Town and Country dropped a fun little look into the wild and wooly world of sorority rush consultants, a job that I didn’t even realize was actually a job, and it is fascinating and horrifying in equal measure.
For the unprepared, rushing a sorority at a school like Auburn or the University of Alabama is an intimidating and seemingly impenetrable process. Enter women like Pat Grant, founder of something called Rushbiddies, which is a consultancy group that helps young women figure out what precisely they need to wear, look like, say and do to gain entry to the sorority of their choice—a perfect option for a generation raised by helicopter parents. Sessions with Grant start at $100 for a 90 minute session, though if you want the whole shebang—40 hours of text messages, chats, Skype, printed materials and what have you—that’ll run you a cool $1,500.
What exactly is someone paying for if they opt into this service? A good sorority rush consultant has ideally been through the rush process themselves and is also well-versed in the nuanced etiquette that sororities favor. Social media is a particularly difficult minefield to navigate and occasionally requires strict editing—any posts that are overtly political or otherwise inappropriate are deleted, just in case.
Another vital role the sorority rush consultant plays is that of fashion consultant, making sure that the clothes prospective rushees wear toe a careful line—shorts that expose the lower quadrant of one’s ass are likely bad, but a tasteful sundress is probably okay.
Rush week in August at a place like Alabama can be brutally hot, but there’s no getting around the importance of modesty. “Keep the skin to a minimum,” Grant says. “I’m not saying you have to be prudish, but some girls can wear things better than others. You want to be your best self.”
And don’t try to get too creative. Grant tells the story of one girl who showed up to a pre-rush workshop wearing a dress and cowboy boots. “I said, why did you choose cowboy boots?” Grant recalls. “She said, everyone knows cowboy boots are my signature. I told her, maybe back in high school they were your signature. But here, you don’t have a signature. You have to meet what’s expected until you’re established. Then you can wear your cute little cowboy boots.”
God forbid you express yourself in a fashion that would prove you’re a person and not an automaton! To be fair, getting into a sorority looks like it takes nothing short of human sacrifice, so I respect this hustle on all fronts. Read the full story here.