I totally forgot about this thread until today . . . haha. Anyway, addressing some points:
1) Yes, the rest of life is shallow, thus it's a given that rush will be to an extent as well. However, rush is not equally shallow across the board. Rush at a small northern liberal arts college, then rush again at Ole Miss. Chances are the degree of shallowness increases quite a bit at the latter. That's not to say that rush at at a small northern liberal arts school will not be shallow -- girls may be judged on their looks, previous reputations, degree of shyness, and what is said in a short 20-minute conversation with three sisters. However, I can guarantee you that the degree of shallowness is not nearly as high as it is in, say, many SEC-type schools.
So what does that mean? If it was just rush itself that was a shallow process, it would be equally shallow across the board. There are reasons why it is "shallower" in certain geographic areas, at certain types of schools, etc. Let's not kid ourselves. You can't sweep that under the rug.
2) I did not simply write off rush at large Southern schools as shallow and commend all northern sororities for being down-to-earth. For example, I've heard horror stories about rush at Miami University that would rival any I've heard about Bama. And as we all know, Miami, Indiana, Illinois and Penn State have some of the largest rushes and largest Greek systems in the country -- larger than many SEC schools, and in some cases just as competitive. Then why do we not hear so many horror stories about these schools on the boards?
My guess is that students that attend these schools (and alums who did attend) are not so proud of the shallowness as many from SEC-style schools tend to be. (I hate to keep picking on SEC schools because I know there are plenty of you who attended them who don't fall into the category of people I'm discussing, and there are plenty of people who attended non-SEC schools, who do -- so bear with me here.) The people I know from Indiana or Miami who have told me stories about the cut-throat nature of their rush are usually a little embarassed about how shallow it can sometimes be. I don't get the same impression from GCers who talk about UGA, Ole Miss, Bama, etc.
As I've said, there is often a sick sense of pride when discussing some (usually Southern) systems that you don't see nearly as much when discussing other systems that are equally competitive and possibly equally shallow. I'm not attacking the shallowness so much as I'm attacking the pride. Make sense?
3) I attended a large northern school with a moderately competitive rush -- although not on par with the schools listed in #2. I would be lying if I said rush wasn't shallow. Looks mattered, of course. This is a given at any school, and at more points in life than just sorority rush. And of course we didn't always get to know the girls as well as I would have liked.
HOWEVER -- for the most part, clothes, money, who you were in high school, "Who is your daddy and what does he do?", etc. were never an issue. My school is proof that matchy-matchy clothes and elaborate rush skits and girls who walk around carrying Coach bags does not necessarily equal a particularly cut-throat recruitment. I'm not saying that we "did it right," because there were certainly times when I was ashamed of the shallow nature of our rush, and I think there is certainly room for improvement. However, I don't see anyone from my Greek system talking about how proud we are that our rush is so cut-throat and if you weren't cute you didn't get a bid, either.
4) Whoever mentioned that the shallowness goes both ways is correct. However, we ALL look down upon the girls who "only want to be in the top three sororities" and their ilk. How many times has a girl come to this board and said something along those lines and everybody jumps on her? "Give everyone a chance, don't listen to what you've heard, don't judge on stuff like skits and clothes because it's not that important -- sisterhood is what's important!" Yet for some reason it's fine for us to cut a girl because she has a less than stellar rep, or she wasn't "cool" in high school? Why is one acceptable but not the other? One can't be bad and the other okay. We need to reconcile this somehow.
5) Side note: Do people really list stuff like "Member, Homecoming Court" on their rush applications? I was on the Valentine's Day dance court but would have NEVER thought to list that on my rush app? Maybe I should have; maybe I would have gotten invited back everywhere.
6) PhoenixAzul, I think that your post was great and insightful and all of those other good things. One of the things I'm getting at here is the "sorority as an opportunity to show off" idea as compared to the "sorority as an opportunity to mold women and make them better people" idea. We say we don't want our members to just be the type of women who will only join so they can brag about being a member of a sorority or use their membership to make themselves look good -- so why do we look for women to join whose accomplishments (be they looks, talent, popularity, brains or otherwise) we are mostly using to make the sorority look good? If what is important is the sisterhood, what should be most important during rush is to look for girls who will be good sisters. That's not to say that brains and talent -- and to an extent, popularity and looks -- are never important, but too often with the way rush is currently run, they're used as bragging points. "Our new member class has the highest GPA." "Well, the Sig Eps said that we have the cutest pledge class this year." "But all of our new members were cheerleaders and dancers in high school so we'll definitely win Greek Sing this year!" If we are going to be about the sisterhood, then in some ways we need to bring back rush to being about the sisterhood.
SO LONG HERE. Sorry, guys. And thank you for playing nice!
