This Weekend I Learned That College Girls Will Transfer Schools To Get Into A Better Sorority And Pay Shit Loads Of Money To Do So
(For those unaware, I'm participating in a little shindig called The Barstool Beach house with a bunch of 25 year olds down the Jersey Shore. If you want to watch a midlife crisis unfolding in real time, I encourage you to tune in. I'm learning lots though while I'm here. I'll try and stay up with blogging about them.)
Arite let's just get this out of the way. I'm an old guy who did college all wrong. I thought getting an education at a university with a reputable name mattered first and foremost. I visited Loyola Chicago for a tour, fell in love with the city of Chicago, and never looked back. I've been here ever since.
And I would say things turned out pretty good for me. I don't regret the decision by any means. I'm still in Chicago, have made friends with some of the best people in the world here, work several dream jobs, and pretty much have life by the balls. I realize how lucky and fortunate I am every day.
THAT SAID...
When I was touring the country, visiting every college that mattered, on the Blackout Tour and Sammy Adams tours, I quickly realized what a mistake I had made.
First off, city colleges are cool and all, no disrespect, but the schools in the middle of nowhere and down south are just on a whole other level.
The campuses might be in the middle of fucking nowhere, but that just adds to their charm. Plus, they are fucking GORGEOUS.
Tuscaloosa and Ole Miss' campuses are two of the nicest places I've ever seen, period.
The landscaping alone rivals Disney World. Every blade of grass is perfect. The tuckpointing on the buildings is pristine.
The classroom buildings look straight out of Hollywood movies. And the frat and sorority houses are nicer than any house I could dream to own and live in one day.
Oh, and the girls aren't even real.
Point in case -
(Sidebar - it didn't even actually take me touring the schools down south and out west to realize how much better big time schools were when it came to the full "college experience". My freshman year at Loyola I got woken up by my Chicago friends I made week 1 of college football Saturday at like 6am and dragged to Mcgee's in Lincoln Park. I thought they were fucking crazy until we got there. It was "an Ohio State" bar, which made no sense to me considering we were in Chicago. But turned out every bar in Chicago "has a school". Meaning every bar gets taken over by alumni from a particular school every Saturday and you're basically transported to that schools campus for the day. Everyones decked out in school colors. Fight songs blasting on the sound system. School's famous shots and drinks are on special. It's wild and one of the things that makes Chicago being the mecca of the Big 10 fucking awesome. Being from the northeast where college sports are pretty irrelevent by comparison, it was all a mind fuck. I remember telling my friends back home about it and knowing how crazy I sounded because you really can't understand it unless you see/experience it. That was blown out of the water by my first trips out of Chicago for actual game days. My friend Justin Hough had a girlfriend who went to the University of Iowa, and an older brother down in Champaign at U of I, and we hit them both on back-to-back weekends that September, and both were out-of-body experiences. I couldn't believe that Iowa City was a real place. The bars were all grouped together on a "pedway" and it was like Mardi Gras. I was expecting farm girls in overalls or something but it felt like we were in Malibu. Every girl was tanned with bleach blonde hair and smoking hot. Union and Summit were two of the craziest bars I've ever stepped foot in to this day. Down in Champaign, they partied nonstop from like 6am to 4am. People would drop like flies, stumble around like zombies, go home and catch a nap, then reemerge an hour later like nothing happened. The bars were insane. And there were a dozen of them unlike Loyola where we had Hamiltons and The Pumping Company or our dorm room. I couldn't belive it. End rant.)
So maybe I'm just living in a cave here. But when I overheard Oona and the Barstool Beach House girls talking about girls they knew who transferred schools solely for sorority purposes, I had to interject. Surely I had misheard.
Nope. I was quickly filled in by the entire church van- female and male- that this was very common knowledge.
Turns out girls all throughout the country were using and abusing a loophole in order to get into sororities that are as exclusive as Ivy League secret societies like Skull & Bones.
And upon investigation, I come to find out it checks out. The Wall Street fuckin Journal just did a cover story on the entire cottage industry that sorority rush has turned into.
WSJ - When Abbi Bennett rushed Kappa Kappa Gamma at the University of Oklahoma in 2018, there were no dance videos, no outfits of the day or decked-out dorm tours posted to TikTok. Even in 2021, when she was the one doing the recruiting, RushTok had not fully picked up steam.
“No one cares what we’re looking like, what we’re doing,” said Bennett, a former sports reporter in Colorado. “It was just one big fun bonding event.” Not anymore.
These days, rush videos are going viral. The videos have not only gained national attention—they’ve globalized the distinctly American experience of rushing a Greek-letter organization.
Growing up in Monterrey, Mexico, Meredith Garza watched American movies that featured sorority life, such as “The House Bunny.” When she stumbled upon Bama Rush on TikTok a couple of years ago, she was surprised to see that the phenomenon existed outside of film.
In the U.S., the videos may be boosting undergraduate interest in sorority life. Recruitment registrations have increased by 13% nationwide since the 2022-2023 school year, according to Dani Weatherford, CEO of the National Panhellenic Conference. “This growing desire for joining the sorority community reflects a growing interest in finding deeper community and personal growth,” she said in an email statement.”
As RushTok has grown in popularity, the girls have upped their dancing game, delivering near-professional-level short music videos. This month, in a video with 1.2 million views, the Zeta Tau Alphas of Georgia Southern University wear a uniform of magenta athleisure as they pop their hips and chests to Beyoncé’s “Diva.” While the choreography is not complicated, the dancers stay coordinated and expressive with their moves, a horde of girls cheering them on in the background.
Come to find out #rushtok is a monster.
And for good reason…
Many, many good reasons….
In their defense, I guess it kind of makes sense?
Networking is the name of the game in everything in life. It's all about who you know, and if college teaches you anything worth a shit before you head into the real world, it's that helping people by doing them favors, and having people do you favors, will get you a lot further than just a diploma and a smile.
So maybe doing whatever it takes to get into the circles with the movers and shakers, including schlepping it up for a semester or two at a community college or state school in order to rush your desired greek life sorority/frat and then transfer to a more prestigious school and be "grandfathered in" to their chapter is just a brilliant chess move?
Which her, credit where it's due. Hat tip all day.
But not a chess move I can see dropping "$4,000 - $20,000" to do.
That is fucking bonkers. Yet at the same time, very on brand for what the college system in America has become- a business. I can't even wrap my head around my parents' generation college tuition costing $5,000-$10,000. That sounds like fantasy land, considering you can't get a dorm and meal card for that much nowadays. Tuition is 3-4x that today. Minimum. Throw in all the bullshit fees they tack on, books costing a fortune, and everyday costs, and you're contemplating selling a kidney when you graduate just to work your student loan principal to a manageable number you can afford for the next 40 years.
Everything said, if and when I have sons, there is 0.0% chance I let them apply to school anywhere that isn't in the SEC, Big 10, ACC, or PAC12. They'll thank me one day.
p.s. - have mercy
p.p.s. - more rushtok