To The Girl Afraid To Rush,

There is an extensive list of things that I wish I had known before I started college. For example, I wish I’d been told how many times I would get lost on my way to class. I wish I had been given some piece of warning about how valuable Cookout Milkshakes are - if only because they bring groups of people together. Most of all; however, I wish that I had known that sometimes what scares you the most can become the most important factor in your life simply because you chose to push fear aside and allow passion to supersede panic.

I feared joining a sorority when I came into college. I sent the application for recruitment in the day it was due, filling in the blank spaces quickly to keep myself from overthinking the process. I was scared, to say the least, but what fueled my fear was the lack of knowledge about sororities and the idea of going into something not knowing what to expect. In the end, I let my desire to find a place and a group of sisters in college outweigh my fear of not fitting in, and it became the decision that defined my freshman year. Still, there are a list of things that I wish that I could go back and tell the eighteen-year-old girl who spent hours wondering if she’d made the right decision.

Sororities are not their stereotypes.

As the first girl in my family to join a sorority, there were a lot of misconstrued ideas I had about being a sister. Most of my knowledge, in fact, came from movies, TV shows, and the articles online that scare girls away from pledging. Sororities are a far cry from the hackneyed ideas about parties, rituals, and popularity that are often associated with them. Sisterhood, Chick-fil-a dates, and Netflix marathons are the triangle of things that sorority life is built upon, and it makes college that much more bearable when there are sisters willing to bring you peach milkshakes and cry over Gossip Girl with you.

You do not have to choose between your sorority and your grades.

This was the one of the biggest misconceptions that almost held me back from going through recruitment. Through the entirety of my high school career, I obsessed over the idea of keeping a perfect GPA, one that seemed to glisten on transcripts and showed my dedication to education. I had always believed the notion that sororities are not synonymous with academic achievement. In reality, sisters are often the biggest motivation to study. Do you cope with finals week by making Starbucks runs at the crack of dawn before a test? There will be a sister willing to show up at your door with coffee. Do you pull all-nighters the night before an exam, going over that 15 page study guide for the twentieth time? Study rooms are big enough for you and a group of sisters to do it together. There will always be girls there to encourage you to do your best on every test, from sending good luck texts to taking you out for tacos so that you can decompress.

You do not have to be a cookie-cutter girl.

I cannot stress this enough. Going into Rush, I was afraid that the only similarity I had with sorority girls was that I’m committed to a long-term relationship with Pumpkin Spice Lattes and even my car is monogrammed. The ultimate truth; however, is that you do not have to look or act a certain way to be a sorority girl. Sororities celebrate differences, and whether your chapter is only made up of fifteen girls or boasts four hundred girls, there will always be someone who loves what you love. Beyond that, your sisters will love and support you even if they don’t understand your passions. You do not have to be hyper-feminine. You do not have to love wearing dresses. You do not have to have a certain hair color or watch Grey’s Anatomy. Your sisterhood will want you for all the things that make you unique.

You will find your forever home.

It’s scary to go into Rush with the idea that you may not fit in with any of the sororities on your campus. If you don’t, that’s okay. If you are meant to be in a sisterhood, you will know. I will never forget being worried that I was leaving mascara stains in Kappa Delta’s house at Georgia College on the last day of recruitment. There was a lot of crying - I’m talking Chuck-Bass-and-Blair-Waldorf-breakup crying. For some, the moment of realization is not as emotional as mine was, but you will find a moment when everything clicks into place, and you will realize when you step into the house to talk to a potential new sister that it is exactly where you are meant to be.

You are enough.

You are good enough for your sorority. Please do not let the fear of turning to a new page keep you from starting the best chapter of your life. This lesson connects with the idea of not having to be a cookie-cutter, but it’s important to realize that all the aforementioned differences you may have make you everything that your chapter needs. You are good enough, and you are bold enough, and you are brilliant enough to allow your fear to become fervor and your doubts to become determination. You are enough.

Sincerely,

The Girl Who Found Her Forever Home