00:00What is going on at these schools? I went to I went to a college without any Greek life.
00:04So this is kind of, you know, this is this is kind of news to me. But what's going on
00:07here?
00:08Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I grew up in California and then live to have lived on the
00:14East Coast.
00:15So this is a different world to me, too.
00:19I think what's happened is that there's a pretty well-documented trend of people from outside the South or students
00:27outside the South wanting to be part of this kind of larger football games, you know, Greek life in these
00:35large southern public universities.
00:37And so many of these young women who are attending want to rush sororities and they learn rather quickly that
00:46the standards expected from them are a little bit different than maybe they would be elsewhere.
00:52Well, I have good news for you and me, Gabriel, the Californians who did not experience Greek life because now
00:58we live in the Northeast.
01:00We have Nora Melinda with us who not only went to college in the South, right?
01:06Yeah. But is also Greek. Greek. OK. Yeah.
01:10So what so this is this this come as any surprise to you?
01:13No, not at all. I mean, I think that this isn't groundbreaking news for me.
01:19I, you know, the University of Virginia, which is where I went, there's a ton of spending when it comes
01:24to Greek life.
01:25You have rush season. Everyone's doing all their just essentially trying to scout out which sororities and fraternities they want
01:31to be a part of.
01:31And it's a lot of money that it takes to not only just, you know, be accepted into these organizations,
01:37but also the outfits, everything that you have to wear to look presentable.
01:42Did you have a rush coach?
01:43Like so I will say in the black UVA community, it's a bit of a more niche experience.
01:49So we didn't actually do the traditional rush, but it is still an expensive endeavor.
01:53OK, interesting. So, Gabriel, what are who are these rush coaches?
01:58Yeah, so they are mostly based in the South, as you would as you would expect.
02:02Not all of them. One I spoke to is based out of New York City because she's seeing such a
02:08surge in clientele from the Northeast.
02:11And they but traditionally, the coaches that I spoke to are based out of the South and they advertise their
02:19services by saying, you know, this is a highly competitive process.
02:24Southern summer, you know, days are pretty inhospitable in full makeup and perfect fitting dresses.
02:33And you're expected to be your best, most presentable self in these 10 to 12 hour days.
02:39So not how are you not only going to be your best self, but how are you going to navigate
02:48the weather and potential rejection and the searing eyes of hundreds of girls aged 18 to 22 judging your every
02:59movement?
03:01But I thought that thought terrifies me today.
03:04Yeah, you and me both.
03:06As an adult, to think of that as a teenager, I would have folded probably quickly on day one had
03:13I been subject to this to this process.
03:16You know, what's interesting? I'm thinking about all of this in the era of TikTok.
03:19So when I was an undergrad, I didn't have TikTok, but now they do.
03:24How much has Rush Talk been, you know, essentially a driver for a lot of students, maybe even high schoolers
03:31being interested in Greek life once they get to university or even college students who are there presently being more
03:38interested in joining a specific organization?
03:41To speak to these coaches, you may as well be differentiating between before and common era.
03:49It is an extraordinary difference.
03:54The Rush Talk phenomenon, to those who may not be familiar, was one that really got popular in 2021, where
04:03the University of Alabama, their annual Rush process just became quite popular on social media.
04:10The girls revealing their outfits that they chose that day and then speaking into the camera about whatever acceptance or
04:18rejection that they experienced.
04:20And so it became this serialized drama of sorts.
04:24There was a study in 2022 by the University of South Carolina that the average Rush Talk video averaged 66
04:31,000 views.
04:32It's an average of a hashtagged video.
04:36So this really exploded and it has created all different kinds of niche markets.
04:41Many of these, I don't know about many, but some of these young women are able to have affiliate marketing
04:50deals with certain brands so that we're able to sell cute outfits that they could get some commission from.
05:01It just seems to be an entirely new world.
05:04So while I clearly did not rush a sorority, I imagine that the process probably looks different to even those
05:12who rushed maybe even 10 years ago.
05:14So what does it take to successfully get through this?
05:21I'm not the person to ask, I'm afraid.
05:23I mean, I've gotten some good pointers from these coaches who were very generous with that.
05:29Do the coaches have any sort of guarantee?
05:31Right.
05:32That's what I'm curious about.
05:32It's like you're paying $3,000 to $12,000 and the outcome is whatever.
05:37I was told that any coach who advertises a 100% acceptance rate is not telling the truth.
05:44I think what they promise you and what was probably the most, I don't know, revealing, enlightening, what the word
05:54to use is a fact about this process was that these coaches are doing kind of early job training for
06:04these young women.
06:05And it sounds a little absurd when you are talking about it in the context of what amounts to a
06:11social club, but they are trying to tell them that here is a high pressure situation.
06:19Here is how you present in the best and most professional manner possible because this, you will be entering something
06:29of a social network that could have potentially, you know, good professional, you know, a professional future if you use
06:38it properly.
06:41Again, it struck me as overstated when I first heard it, but then to speak with some of these parents,
06:47they really felt their daughters started to have some skills that they did not have before working with these coaches,
06:54which it was surprising, but, but it certainly enough people confirmed that this is a benefit to having these having
07:03these coaches.
07:04And I think it's, you know, also about the networking opportunity.
07:07I think if you are joining the right organization for a lot of these orgs, you're actually getting access to
07:12a new network.
07:13So I think to your point, maybe that's what some of these parents are looking at for their children when
07:18they're spending this money is the access to some of these networks later down the road.
07:23I think so.
07:24I think it is another example of, you know, highly professionalized environments kind of migrating younger and younger.
07:35And we, I don't think we typically think about sororities as acting this way.
07:40I don't know, but maybe we've thought about fraternities as having this way in the past.
07:46I mean, this was a point of emphasis for several coaches with whom I spoke was, you know, the old
07:51boys network has done a lot of, it has been quite successful, especially in the South for, for, for, for
07:57generations.
07:58And so now here is an opportunity for young women to kind of have their turn in, you know, in
08:05this type of professional network to benefit themselves for the future in the workforce.
08:10You know, maybe that's what the parents are paying for.
08:12Maybe the parents are just paying for wanting their, if their daughter says that they want to be in a
08:19sorority in the South, which is a place that they don't know particularly well.
08:24Maybe the parents don't want to see their daughters heartbroken before classes start, because in a lot of these places,
08:30it is the first thing that you do when you walk onto campus.
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