The last few weeks I’ve had the chance to participate in sorority rush here at Hope! It’s a lot different than at big schools, where rush only lasts about a week. Here, it’s a long process, only in the spring semester, full of getting to know the girls in the sorority and finding your best fit. The Sororities here are all local, so there aren’t any other chapters at other colleges or universities: Kappa Beta Phi, Sigma Sigma, Sigma Iota Beta, Delta Phi, Kappa Delta Chi, Alpha Gamma Phi, and Theta Gamma Pi.
I decided to Rush at the end of the fall semester, and that was really surprising to me. Greek life never seemed like my thing. I’m a bit of an introvert, but I really want to make life-long friendships here, and it looked like an opportunity that I just couldn’t pass up.
Rush started off with Round Robin, where we got to meet all of the sororities. It was really nice to get a first look at them. From there, I was able to narrow a few down, but I still had four in mind that I thought I would like to visit.
After Round Robin comes a series of open and closed events. At open events we did things like scavenger hunts, crafts, cookie making, speed friending, and all sorts of other fun activities. Closed events are similar, but you have to get invited, and they’re longer so you can actually go places. For example we went sledding and to a petting zoo for two of the closed that I attended!
I went to four of the first open events, and decided that two of them weren’t for me. After that I went to more open events for the other two. I believe I went to both of those closed events before I finally decided to stop rushing one of them and only continue with one. It was the only place I could see myself. This was risky, because I could have ended up not getting to join one in the end, but I wasn’t just rushing to join any sorority; I wanted to be in one that I like.
The final closed event is called Final Tea. I got invited to the closed event of the sorority that I wanted to be apart of, and I was soooo excited! After Final Tea, we submitted our preferences (you get to put down three sororities in order of first to third).
At the end of the night, I ended up with a bid (basically the sororities invitation to their group) from the Kappa Beta Phi (Dorian) sorority. I’m so excited because this is the one that I had wanted 🙂
If you have any questions regarding sorority rush I can probably answer them! You can contact me at brookelyn.wharton@hope.edu, through Facebook, or my twitter @hopebrooke18! I’d love to answer them!
Thanks for reading!