This Monday marked a new beginning for many first year students as the final day of sorority recruitment, Bid Day, took place across east campus.
Recruitment looked different this year in more ways than one, with a hybrid of virtual and in-person rounds carrying over from last year’s COVID-era operations and against the backdrop of Rushtok. Rushtok is an online phenomenon that has occurred on Tik Tok the last few weeks, with women from many American universities making Tik Toks about their recruitment experiences.
With videos from both sides of recruitment being posted, people already involved in Greek life as well as many incoming college students got to see the amount of work that rushers and rushees have to do for the process.
For girls going through rush, videos ranged from girls showing off each piece of their meticulously-planned outfits to experiencing physical and emotional exhaustion from the process. Southern universities in particular have very intense rush processes, with a lot of Rushtok discourse centering around the University of Alabama and other deep South schools whose Greek organizations are traditionally upper class and white.
On the other end, sororities hoping to attract girls to their chapter made many Tik Toks during the time leading up to recruitment, sometimes sporting themed costumes or color-coordinated outfits and running around their sorority house. Social media was already a significant part of sorority recruitment and operations before Tik Tok- most of Georgia Tech’s sorority Instagram pages have been long established, with thousands of followers and hundreds of posts.
When asked about the appearance of sorority social media pages, a student who went through recruitment at Georgia Tech this year said, “[The sororities] all seemed similar to their social media during rush, but I know rush is the time where sororities put on their best face and pretend to be perfect for the [potential new members] coming in.”
Since social media is the next best thing for incoming freshmen to take a look into Greek life behind knowing someone who is in it herself, sororities curate their accounts to look the best and most professional that they can.
The phenomenon of Rushtok showed the variability of what someone experiences during recruitment, based on factor such as what school you go to, how much money you have, and where you are from.
Even with all of the Rushtok hype, one first year was still surprised by her rush experience noting “Overall, I had a good rush experience; I was lucky enough to not be dropped by any sororities and I had some fun talking to some of the girls. It was not as stressful as I had anticipated but it was very difficult deciding which sororities to drop or choose as it’s hard to get an idea of what they were like based on the front they put out during rush.”