Even if you are quiet and shy, you can learn to make small talk. It's hard for me, but I had to learn to do it for my job. My husband is NOT shy and very friendly and watching him has taught me a lot.
Suggestions to get ready for rush:
1. Practice talking to new people. Whenever you get a chance (church, grocery store, volunteer activities, elevators, where ever). Just start with "Hi. How are you?" and start talking about the weather or whatever is going on the environment. You can learn to be friendly.
2. Learn to talk about yourself. I'm naturally not inclined to talk about myself, but it's hard for people to get to know you if you never tell them about yourself. The response to "Hi. How are you?" has to be more than "Fine" or "Okay." You have to say more, like this "Oh, I'm pretty good. We're really busy at home cleaning up all the post-Christmas mess, but it was worth it because we had a good Christmas." That little bit of information lets the person ask you questions about cleaning or about what you did for Christmas or start talking about their own Christmas or their own cleaning. Think of passing conversational turns like passing a ball. You want the other person to be able to catch the ball and pass it back to you easily.
During recruitment, an opening question might be "How are you enjoying orientation?" and your answer should NOT be "It's okay." The other person can't go anywhere with that. You need to say something about it "It's been okay. I really like my roommate, but the dorm food is terrible. My roommate and I found a great pizza place called Lou's, though." That gives the other person a chance to ask or talk about her dorm experience, your dorm food, the food at her sorority house, her experience living in house, Lou's pizza, or other good places to eat in town. It also gives you a chance to ask about living in house or food in the house.
3. Have some things that you make sure you want the other person to know about you. You have things that will make you an asset to the chapter. Know what they are and think about how to work those into conversation. Know why you chose your major and have something to say about it.
4. Know what the common questions are going to be and think about your answers. You can find some of them here:
http://sororityeverafter.com/6-quest...y-recruitment/
http://www.coppellsororities.com/joi...or-these-faqs/
5. You should also be prepared to ask questions. This link also has questions to ask:
http://www.coppellsororities.com/joi...or-these-faqs/