How to Stand Out at Rush
With some schools already half-way through their recruitment weeks, many of you have been asking how to stand out during sorority and fraternity recruitment.
Begin by looking at your school’s Greek life website to get an idea of what to wear. You’ll want to dress comfortably so that you can draw on all of your self-confidence. It’s harder to feel self-assured when you’re uncomfortable.
Try to subtly stand out from the crowd. Girls should choose a memorable piece of jewelry or interesting color dress and guys should choose a memorable hat or distinctive colored shirt, Don’t try too hard though, you want to fit in well with their organization.
[Also read What to Wear to Sorority Rush or What to Wear to Fraternity Rush.]
When holding conversations with the members, most are looking for key factors to ensure that you will be an active, contributing member to the organization. They want to know that you are:
- Involved in extracurricular activities
- Intelligent
- Interesting and have a good personality
- Ideally fit physically and mentally to join their organization
- Interested in philanthropic work, as most organizations spend an impressive amount of time volunteering in their communities
A great way to “casually” bring this up in conversation would be to ask the person rushing you “What sort of activities are your members involved in currently? In high school I was really involved with my [insert club and/or sports team] and I liked helping out at [insert charity where you volunteered].” This not only shows the member you meet their criteria but also that you are interested in learning about their specific activities.
Its also important to mention what your talents are, i.e. writing, painting, acting, singing, dancing ,etc., because fraternities and sororities are highly competitive with each other so they’re constantly scouting for new talent to represent them in campus-wide competitions.
Asking someone where they are from and what their major is can get boring; some better questions/conversation starters are (and they’ll remember that you were so creative):
- Do you have a big brother/sister in the organization?
- Do you have a job?
- Do you guys go on socials? What was your favorite theme?
- Do you watch [insert TV show], I’m really loving it this season.
- Have you ever been to [insert vacation]? We went there this summer.
- What do you like to do when you’re not in class?
- What is your favorite part about the organization?
- What made you pick this organization over all of the others?
- What’s your favorite sports team?
- Why do you like being Greek?
- You have such an interesting accent, where are you from? (Same question, new twist!)
Also, don’t forget, complimenting can always ease an awkward silence, a simple “great necklace or nice watch” can spark a new conversation topic.
Above all else, be yourself, smile a lot and just be friendly. I know it’s hard to put yourself out there sometimes, but in the end it is all worth it, I promise!