Northerners are paying upwards of $12,000 for “rush coaches” to get their daughters into a Southern sorority. It may sound crazy, but that’s just the price of admission to college’s most prestigious social clubs.
Now before you call me “dumb” or “out of touch,” I did not pay for any type of sorority coach, but I didn’t need to. I was from the South, went to school in the South, and had connections out the wazoo with girls already in sororities at Auburn University. But to be clear, I still got dropped by some sororities I liked (I’m looking at you Chi O).
It’s already hard enough to get into a sorority at the University of Alabama, Auburn University, or Ole Miss if you are from the South. You need spotless social media, recommendations from friends, an over-filled resume, and frankly some luck to get in. Coming from the North? Who are you? That’s what these sorority girls will be asking. So yes, these “rush coaches” give the skills needed to have a chance at joining one as an out-of-state girl eager to live that SEC sorority girl life.
Here is some inside ball. Sororities know exactly who is coming through those doors during recruitment week — if you are from Birmingham, Alabama; Atlanta, Georgia; Montgomery, Alabama; or Mobile, Alabama. Before rush even starts, the girls on the other side of the sorority house have been locked up for a week, without sunlight, learning everything about the top girls who will walk through that door once rush week starts.
But not every PNM (that stands for potential new members — sorority slang) gets spotlighted. Only the girls who are known to members already in the sorority or come highly recommended by an alumna are in this slideshow where the current members can get to know your face and some fun facts about you.
It always cracked me up that if you were from a small town you were grouped with other small town girls and affectionately called “small town trash.” Was that just my school? Probably not. Look, not everyone can hold it down in Birmingham or Atlanta; someone has to hold it down in Alex City.
Now if you are coming from far out-of-state, especially out-of-the-South, you are starting this sorority journey already down by a touchdown. (We love a good football metaphor down here.) And only if you make a splash during rush are you then known as a “discovery,” and boom you have someone on the other side fighting for you, which is huge. But that is not the rule; it’s the exception.
Girls up North have known this for a while thanks to the absolute TikTok mania that surrounds rush every year, and now the parents are catching on. Lindsay Lookingbill is a teacher from Maryland who at first thought her daughter was silly for asking for a professional rush coach, but the mother later told Bloomberg it was necessary.
“You’re not going into another world. You’re not going to Mars,” she told Bloomberg. “But you are going into a different culture.”
Growing up in Alabama, girls know how big of a deal it is to get into sorority. In Birmingham even high schools have them!
We had mock “ice water tea” parties (what the first rounds of sorority recruitment used to be called) after church on Sundays, résumé classes, a handbook telling you everything you need to know about the sororities and how to get alumni to write you recommendations — it was intense.
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Trisha Addicks, the author of “The Rush Bible,” understands the amount of prep that goes into sorority recruitment. It’s why she started her business, It’s All Greek To Me, back in 2017 long before “RushTok” (sorority videos on TikTok) was even a thought. This company charges $6,500 for a one-year coaching program. Starting this fall, she’s launching the two-year Legacy Mentorship package for $12,000, and people are buying.
“The response has been overwhelmingly positive,” Addicks told The Daily Wire. “Clients tell us again and again how relieved they are to have found ‘The Rush Bible’ and/or our team at It’s All Greek to Me, especially our clients from the North.”
There has always been a need to prep for sorority recruitment for us ladies below the Mason-Dixon line, but with the influx of Northerners sending their kids down South after the pandemic (hello 30% increase in five years per the Wall Street Journal), businesses like Addicks’ have exploded.
“RushTok and social media completely changed the landscape of sorority recruitment,” Addicks said. “Girls are seeing the hype online and they want in, and our business has grown exponentially because Northern families know what they don’t know.”
“Rush is hard everywhere, especially in the South. Most Northern families haven’t navigated it before, and even families who think they know rush from their own experience find the Southern process is a different world.”
A rush coach like Addicks is going to clean up your social media, wardrobe, accent, manners, and résumé. Yes, Southern sororities do care about what you wear, how you talk, and what is on that résumé. No one knows who you are, so you have to nail the first impression.
“Rush is a high-stakes goal like any other, and you cannot show up and wing it,” Addicks said. “You prepare for it the way you would for any major interview or competition.”
Now before you say this is stupid, let me make one thing clear: Sororities provide structure, accountability, community, and connections during formative years. You have to have good grades and cannot be caught making out with everyone at the bar or posting alcohol on social media when you’re under 21. Put that drink in a red cup!
“At the end of the day, I didn’t pay Mindy to help my daughter through rush,” Lookingbill said. “I paid Mindy for life skills development that will help [my daughter] throughout life.”
Once you know how cutthroat the process is, it’s no surprise that parents are paying so their daughter isn’t the one during recruitment talking to a member that gives the “come rescue me signal.” Yep, that’s how calculated rush is. Members have a distress signal that basically means, “I can’t talk to this person anymore, come relieve me.”
My friend put it simply: “I would pay $5,000 just so my daughter doesn’t have to be the girl no one wants to talk to.”
Here is my rush advice: When a girl asks about your summer during the first rounds, you better sound busy. Volunteer work, summer job, playing sports, competing in pageants — sound like you were filled to the brim with commitments. No one wants a couch potato anti-social weirdo.
Use manners. Look the girls in the eye, ask questions back to them about what they like to do, say thank you, and just be polite. Nothing says “cut” like talking to a PNM with an attitude.
Dress respectfully. This is not a nightclub; it’s a sisterhood with standards. Cover up and look nice and modest.
And here is some advice from Addicks herself.
“For rush, highlight that you are a girls’ girl, a genuine friend, and someone who wants to be involved and active in your sorority,” Addicks said.
“Do this through intentional, thoughtful social media posts. Show yourself with friends and family and participating in activities you love. Avoid too many photos alone or with a significant other, and archive the solo bathing suit photos.”
Boom. And all that was for free.
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This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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