When Hayley Grant, 25, got the call from her dad saying their dog was dying, she was on campus unable to go home. One of her sorority sisters noticed that Hayley was sad and as Hayley explained what was wrong her sorority sister told her to get in the car. She would drive Hayley to her parents’ house so she could say goodbye to the family’s pet.
Sorority is a sisterhood.
“It’s a family away from home and people you can rely on for anything at any time,” Emma Wingfield, 27, described her experience in her sorority Sigma Alpha Omega.
There is a certain image many people have about sororities and for those of us who don’t have any experience about them, it is mostly based on movies. Sporty blonde girls dressed in Victoria’s Secret sweats having a pillow fight, sound about right? The reality is very different.
Sororities are based on common interests, values, beliefs and sometimes religion. They do charity and volunteer work. Members are expected to maintain a good GPA and be stand up citizens. The sororities have many chapters on different campuses, so you may never even meet most of your sorority sisters, but still you share something that unites you.
So how can one get in?
Another thing the movies get wrong are the rituals and traditions sororities have. Watching the movies, you get the idea that to join a sorority you have to do all sorts of humiliating things and almost worship the older members. That’s called hazing and is not allowed on college campuses or in sororities. Some interpret hazing more strictly than others but the bottom line is, it is not allowed in any form. So you don’t have to humiliate yourself to join a sorority but instead there are three ways to become a member. You can go through recruitment that lasts a few days during which you get to know the sororities and they get to know you. You tell them about yourself, who you are and why you want to join. The aim is to find the best match possible. Most join already on their first year of college. The recruitment happens within the first months of the semester. Emma joined through fall recruitment but only on her third year.
Alpha Omicron Pi at a party to celebrate their new sorority sisters.
You can also become a member through open recruitment, where you get invited to spend time with the sorority, they get to know you and then eventually the sorority will vote rather or not you can join them. This is how Hayley joined her sorority Alpha Omicron Pi. Her friends who were already members recommended her and she was extended an invitation.
There’s also a third way you can join a sorority, but only a small portion of members come through that. That is if you’re a legacy. Meaning if your mom, aunt or other close relative was in the sorority you are pretty much already in. A few months after joining a sorority you go through initiation where you sign a contract saying you want to commit to the sorority and their rules. After that you’re a member for life.
What do you get from it?
There are a lot of rules and requirements for sorority members, like volunteer work, yearly dues and depending on the sorority other stuff too. But they also offer a lot. You have a large group of friends who are there to help you with whatever you need. In Hayley’s sorority ΑΟΠ the help meant very concrete things. If your grades dropped and you were struggling to get them back up to the expected level the sorority would get you a tutor. If you struggled with making the yearly payments, they would help you come up with a payment plan.
“We had parties, but your education comes first. So first take care of yourself and then come to the party if you feel like it,” Hayley says.
Sometimes the help was more emotional.
“A friend of mine went abroad and a week later her grandmother died. She couldn’t make it back for the funeral so all of us went to the funeral for her”, Hayley says.
The sororities throw parties, but it’s not the main thing. Some focus on them more than others. Emma’s sorority SAO put together a fall ball and a winter formal. Other traditions included things like wearing your sororities colors and going on a retreat to welcome in the new sisters.
“It was a Christian based sorority, so it was more about the fellowship than the status and partying,” Emma says. She also says she joined a sorority because she wanted to be more involved and get to know more people outside her major. She found out about recruitment from a friend who was already in the sorority.
One thing that you don’t usually see in the movies is that when you join a sorority you are assigned a mentor. She’s your Big. Then when the next generation comes in you become someone’s Big and they become your Little. Then you also have a Grandbig and Grandlittle. That is just another way to unite all the sorority sisters.
Hayley (in the back) with Cody, who was her Little.
Do you know the scene in a movie where two sorority sisters meet each other years after graduating and do like a special handshake and sing a song? Now that is actually true, though you might not see it happening in a coffee shop. The sororities have secret rituals that they do, such as handshakes and songs, and no one else is allowed to know them. The rituals are the same in all chapters of the sorority. So even if you went to different universities, all of your sorority sisters will know these rituals.
“There are thousands and thousands of us, but we are all connected by these secrets. So you have to keep them, because if everybody knows it’s not really special anymore”, Hayley says.
Photos provided by Hayley Grant.