$$$ ranks

How will sororities know your reputation? I am coming from across the country to Alabama and know no one.

Reputation matters more for the girls that are from Alabama and the surrounding states. Obviously, if you're coming from the North/West Coats and no one knows who you are then reputation doesnt really matter.

Showing off their house, or even being vain about it, has nothing to do with how they choose members. Sororities, none of us, do not have access to families' financial information. That information is private and inaccessible to us even if we had the damn time to go there while reviewing thousands of resumes and head shots and rec letters. All houses can learn what we need to know about PNM's for recruitment purposes but we are not the Illuminati for crying out loud.

That's not what I meant. I know sororities do not have access to PNMs' personal financial status, I'm not retarded. But like you seem like you've never experienced rush because there are certain tactics and questions actives ask PNMs to get a general idea of what kind of background a girl is from. For example, when actives ask what you did over the summer... I know some actives are genuinely curious as to how you spend your free time, but I know for a fact other sororities have their girls ask that to see if PNMs worked or went on lavish vacations. Also, actives can also tell what kind of background a girl comes from by what she's wearing... If a PNM's wrist is covered in Cartier and David Yurman bracelets then obviously that gives some insight.
Not all sororities here care about money. But there are a few, in my opinion, that do care about what kind of background/class a girl is from in order to maintain their reputation. I mean if you don't think certain houses here pay more attention to the brands you're wearing and the places you vacation then you're not paying close enough attention...

PM was continuing what it has always done. Before the rebuild, it was the only house with bedrooms. The other houses had sleeping porches, so PM did a house tour as a selling point. Some girls liked the idea of not sleeping in a huge room with all their sisters. PM probably didn't even think about it.

?
1. What the hell is a sleeping porch. I've been inside of Theta and DZ and I know they have individual bedrooms, not "communal bedrooms."
2. Phi Mu knows exactly what they're doing with a tour of the house. During rush, everyone's time is SO limited that literally everything has to be planned out to an exact tee - if Phi Mu chooses to do a house tour, then there was a SPECIFIC reason for it. Maybe they wanted to show off their "unique" features of their house, but that still makes it seem like they're shallow if they value a tour of a house over a face to face conversation...

Bump

Exactly. The honest truth is that there are SOME houses that care about what kind of background you're from and what kind of money you family's from. In my opinion, houses like KD and KKG hold importance over their girls being from Southern old money. And then Phi Mu is more of just new money, but they find it important for their girls to be very wealthy.
At the end of the day, these houses aren't picking their girls solely based on wealth and status, but believe when I say it's an important factor. I know these houses don't have access to PNMs financial reports but KD and KKG tend to pledge a lot of girls from actives' hometowns, so obviously, they already know the lifestyles of some PNMs. Also, as someone explained above, houses have different tactics to try and guesstimate what kind of background a PNM is from.