I've been lurking for awhile, but I really felt the need to voice my opinion on this subject. I am a guy and although I do not understand all the details of sorority rush, I know most of the ins and outs, at least on my campus.
This is all subjective and can vary from campus to campus. But, as a general rule, you should treat rush exactly like a job interview. If you go into an interview at a big time law firm (or anywhere outside the performing arts, etc) with purple hair, you are NOT going to get the job, no matter how qualified you may be. Rush is the same way, at least at moderately to extremely competitive campuses. Purple hair looks bad, and it makes the organization look bad, whether that is a law firm or a sorority or anything else. If you don't get the hypothetical job, you're not going to say, "well if they're gonna judge me on my hair, maybe the firm wasn't the right fit anyways".
Also, I think another dimension to this issue may be how girls view rush. I go to a very competitive school in the SEC (let's not turn this into another South vs North thing, though) and about 90% of girls who plan on rushing want to pledge one of the big 4 (the top sororities on campus), even after rush starts. It seems like at smaller schools or school that aren't as competitive rush is more about "finding the right fit". The truth is...sororities are big enough here to where girls will find their niche group within any sorority they may pledge so "finding the right fit" becomes a moot point. I can see how purple hair may not be such a problem at a school where a girl's main goal is to find the sorority that best fits her.
I'm trying to put my thoughts into words, but it's been a long day and I'm having a hard time doing so, but hopefully what I wrote makes sense.
|