difference between top tier vs lower tier houses

I think that was the biggest difference I saw when I rushed 2 years ago was that the NR houses were a lot more diverse than OR houses. Diverse not just in races but also in overall appearances. And what's crazy is that I actually thought that when I went into the houses too. Looking back, I remember my first house during IWTs was an OR house and I just saw a bunch of pretty and thin white girls and I didn't think anything of it. My next house was a "lower ranked" NR house and yes, there were still a lot of pretty and thin white girls... But there were also girls of different races, not necessarily many but more than I saw in the OR house. And there were girls who were bigger. There were girls who weren't size 0's and who weren't natural beauties. And that was something that I was genuinely shocked at. After spending the summer looking at all the house's instas and tumblrs and constantly seeing pretty and skinny girls I was shocked, in a good way, at seeing something different.

Top houses have their faults too. Not everything is perfect in top houses and if you genuinely think that then you need to reevaluate life.

A couple OR houses (at least the one I'm in) do this based on where girls are from not how they look. The in state/southern girls in that whole clique are featured probably 4 or 5 times as much as girls who arent

I was the one who commented under #2 and I personally ended up going a NR house. I love it but there are definitely aspects of rush and sorority life in general that are disappointing. In terms of instagram, my house doesn't follow all the girls on the main account. Don't get me wrong, the main account follows most and I think the few handfuls of girls the account doesn't follow is just because they missed them and not that they're "not pretty." I think this because my house follows girls in my house who aren't "pretty."

However, not all girls are show in ANY of the sororities instas... It doesn't even come close to that. Houses show the best pictures. As you see on insta now during the summer, houses are posting pictures of girls abroad and doing cool things because it looks fun. All houses showcase their pretty girls in someway or another, whether it's putting them on insta, putting them in the door stack during rush, putting them on exec, etc. I mean you look at houses like APhi who has over 10k insta followers and PM and Zeta who have close to that, people are following these accounts because there are pretty girls doing fun things.

All houses have "rules" like this. No house is going to post a picture of an unattractive girl because if they do they get called out for it. And in terms of "hiding girls during rush," I guess that's one way to put it. Houses claim they're keeping those girls in the back to help with the behind the scenes things. So a house will claim that those girls are getting the drinks ready and whatever. But I know a lot of houses do this. Whether you think it's okay for a house to keep a group of girls in the back all week and calling it "help" is okay or not is up to you but that's sorority rush for you. Most PNMs want to talk to pretty girls and most PNMs want a house filled with attractive sisters because honestly it makes them feel good about themselves... And because of that sororities do things like this.

OR house in case anyone was wondering

People need to take this statement with a grain of salt. Old Row houses are Southern-majority or at least have been prior to the last few years. Meaning they have A LOT of very supportive and very involved local alum. These are alum who are willing to give up a week or two in the summer to help orchestrate rush. so what does this mean? this means that OR houses have, at their disposal, an immense amount of volunteer help. NR houses have alum who help but it's not nearly as much as OR houses do simply because OR houses have a lot of local alum.

NR houses don't usually have the luxury of being able to call in groups of alum from Birmingham, Montgomery, even Tuscaloosa, etc. Because of that, some houses will turn to having their own actives work behind the scenes to help orchestrate rush. Whether that's being upstairs matching girls, in the kitchen making drinks, or out on the floor giving out drinks/collecting them... Because frankly, no house needs 300-400 actives on the floor at any given party. That's an absurd amount and at a certain point become extremely unorganized.

Yeah this. My new row house doesn’t have any alums besides our own advisors come to help with rush. My neighbor on the other hand is an alum of an old row house and goes to volunteer in their kitchen almost every year.

Don’t even get me started on the thousands of dollars of flower arrangements and other decorations that are secret gifts from old row alumnae to their houses every year. I’m only a little jealous lmao

Whoops didn’t realize I was using a similar name. To clarify I am different from the other ^^^^^^^^^ lol