The parents of some college girls who wanted to join a Greek letter organization placed substantial amounts of money toward services to aid their daughters in doing so.
The Wall Street Journal reported on companies across the nation that offer various forms of coaching for women going through sorority recruitment, with costs for parents and their daughters varying based on the type of service. Some came in at $150, while others reached several thousand dollars, according to the outlet.
Hiking in Heels, a Texas-based sorority consulting firm, has an option that involves being on-call for clients going through the process and costs $4,000.
In Georgia, the company It s All Greek to Me provides intensive, step-by-step guidance to college women rushing for $3,500, according to the outlet. That service includes full support through the summer and rush with your mentor-grown relationship, said It s All Greek to Me website. Election Ready in Atlanta offers those who pay nearly $1,000 for private counseling on a slew of topics, rush week support and other services.
Greek Chic, based in New York, provides advice on dressing for the events, navigating conversations, obtaining letters of recommendation, and other aspects of sorority recruitment, according to its website. It also offers on-call assistance during rush week, with a price tag of $2,000.
Other services available to women seeking to join sororities were less expensive, such as a $150 video session from Recruitment Ready or a $600 training from It s All Greek to Me that offers tips on topics such as timelines, social media and makeup.
The highly competitive rush process has resulted in the emergence of numerous firms offering advice to women who are preparing to go through the process.
The exact format and length of recruitmentvaries by university, with rush periods on certain campuses and a week on others a short period of time. It climaxes on Bid Day, when many women receive invitations to join a sorority chapter.
The Wall Street Journal reported that sororities saw more than 125,000 women rush in 2022. Of those, 20 - 25 percent didn t receive a bid from a chapter or dropped out during the process.
videos of college women documenting the ins-and-outs of going through rush have gained a large amount of attention online in the past couple years, particularly those doing so at the University of Alabama. At the same school, roughly 43% of female students were members of a sorority chapter, according to U.S. News World Report.
The number of women participating in sororities varies based on the number of college students. The U.S. News World Report found that Sterling College in Kansas had the largest percentage of students, at 87%, while others like University of Richmond and Lehigh University saw 25 percent.