Transfer student’s perspective on rushing sororities at Geneseo

Thumbnail courtesy of Geneseo Website

Members of a national sorority at SUNY Geneseo, Sigma Kappa, pictured gathering together in one of the dining halls on campus.

The student interviewed for this article preferred not to use their name and will be referred to as “Anonymous” for this article. Anonymous just transferred to Geneseo this semester and is currently a junior who decided to rush a sorority and offered to share their personal experience.

When asked, “What made you want to rush and join a sorority?” Anonymous stated that at her previous two schools before SUNY Geneseo, she had only made one friend who had also transferred. She had tried the joining-clubs-thing and still did not find herself fitting in. Anonymous stated that she had “thought her time in college was running out” and that joining a sorority would give her a much higher chance of making friends on campus. 

Anonymous described the overall experience of rushing at Geneseo as a stressful one. She started out rushing three of the local sororities here because she believed that it would more likely lead to a negative outcome if she only rushed one. This is a process sometimes commonly known as “suicide rushing.” Due to how overwhelming Anonymous found trying to rush for three different sororities simultaneously, she decided to drop one option to conserve both time and stamina. She mentioned that she had even “begun falling behind in classes due to all of the time spent at rush events.”

She explained how rush events consist largely of small talk and that each sorority only hosts a handful of events, which did not give her as much time to get to know the girls as she would have liked. Even with just a handful of events, the process was exhausting for her, and she was ready for it to finally be over. After all the effort, Anonymous still notes how she did not feel she had personally made many connections across the board but thought that one sorority's events stood out to her a little more. “Meeting a lot of new people was draining at times,” she explained, but through the process, she has already made a new friend and even found some mutual connections. 

Anonymous states that there was a lot of time invested in the process, but it was manageable, especially after she determined which sorority she really wanted to focus on. There was also the worry of not even getting a bid to join her desired sorority after spending so much time going through the process. Anonymous stated that her being more introverted probably caused her more stress and emotional drain than those of the more extroverted type. 

When asked what rush events entailed, Anonymous revealed that the rush events typically involve going to locations such as houses or lecture halls and standing in groups talking. The sororities host ice-breaker-type events, such as different events, games, and activities for the girls to participate in.

Anonymous was asked if she would say the experience was worth it if she does not receive a bid, and to this, she replied, “Yes, I think it was because if you don't try, you'll never know!” She says that now, at least, she can say she has rushed, made a friend, and now recognizes more faces across campus and in her classes because of this experience. Anonymous discussed that she wants the reader to know that this is just one person's experience and that everyone's experience could be completely different, and to encourage anyone interested in joining Greek life on campus to at least give it the clichéd “good ol’ college try!”