Containing a multitude of events and activities, sororities can build friendships that last a lifetime and transform a student’s college experience for the better. According to the SMU Student Affairs website, approximately 43% undergraduate students are part of a Greek organization. It’s common to hear about girls rushing freshman year and joining a sorority, but not every girl follows this path.

During the first week, hordes of freshmen walk down the halls of each sorority house, amazed and excited to join a sorority in their first year. However, not everything goes as planned. Lyrik Levine, a junior psychology major from Houston, Texas, was interested in rushing since sororities are a big part of SMU culture. Levine rushed her freshman year in 2023, when the rush process happened at the start of the spring semester. However, she dropped midway as the process became too stressful, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try again next year.

“I knew I was going to rerush again, it was just at the time very overwhelming,” Levine said. “Since they were switching [rush] to the fall semester, I figured it’s only a little bit of time before I would rerush.”

Levine loves being a member of Delta Gamma, which has made meeting new people and making friends easier. She enjoys many events such as dances, formals and mixers.

“Even though it’s a long process like recruitment week and all that, I actually found it really fun because I like to meet new people,” Levine said. “It was just really fun having conversations with freshmen, sophomores and juniors. It was fun to talk to them and then kind of see which sorority they ended up going to.”

Despite their popularity, not every student is interested in rushing, giving only a curious glance when passing by the houses, but never lingering for long. Anneliese Garcia, a freshman marketing and sport management major from Panama, didn’t know much about fraternities and sororities when she came to SMU, so she didn’t rush. Instead, she joined clubs centered more around her major, such as Women in Business and the Cox Marketing Academy.

“I really enjoy them because I’ve gotten to meet a lot of people that are also in my major that I know I’m gonna keep seeing and like to grow professionally in a sense as well,” Garcia said.

Her sports marketing internship in the athletics department has also provided her with an opportunity to meet and work with people.

“I think I have the most fun there because I’ve gotten to know all of the people that I work with really well,” Garcia said. “It’s not a big amount of us, so I know them personally, and it’s just really fun to get to catch up with them while also working.”

All students who rush hope to call one of the houses their home, but a bid being offered to everyone is not guaranteed. Annah Brown, a senior finance major from Waco, Texas, rushed her freshman year since most of her family was part of Greek Life. Although she found rush week fun, she was shocked when she was dropped by all sororities except one, Gamma Phi Beta, which left campus in 2024. This sorority was not an ideal option for her since its numbers kept shrinking.

“I think the hard thing about my year is, people knew that if they pledged GPhi, that it could just not be here anymore in a semester,” Brown said. “And so you’d be joining a sorority that would get kicked off campus just because they weren’t able to meet their quotas, which is not their fault at all. But it was really unfortunate.”

Afraid of pledging for a sorority getting kicked off soon and then being unable to join another one, Brown decided to drop. She was upset and confused, but she wasn’t bitter towards the sororities.

“I think my year was one of the record years of how many girls wanted to be in a sorority, and I think a big part of it was they just did not have the room or capacity to serve that many people,” Brown said. “So I don’t blame them.”

Brown did have some friends from rush, but still struggled to find community on campus. However, things started to look up when she joined a new business fraternity, Phi Chi Theta. She became the social chair in 2023, then became president her junior year in 2024, which helped her build relationships and her leadership skills. Although she loved PCT, it still lacked the experience a sorority would have given her.

“I loved it so much, I would not trade that experience for the world,” Brown said. “But it just didn’t feel like it quite filled the desire I had, if that makes sense, because it wasn’t like this girlhood community.”

Another door opened up for Brown during her senior year in the fall semester of 2025, when a friend of hers reached out and told her that she and some other girls wanted to reestablish a Christian sorority called Sigma Phi Lambda. Not having to rush the sorority made a big difference.

“When I rushed, I just kind of felt like I had to strive to be there, which, again, that’s none of the girls’ fault or the culture. It’s nobody’s fault,” Brown said. “It’s just that was my own mindset, if you will, as I was like, ‘Oh, I need to make myself fit into this.’”

After feeling unfulfilled for a long time, Brown felt like her prayers were answered when she joined Sigma Phi Lambda because she finally found a girlhood community and one that helps strengthen her relationship with God. She felt a little odd at first being the only senior, but she realized that it was a unique opportunity God provided her to guide the younger girls.

One of Brown’s favorite events was the big and little event, where she was assigned two littles. It was a beautiful and intimate experience for her.

“You literally get to walk alongside this girl and pursue God with her and check up on each other and just be a support system and share your burdens with them,” Brown said. “Everybody needs someone like that, or just a community like that.”

Not every girl will have the same experience with sororities, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t great organizations. They just don’t always fit in with a girl’s desired experience in college. In the end, these girls managed to find a community at SMU, rushing or not rushing.

“I prayed for something like this for a really long time,” Brown said. “And it just felt like in that moment God was just giving me an open door and was redeeming my situation that was once lost.”