Claudia Welch - The Truth About Sorority Girls: What Rush Taught Me About Life, Work, Friendship, and False Impressions

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The Truth About Sorority Girls

What Rush Taught Me About Life, Work, Friendship, and False Impressions

Claudia Welch

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THE TRUTH ABOUT SORORITY GIRLS

A Berkley Book, published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley eSpecial edition / June 2012

Copyright 2012 by Claudia Welch.

Excerpt from Sorority Sisters copyright 2012 by Claudia Welch.

Cover design by Monica Benalcazar.

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ISBN: 978-1-101-60189-1

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Berkley titles by Claudia Welch

Sorority Sisters

Introduction

Sorority Girls. Ill bet you have an image ready-made and inarguable; you know all about sorority girls. Theyre rich, stuck-up, brainless, mean, and usually drunk.

I am, or was, a sorority girl. I suppose once a sorority girl, always a sorority girl. I dont live in the sorority house anymore, but Im still friends with my sorority sisters and I consider those days to be some of the best of my life. Yet, when I tell people that I was in a sorority, people who like me as the writer, the wife, the mom, the volunteer, and the board member that I am now are astonished, and sometimes, right behind their eyes, I can see skepticism and dislike take over. Because to them, I am now a Sorority Girland everyone knows what that means. But what they dont realize is that being in a sorority has helped me to become the person I am today. It has affected my life in the most basic, positive, and profound way.

I recently wrote Sorority Sisters, a novel about four women who meet as pledges of a sorority, a novel that has some basis in fact, as I was a pledge of Alpha Phi sorority at the University of Southern California and, just like the characters in the novel, my sorority affiliation changed my life. Im surprised at some of the responses Ive received to the title and concept. Those conversations have made me reexamine my own experience, and Im going to stand by what seems to some people an outrageous proposition: Being a sorority girl taught me some of the most valuable lessons of my life.

Rush

The only way to get into a sorority is by going through Rush. Rush differs from campus to campus, and maybe from generation to generation. In my daya hot, late summer day in 1975Rush was an intense burst of all-day parties (that sometimes went into the evening) that lasted for one week. I cant remember if the week was measured as a five-day week or a full seven-day week; it all went by so fast. I do remember from the rushee side of the fence that it was hectic, tiring, exhilarating, entertaining, and stressful. School hadnt started yet and the campus was eerily quiet, but we lived in the dorms, all the girls going through Rush living and eating together, sharing the huge dorm bathroom at the end of the hall, and helping each other get dressed every morning for that days Rush events. I didnt know it then, but that was a blueprint for my life as a sorority girl. Rush was the start of everything.

Wed all walk together to the Row, that long street lined with every fraternity and sorority my university had to offer. I know that its not that common for all the Greeks to be so concentrated in one location, but I loved it. The Row was a special place with a very definite identity. It also made doing Rush easier on the feet.

Those of us rushing were told where to start our day, which sorority house to stand in front of, waiting for the signal to enter. The signal usually involved singing. Sororities run on the lifeblood of music and song, and anyone who enjoys the television shows Glee or Smash will understand the Am I living in a musical? appeal of that life. There is something almost otherworldly about being surrounded by song, and in four-part harmony, too.

Upon entering the sorority house, a mansion by any measure, I was greeted by a sorority girl and led to a spot on one of the many couches in the living room. Girl Number One sat on the coffee table and talked to me for a few minutes. The rushee next to me on the couch and the forty or so rushees scattered around the room were each involved in similar, animated, nervous conversations. The room was alive with sound. After a few minutes, another sorority girl approached, Girl Number One introduced us, using a conversation transitionClaudia was just telling me that shes from Connecticut. Girl Number Two is from Massachusetts! You guys are practically neighbors!

No kidding! My mom is from Greenwich. Are you from around there? says Girl Number Two, and Girl Number One says good-bye and makes her exit.

Five to ten minutes with Girl Number Two and the transition is repeated with Girl Number Three. By this time, my Girl Number Three may be chatting with her sorority sister on the coffee table next to her and we may be involved in a four-way conversation; most likely we are.

The point of Rush is to talk, to talk to as many people as possible in the allotted time. We are talking to get to know each other, in the best possible light. Rush is like a very well-managed cocktail party. There is no possible way for anyone to be stuck alone in a corner. There is no chance that youll be ignored or bored. You are being courted. You are also being evaluated. But thats okay because youre doing some evaluating of your own.

Do you like this house, which, in sorority language, means the girls who comprise the house? Do you want to spend four years with these girls? Do you want to become one of them?

If not, if theyve failed to make a good impression on you, then you drop them from your list.