This has been going on for a long time, and not just in the South. I rushed in the 1990s and when I was home after my Freshman year, I was at the gym, wearing a shirt from some sorority event. A guy I went to high school with came up to me and asked if I joined my sorority at my school so I could transfer to his school (another Big Ten school) and be in the "best" sorority. I laughed, as I had never heard of such a thing (and my school was wayyyy better!!
) but after talking to people, apparently a lot of people did that, and from what I've heard, it still happens at that school and another Big Ten school with a very competitive Greek system.