sorority, they can all just pick the same one? How would the other groups survive?? How do you have a 1500-person new member group?? Sorry you don’t understand that there is a process (or maybe just don’t like that there is one) but OP didn’t come here to ask if her daughter should join a sorority or if you approve. She just asked if staying in a hotel was something other parents do.

Not only do I "understand the process" I was my sorority's President. Never, ever again. Ever. What a friggin waste of my time. How do you even begin to justify it?

Interesting that you chose to be president of an organization whose membership process you did not embrace. Seems to me that you chose to “waste your time” at your own will...and yet act as though you not only drew no benefit from the exact same process but were somehow not an integral part of it. How do you justify THAT? Just curious...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm. Rush seems fairly low key at many schools and DD has made many friends through sorority. Guess it depends on the school.

Yes. But OP specifically said that her DD is attending a large southern school. And that’s a different animal entirely. Once recruitment is over, though, the actual membership experience is fairly comparable. The girls at those schools tend to make strong connections through their sorority as well. Friendships formed among young women during the college years can be so meaningful. I’m glad there are still women-only groups in most universities (ahem—I’m looking at you, Harvard!) as I think women really benefit from banding together to encourage each other and be a support system. And interestingly, the All-sorority GPA is consistently higher on most campuses than the all-women’s GPA. So it looks like there are still some benefits of you want to find them.

[Anonymous]

If it weren’t for sororities, where would we get Stepford wives?

[Anonymous]

I was in a sorority a million years ago so I am not anti Greek. I hate the idea of rush as a freshman. Too, too early.

[Anonymous]

There are girls posting on our community Facebook page looking for recommendation letters to pledge their down south sororities. WTH?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are girls posting on our community Facebook page looking for recommendation letters to pledge their down south sororities. WTH?

It’s a whole new world of sorority recruitment now. You need a recommendation letter to as many houses as possible or you’ll be dropped right away.