Rush is stressful for every participant no matter the circumstances: active sorority members want their house to appeal to rushees and want to find those that best align with their sisterhood’s values. Meanwhile, Potential New Members (PNMs) have to put their best selves forward to find the house they will run home to at the end of the week.
This year, a major change was made: rush week was held fully in-person for the first time since before COVID-19. Not only did sororities have to coordinate hosting every event, but rushees felt greater pressure to make themselves presentable.
Despite the added challenges of coordinating the events and inclement weather, many felt in-person rush was an opportunity for active and new members alike to form closer connections and engage in more meaningful conversations.
“If rush was online,” first-year Cameron Bitove said, “I would not have been able to make half the connections that I made in person. I would completely vouch for in-person rush.”
As of 2024, 65% of Wake Forest’s female population participates in Greek Life organizations, in 2025 seven sororities participated in formal recruitment. The Panhellenic Council’s formal recruitment, which is typically held in person for a week in January before classes begin, has been held at least partially over Zoom following COVID-19. Last year, a vote was held to move the rush process back to fully in-person.
Rush over Zoom
Hosting rush over Zoom required much less coordination of physical spaces. Catie O’Connor, new member educator and diversity, equity and inclusion chair of Alpha Delta Pi Sorority, said she had a positive experience with hybrid recruitment when she rushed in 2023.
“There were very few challenges from my view with online rush,” O’Connor said. “While once in a blue moon somebody’s Wi-Fi stopped working, communication was great and any issues were quickly resolved.”
Elizabeth Kane, recruitment chair for Kappa Beta Gamma sorority, on the other hand, said it’s more difficult for active members and PNMs to truly connect.
“Although it was nice to have a one-on-one conversation via Zoom,” Kane said, “it is hard to get a feeling for an entire sorority’s energy through a screen as opposed to being in a room full of people.”

(Evan Harris)
The switch to in-person
Kane said the process was difficult, partly because no active member had experienced a fully in-person rush before.
“Although we have done the sisterhood and preference rounds in person in the past,” Kane said, “doing chapter introductions and philanthropy in person for the first time was a challenge in determining how to best move a record number of active members and PNMs through the space most efficiently.”
“Additionally, I found that as much as we prepared during the fall semester, it was hard to have everything solid with our active members until we were in the room doing recruitment in real-time,” Kane continued, “We had to work through difficulties on the fly.”
There were lots of last-minute adjustments made to the rush schedule throughout the week. O’Connor said it was difficult to keep track of the constant changes being made to schedules.
“Rush in-person had a constantly changing schedule and was much more stressful from the recruitment point of view,” O’Connor said. “Due to the weather, every day we would find out something new about timing, messing with any personal schedules. For example, the sisterhood round was originally supposed to start in the afternoon, then at 10, then at 9, and finally it started at 8 am (meaning we had to be there and ready at 7).”
The inclement weather on Friday, Jan. 10 also disrupted the rush schedule. On the day of Sisterhood round, as campus closed at 3 p.m. in anticipation of snow, the day began at 8 a.m. Bitove said that she did not mind waking up early because she preferred in-person interactions.
“I feel like that delay and awkwardness on Zoom would have made it a completely different process,” Bitove said. “So despite the snow, I was honestly happy about it. I don’t feel like [waking up early] added too much of a difference to the experience.
Kane was in charge of coordinating rush. She said that while physical planning was more difficult to coordinate than sending Zoom links, it was easier to collaborate with the rest of the executive board when they were in the same room.
“My planning this year for doing all in-person recruitment was much more concerned with how we were going to physically move through the space most efficiently, whereas in the past it was more important to make sure zoom links were organized,” Kane said. “For our recruitment team within [Kappa] Beta [Gamma], I felt like it was much easier to plan and be on the same page because we were in the same room. If we had to be conversing through the phone, it would have been much more difficult to do our job most efficiently.”
O’Connor said that in cases where rush is disappointing, it is nice to be home rather than in the dorms surrounded by others who are also rushing.
“I prefer the hybrid version of rush,” O’Connor said. “Having an incredibly stressful, draining, disappointing, or exciting experience is always easier to handle from the comfort of home. In addition, the process of choosing which houses you connect the most with isn’t as tainted by those you see your friends going to because you are geographically more isolated.”
Sophomore Ellie Deminico, who is a member of Kappa Delta Sorority, said she welcomes in-person rush because it introduced her to more people than she would have met over Zoom.
“While it wasn’t like past years, the past few weeks spent dedicated to recruitment in-person were both tiring but equally rewarding,” Deminico said. “I’m so glad that being in-person allowed me to talk to girls face-to-face and have more intimate conversations about an organization that has introduced me to a collective of incredibly motivated, passionate, and involved girls.
Kane said forming connections was an invaluable benefit of having rush in-person.
“I think it was definitely easier to connect with one another in person, as it was easier for our active [members] and the PNMs to get a feel for each other and for the group at large,” Kane said. “I think that having good energy as an organization goes a long way in making an impression on PNMs, so I found being in-person was beneficial to us in Beta specifically for this reason. We really wanted to make the process as fun and stress-free for the PNMs as possible, which I think we accomplished by trying to foster a positive atmosphere.”