Nice article on South Carolina rush
Sororities welcome new members
By Kevin Fellner
It's not every day that hundreds of sorority girls flood the Horseshoe reciting cheers and handing out memberships to a new class of female freshmen. But on an overcast Sunday afternoon, they arrived sporting brightly colored shirts with prominent Greek letters and ready for Bid Day 2003.
It's the culmination of Rush Week. It's a time for hundreds of eager freshman students to open their envelopes in front of McKissick Museum to find out which sorority has invited them for membership and then sprint across the Horseshoe toward Sumter Street to the open arms of their new sisters.
"I've been working out at the Strom Thurmond Center all week," said first-year nursing student and potential new member Mary Ellen Horn, who vowed beforehand to be the first one to reach her new sisters.
"It was exciting and a little bit reckless not knowing where you're going," said first-year business student Kim Perlick, who had been accepted to Alpha Chi Omega just moments earlier.
"It definitely pumps you up when you're running toward them," she said.
Sorority members huddled together behind signs and under balloons matching their shirts as much as an hour before the potential new members opened their envelopes. The groups were strewn well past the Maxcy Monument.
Many of the sororities sustain friendly rivalries from year to year, and nearly every member strives to pump the crowd up
the most.
"We are the loudest and most spirited sorority out here," boasted fourth-year English student and Alpha Delta Pi member Katie Glaze, even though other sororities were making the same claim. Glaze said much of the group's spirit this year stemmed from them accepting their largest group ever with 70 new members.
Since students went through a series of interviews and parties throughout the past week, many were relieved to see it end and were ready to focus on schoolwork.
"You get to let the girls know what your philanthropy is and what your sisterhood is about," said Anna Rasmussen, a second-year business student and Alpha Chi Omega member. "We get to meet tons of them, as many as possible and then try to get a feel for what they're like and if they would fit in."
Some potential new members said they weren't intimidated by going through the many demanding activities of recruitment in their first few days of college.
"It's helped a lot because you get to meet a lot of really nice people who are really helpful," said first-year psychology student Kara Van Buskirk.
She also said the Rho Chi members, who are disaffiliated sorority members who act like mentors to the potential new members, helped her with
getting moved in and finding classes.
"I've been helping these girls find chapters and what will be their homes for the next four years, and it's really made the process exciting," said fourth-year finance student Elizabeth Jones, who was serving her first year as a Rho Chi.
She said her duties made her an impartial assistant, who couldn't even reveal what sorority she belonged to.
In the end, the smiling and anxious new members had the chance to hug their new sisters, have photos taken and be accepted into sisterhood in only their first week at USC.
"The waiting has probably been the hardest part of it," Horn said. "Just waiting here now is making everyone a little nervous, so I'm just ready to find out and run."
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