Rush week...oh what fun.Â
Lets get say what I pictured rush week to be was way different than what it actually was for me. Now all schools might give you a different experience but it’s all the same concept. So here are the basics...
 Every girl rushing is referred to as a PNW which stands for Potential New Member, and every girl is put into a group of 15-20 (by last names) and is assigned a recruitment counselor. Your RC (recruitment counselor) is already a member of a sorority but has to keep the house she belongs to a secret so she doesn’t influence anyones decision. You absolutely can not talk about the houses you do and don’t like with any other girl or you might get dropped. I’m serious, don’t do it. Even if you trust someone with your dog’s life, someone could overhear you and taddle on you. Oh and also, rush is a dry week...no alcohol or anything else thats fun, so have fun.
At my school, the week was broken down into different sets, like this:Â Â
Set 1 (Monday & Tuesday): meet all 13 houses
Set 2 (Wednesday): learn about their philanthropy
Set 3 (Thursday): house tours
Pref Night (Saturday): Visit the two houses you come down to and pick one
Bid Day (Sunday): get your bid and meet your sisters!
If your school is a bit smaller, or greek life isn’t as prominent, your rush week might happen during school, not the week before like a lot of other institutions so the sets might be set up differently...idk.
Anyways, sets 1, 2, and 3 are basically the same. You’re just speed dating a bunch of girls. Fun right? And chances are you’re going to get asked “What’s your major?” or “Where are you from?” or “How do you like rush so far?” at lest 3000 times a day during these sets so just grin and bear it, the fun stuff will come later.
After set 1 you start picking the houses you liked the best and drop the ones you didn’t. HOWEVER, a house has to invite you back for you to be able to keep them. At U of A, we had to go from 13 houses to 9 and often times, a lot of girls didn’t get invited back to all 9 houses they chose. And that is perfectly normal no matter how butt hurt you might feel.
After set 2 we had to go from 9 (if you had 9) to 6 houses. I got dropped from my second favorite house after set 2 and MAN was I livid. I had great conversations with the girls in that house and they made it seem like they really vibed with me, but thats exactly what they’re trained to do...so don’t get too bent out of shape if this happens to you as well.
After set 3 was when we had to go from 6 to 2 houses. This was pretty hard especially if you had good connections with 3 houses like I did. I had no idea which house to drop but I knew in the back of my head which house I ultimately wanted in the end so I dropped the house that I didn’t have as well of conversations as the other two houses.Â
Now it’s pref night. The most intimate and in my opinion, the most fun. We dressed up in cocktail attire and went to our final two houses where the houses were decorated and they served us lemonade instead of water, the best. You talk to the person who “prefed” you (who wanted you to make it to this night) and at my school, the seniors talked about their experiences in the sorority and sang songs. A lot of tears were shed. THEN, after you go to both houses you have to pick just one. Scary. A lot of girls knew exactly which house they wanted and it took them a blink of an eye to make their decision, but others took hours to make their final choice. If you ever think to yourself, “What if I make a mistake and want the other house instead,” just trust the process. think back on the whole week and remember what impressions they left on you and the values each house had. It can be very nerve racking but you’ll end up in the house you belong. But also be prepared, the house you choose might not give you a bid in return and you could end up with your second choice or no bid at all (but that rarely happens so don’t fret). Â
Bid Day is SO fun. Theres no more small talk with hundreds of girls everyday and no more stressing about which house to chose, because now you’re pledging one. Bid day for me was awesome, everyone met with their RC groups and gathered in McKale (our basketball stadium). There were over 3K girls there.. you could see all the excitement and anticipation in the air. But before we opened our bids, we all guessed which house our RC was in. Then they all lined up in front of us. Every RC sang the first house’s recruitment song and when the song ended, the RC’s in that house stayed standing while the rest of them crouched on the ground. After all the houses sang their songs, we finally opened our bids and left the stadium with the other girls in our new pledge class and the RC’s that were in our new houses took us to a venue where we met the rest of the girls in the house and hung out.Â
Alright, so i’ve explained what the basics of rush week are and even shared some of my experience...now here are some tips.
August is probably one of the hottest months of the year, and it’s when a lot of schools start so battling the heat while trying to look cute was a STRUGGLE. It was 107 degrees during the rush week...something I was not even close to used to coming from California. It literally felt like satan sat his ass down on Tucson and didn’t get up until November. So sweating is bound to happen, especially if you have one house at one end of the row and then another house 10 minutes later at the complete opposite end. SOOO
1.) Wear water proof mascara, no one wants to talk to a raccoon
3.) Hair spray your hair if you curled it
4.) If you used concealer to conceal anything, bring that with you. It will melt off.
5.) Don’t wipe the sweat off, BLOT it off. No smudging here
6.) Bring deodorant, lots of it
7.) Wear sunscreen, theres no need to look like a lobster after 5 mins in the sun
At my school, our RCs had backpacks with deodorant, sun screen, perfume, mints, and coffee filters. Coffee filters?! What are those doing in there? Well since you asked...they are absolute life savers when it comes to getting the sweat off your face without ruining your make up. They soak it right up and leave you looking like you did in the morning with your perfect make up.
 The last couple pieces of advice that I will leave you are simple,Â
1.) Go into the week with an open mind. No matter what you’ve heard about a house or if you have friends or family members in it, experience each house without any pre existing thoughts or feelings. It will make your experience a lot better and you truly will find the house where you belong.
2.) Buy blister band-aids now. The hours in heels will destroy your poor little feet. Trust me, I have the scars to prove it.
3.) Be polite and respectful. The days are long and tiering for you, I know, but its also long and tiering for the girls in the houses already too. They want you to like them just as much as you want them to like you, so keep that in mind.Â
Even though the days are long and hot, you only go through this week once. Thank God.
