When entering my first day of sorority recruitment, I was scared yet so eager to find my future home. Throughout the week of recruitment, fellow PNMs would tell me about all of the different stereotypes regarding each of the sororities. Although the recruitment counselors kept telling us to keep an open mind, it was hard to do so when I was hearing so many harsh rumors from girls who seemed to know better than me. Being so I naive, I believed everything they had said and let those misconceptions get the best of me. When preference day began approaching, I sought to the internet to help me with my final decision. When I Googled “University of Arizona greek life rankings," the very well known web site Greek Rank popped up on my screen.

What I hadn’t realized at the moment was the amount of exaggeration, hate, bias, and self-ranking that had gone on in these posts. I read through all the discussions thinking I was getting an inside look at what went on in sororities. Sadly, what I eventually figured out, once recruitment was over, was that GreekRank is not even in the slightest bit an accurate representation of the greek community. I learned that Greek Rank, in all of its glory, is just a platform consumed with hateful girls bashing on others due to their own lack of self-confidence. Others were deciding to make up these distasteful rumors about others just for the fun of it. Greek Rank creates a community very similar to high school. There are cliques within GreekRank and they are decided through what tier a sorority lies in.

If you are not a top tier according to them you are most likely irrelevant. If you are a middle tier, chances are nobody really cares. But, if you are a bottom tier, you better hope you don’t end up in one of those sororities.

But what I wanted to understand was when did bashing another chapter anonymously become what greek life was about? Sororities have so many preconceived notions surrounding them solely because of websites like this. I joined a sorority to meet girls who held similar values to mine, to give back to my community, and to enhance my life in all the ways that are good. While most intentions for joining a sorority seem fair, Greek Rank almost makes one think that a select few chose to join a sorority just so they could ridicule sisterhoods that aren't their own to make judgments about.

Despite all of that, I can’t deny that there are tiers, and they are important to some, but I can promise that tiers will not matter thirty years from now when you are looking back at all the amazing friendships you had in your sisterhood. Boys aren’t going to want to date you solely because you were in a well-ranked sorority on an internet database. The purpose of recruitment is to decide which house you can see yourself fitting in with the best, not so you can choose a house based on gossip written on Greek Rank, which in reality is probably total crap. These ‘rankings’ made from anonymous hurtful students ruin potential new members opportunity to choose a house they are going to feel comfortable and loved in. Nobody needs validation from another person telling them that their house is better than the other, so please chill with the posts and allow them to decide that on their own free will. A sorority is a place you should be able to go to when you are feeling down, a place where your friends will force feed you pizza and ice cream when you are sad, and most importantly a place that is truly your home away from home, regardless of a rating on Greek Rank.

Luckily for me, I ended up choosing a house based on the wonderful girls I had met throughout the week and had felt the strongest connections with. I stayed open minded and didn’t decide to steer clear of any of the houses because of the harsh words “greekh8r223” may have posted online. Choosing the house I chose was the best decision I have ever made and I owe none of it to Greek Rank. For future members, just remember that greek life is a community and not a competition. Every sorority is wonderful but unique to themselves, so try actually socializing with the members rather than relying on a website to tell you which house you should choose.