Latest / The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast / What are basement girls???

Transcript

What are basement girls??? · The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Dirty Rush, the truth about sorority life with
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: your hosts, me, Gia Giudice.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Daisy Kent, and Jennifer Fessler.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: Welcome back to another episode of Dirty Rush. I'm Daisy Kent,
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: joined by Joan today. And we are going to be
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: talking about girls who lived behind the scenes during recruitment.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: also called The Basement Girls. Joan, had you heard about
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: this before?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: No, and I'm really intrigued because it sounds like this
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: clandestine thing that's happening in the basement of the sororities.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: We did not have that. But I have to say,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: I was in a sorority in the 80s and we
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: really didn't even have social media at all. And we
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: also didn't have access to laptops. We worked on, it
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: was a dial-up modem. And there just would be no
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: way to be able to get information. It sounds like
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: that's what they're doing, that we just didn't have the
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: same capacity. How about you? Did you have this?
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: I remember I didn't know that they were ever called
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: basement girls, but I remember we had in Alpha Phi
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: when I was there, there was an upstairs living room.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: I remember girls would be back there during recruitment and
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: they'd be like, taking everyone's score sheets and ranking them.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: We did everything with paper, I think, because they never
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: wanted the rankings to be found.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: We didn't have computers, so we did it by paper.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: In the olden days.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: But I think ours was a sorority chair under recruitment
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: that did the background stuff and a few girls, but
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: I don't really fully remember. So I'm excited to see
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: what um, these girls say.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: The new iteration. I mean, you're so young. I'm surprised
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: that you didn't like have, like, this wasn't such a
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: big thing that you didn't know about it. Cause when
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I think about this, I'm like, this sounds like a
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: good gig. Like I would want to be a basement girl,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: not having to go small talk for like five days
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: in a row with a bunch of strangers.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: And not dress up.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: And not have to dress up, have my sweatpants on.
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I feel like I need to ask my
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: like girlfriends because I don't fully remember. I'm like, cause
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: I was always like, front like we were always like
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: inter or not interviewing.
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: Well basically yeah just like talking.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: To all the girls and stuff but then we would
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: rank them on sheets so I'm sure we did too
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: I remember girls being like up in like the upstairs area.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: So I'm sure it was that like doing all the
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: recording of all that stuff so I mean like bottom
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: line is it's a little bit of like kind of
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: a thankless job being up there because you're taking everybody's
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: scores and you're adding in, you know, entering into like
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: the system or whatever.
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: On the other side, when everybody is putting on like
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: their cute dresses and all their makeup and having to
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: go make small talk for five hours, you get to
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: hang out in the room with your buddies and eat
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: junk food.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: Very true. I'm excited to see what all these girls say.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Me too.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I think our first one is from UCLA. So this
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: should be good.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: Oh yes.
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Hey.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: Hi. Thanks for coming on today.
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: We're excited to hear about what this whole basement girl
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: thing is. So I grew up in, I was in
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: a sorority in the 80s. I'm way old. I'm really old.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And we didn't have these. So could you maybe give
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: us like a quick rundown on what a basement girl is?
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: And do they call them basement girls at your sorority?
• 3:27
  Speaker 6: I was called backroom.
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: Backroom. Backroom.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:31
  Speaker 6: And so I did it my junior year at high school.
• 3:35
  Speaker 6: A lot of girls went abroad. And I think rush
• 3:41
  Speaker 6: on the backside is, it can be really overwhelming. All
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: the ways that like, it's a lot of hours and
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: you come off work week. And so a lot of
• 3:50
  Speaker 6: my close friends were very involved on the recruitment team.
• 3:53
  Speaker 6: So I wanted to help, but I wasn't sure if
• 3:57
  Speaker 6: I was up for being a recruiter. So I offer
• 4:01
  Speaker 6: to do what's called back room, which I think for
• 4:05
  Speaker 6: some sororities, they put girls in back room who maybe
• 4:10
  Speaker 6: they don't want.
• 4:12
  Speaker 7: But I basically was like the only way I'm going to,
• 4:19
  Speaker 7: you know, like I would love to help in any
• 4:23
  Speaker 7: way that I can, but I just, it takes a
• 4:25
  Speaker 7: lot of, energy to go and recruit all day long.
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: Oh, 100%. So did you like being in the back
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: room then?
• 4:32
  Speaker 6: I was one of maybe five girls down there. So
• 4:39
  Speaker 6: we had a good flow and camaraderie. And I really
• 4:41
  Speaker 6: liked when people would come down in between rounds. I
• 4:45
  Speaker 6: was kind of like a pep talker for the girls
• 4:47
  Speaker 6: that were recruiting. So I felt like I was able
• 4:51
  Speaker 6: to provide good vibes for our girls, which was important
• 4:55
  Speaker 6: in my opinion too.
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: Oh, definitely.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: So what are the responsibilities? So you're in this back room.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: What is that? Well, they're all out there doing this recruiting.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: What are you guys doing in the back room?
• 5:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah. So basically we handled all, some sororities do their
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: post round reporting on an app. That's not something we did.
• 5:17
  Speaker 6: We did everything still classic pen and paper. So just
• 5:22
  Speaker 6: marking how the conversation went, what you guys talked about.
• 5:25
  Speaker 6: So then you could pair them up with like another
• 5:27
  Speaker 6: girl that they might share something more in common with.
• 5:31
  Speaker 6: We would make sure that like every bump group had
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: a little box. Everyone had their right box. And then
• 5:37
  Speaker 6: after the round was over and the girls were lining
• 5:40
  Speaker 6: up for the following round, we would make sure everyone
• 5:43
  Speaker 6: had handed things to us. That got up to our
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: advisors and the recruitment team. And then before rounds, re-sorting, like,
• 5:51
  Speaker 6: in very old-fashioned, giant filing boxes kind of thing. I
• 5:56
  Speaker 6: felt like a Rush secretary. Yeah.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like it.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: I feel like that would be kind of fun because, like,
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: you got to see, like, everyone's scores and stuff.
• 6:07
  Speaker 6: Well, and they kind of– I was– I think the
• 6:11
  Speaker 6: oldest one doing it, we had a few sophomores who
• 6:14
  Speaker 6: wanted to do it, but yeah, they were like, backroom
• 6:18
  Speaker 6: isn't supposed to be looking at the numbers or whatever.
• 6:20
  Speaker 6: And I don't know. We're also not seeing these people
• 6:23
  Speaker 6: face to face. So it wasn't like, Ooh, I can
• 6:26
  Speaker 6: see what this person.
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: Who I know.
• 6:28
  Speaker 6: And I'm also from out of state. So there weren't
• 6:29
  Speaker 6: really girls coming through who I was.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: But you knew. Yeah.
• 6:32
  Speaker 6: So I didn't have much skin in the game when
• 6:35
  Speaker 6: it came to seeing how people I knew were scored,
• 6:37
  Speaker 6: but yeah, everyone's scores and notes throughout the round, which,
• 6:43
  Speaker 6: you know, maybe it would have been more interesting.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: Like I said.
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Would you guys ever look up girls like on social
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: media in the background? Like after they like say it
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: was like round one and recruitment and then they would
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: like bring the scores back.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: And then would you like look up people's names?
• 7:00
  Speaker 6: I think we, I would only see cause there were
• 7:03
  Speaker 6: so many girls per round.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:07
  Speaker 6: Because it was a big state school. Like I went
• 7:10
  Speaker 6: to UCLA. Okay. Only if girls were like super excited.
• 7:13
  Speaker 6: They're like, this is going to be my future little look.
• 7:15
  Speaker 6: And they would be showing me, they already had her Instagram.
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 7:19
  Speaker 6: You look like, Oh my gosh, she's so cute.
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: And, but no, I didn't.
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: There was honestly so much chaos down there because it
• 7:25
  Speaker 6: was technically the basement. So we were like little basement
• 7:29
  Speaker 6: rats for like 10 hours. And yeah, we, we had
• 7:35
  Speaker 6: people excited about others, but. Again, I didn't have the
• 7:38
  Speaker 6: face-to-face connection, which also made it weird because on bid day,
• 7:41
  Speaker 6: everyone's so excited to have their future littles and everyone's
• 7:45
  Speaker 6: reaching home. And then you're kind of meeting all these
• 7:48
  Speaker 6: girls for the first time. No one knows who I am.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not a single one. Did you feel like a
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: little detached when it came to, like, so did you
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: not vote on girls when you came to, like?
• 8:03
  Speaker 6: My story didn't do any sort of like collective voting
• 8:06
  Speaker 6: or debrief. I know like that also exists or people
• 8:11
  Speaker 6: can offer their opinion if they had experience with them
• 8:14
  Speaker 6: before college. But that wasn't how it was for us.
• 8:20
  Speaker 6: I think they tried to be pretty objective and then
• 8:22
  Speaker 6: final decisions were just made by our advisors and the
• 8:25
  Speaker 6: recruitment team.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm so surprised by this. So clearly, like I said,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: I'm old and we voted for, on everybody. So we
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: had this point system, like you're talking about when we
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: did notes and that kind of got sorted. But when
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: we came down to our final, so I think like,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: like one of the years when we had pledges, like we,
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I think we were accepting like 25 girls or something
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: like that. We voted and let's say we had like,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: you know, a hundred and some that preferenced us. We
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: would go down in the basement. We had like a
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: full on meeting that lasted like 10 hours. Like they
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: were like, everyone, every, everybody.
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: It was so long and we would talk about every
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: single one. And then we had to do like one
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: of those closed eye votes. Like I had to put
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: like a mask on and then you'd raise your hand
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: at yes or no for the people.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: Honestly, at least your eyes were closed though.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: Cause imagine if a girl got in and being like, Oh,
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: you almost didn't make it. Yeah.
• 9:19
  Speaker 6: Well, we didn't have like open discourse over anyone. It
• 9:24
  Speaker 6: was all handled. So within bid day would, or yeah,
• 9:28
  Speaker 6: bid day would come around and we would see the
• 9:30
  Speaker 6: list and, because we'd be making the signs that they'd
• 9:32
  Speaker 6: run home to and girls would be devastated. They'd be like,
• 9:35
  Speaker 6: that was my little, that was my rush crush.
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: And what happened?
• 9:38
  Speaker 6: So the recruitment team would just be like, we can't
• 9:41
  Speaker 6: tell you. And there was really no, it was either
• 9:46
  Speaker 6: they were on our list or they weren't.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: So the recruitment team had a lot of power. Were
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: those mostly seniors or were they from all levels of
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: the sorority?
• 9:55
  Speaker 6: For us, it was two advisors and then a director
• 9:59
  Speaker 6: of formal recruitment and an assistant director of formal recruitment
• 10:03
  Speaker 6: and the president. So five kind of three girls and
• 10:08
  Speaker 6: two advisors kind of making these big decisions.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: So the advisors are alums?
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: Yes. Okay. Yeah. All right.
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: Huh.
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: This is so different.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Daisy, is that how it was at your school?
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so. I'm like trying to like remember that.
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: It sounds so crazy.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: It sounds like our night that we were voting on everybody,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: everybody knew like we all go upstairs and we put
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: on like our most comfortable clothes and we'd have like snacks.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: And in those days we drank Tab, which was the
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: diet soda that we all drank, which was like a
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: can of chemicals. And because we had to be up
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: all night, literally it was like an all night thing.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: This is such a better method. You guys have really
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: perfected this.
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: I feel like the decorating- And the thematic, everything for
• 10:49
  Speaker 6: bid day has gotten so large now. Like we would
• 10:52
  Speaker 6: spend all of us probably five or six hours after
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: pref day decorating for bid day and then also carrying
• 11:02
  Speaker 6: into the morning. So a lot of our time after
• 11:05
  Speaker 6: pref would go straight to decorating for bid day.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So gesture committee was like hold up and figuring
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: that out.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: The last step.
• 11:12
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: That's so interesting.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: If someone had like a concern about like a PNM
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: or like, or someone said something, would that go to
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: the basement girls then?
• 11:22
  Speaker 6: No, it would go to the recruitment team. And this
• 11:24
  Speaker 6: did happen with one of my friends who loved this
• 11:28
  Speaker 6: girl and someone brought it straight to the recruitment team.
• 11:33
  Speaker 6: We were kind of intermediaries if someone had an awkward
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: conversation or something that didn't go over very well. We
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: in between rounds while people were recruiting would take that
• 11:46
  Speaker 6: information to the recruitment team, but they kind of wanted
• 11:50
  Speaker 6: to streamline like any previous knowledge through them. And that
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: got handled pretty seriously.
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, the fact that there's a recruitment team,
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: like we had no way of doing that. So if
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: you had like some knowledge, like if somebody came through
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: rush and you knew something about that person, like something
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: they did in high school or whatever, um, Um, you
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: just had to go, just go, you put it in
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: your notes and then you had to go like, tell
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: everybody you had to go like, say, okay, like, I
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: just want to tell you about her. Like, I really
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: like her so much for this reason, or like, we
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: don't want this one. Like, please like vote with me.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Like you had to like, I was like, you campaigned,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: you did.
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no.
• 12:28
  Speaker 6: Um, I, not that they, I think took every concern
• 12:33
  Speaker 6: to heart. I think it was situation dependent, but yeah,
• 12:37
  Speaker 6: I think they were trying to prevent as much as possible.
• 12:40
  Speaker 6: breach of information because kind of like you were saying
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: if this girl were to get in and then there
• 12:46
  Speaker 6: was someone going around trying to prevent them from getting
• 12:49
  Speaker 6: in that could create tension and.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah it's also like interesting everything that goes in to
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: recruitment I remember like after being a freshman and when
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: I was a sophomore on like the other side of
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: it I was like whoa this is like pretty intense
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: I was.
• 13:04
  Speaker 6: So overwhelmed and living you're living in the house at
• 13:08
  Speaker 6: least for us sophomore year UCLA does this thing where
• 13:13
  Speaker 6: you live for six weeks over the summer on campus
• 13:18
  Speaker 6: and so you're making friends with girls across the row
• 13:21
  Speaker 6: and then it suddenly gets like very competitive and you're
• 13:27
  Speaker 6: seeing all the metrics behind how you were recruited you're
• 13:31
  Speaker 6: seeing it through a completely different lens yeah it can
• 13:34
  Speaker 6: definitely be overwhelming the first time and then like our
• 13:38
  Speaker 6: bigs were abroad so we didn't have them and Yeah.
• 13:42
  Speaker 6: It was great to also see the side of back
• 13:44
  Speaker 6: room that was more lax, but I will say the
• 13:47
  Speaker 6: only downside was then when bid day came around and
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: you don't really know anyone.
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: You don't know anyone.
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Hey, so did you end up with no little because
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: you hadn't really kind of pulled one in?
• 14:00
  Speaker 6: I had a little from my sophomore year.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: So you did it your junior year, right?
• 14:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 6: And then I, um, it was important to me to
• 14:08
  Speaker 6: know my, my like grand little. um so we would
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: do things like the three of us all together great
• 14:14
  Speaker 6: that way my big came back from abroad because she
• 14:17
  Speaker 6: or I guess she was around too because she would
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: have been a senior we were all like a cute
• 14:21
  Speaker 6: little fam and everything but yeah yeah my little basically
• 14:25
  Speaker 6: knew during rush who she had met and I was
• 14:28
  Speaker 6: so happy to hear about her from the back room
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: I'm like she seems great but yeah all the things
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: That's awesome.
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: Well, thank you so much for coming on.
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you for having me.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: So eye-opening. Thank you.
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 14:42
  Speaker 6: Of course.
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Welcome in our next guest.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: Yay. There she is.
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: Fresh out of the shower. I'm in London right now.
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: So it's not a pocket night.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: So fun.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Are you abroad?
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: Yes, I am.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: Good for the whole semester.
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: Yes, I'm so excited. I got here last week.
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, you're going to have the best time.
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: Good for you. I know, I'm so excited.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: I studied abroad in Barcelona and I had like the
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: time of my life.
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: It was so much fun.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of people go to Barcelona, but
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: it's trying to be different.
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: So now I'm in London.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, London will be great.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: Everyone speaks English too.
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: Exactly. So there's no language barrier, thankfully. Yeah.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: I guess it's harder to get to other countries from
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: there other than that you have the high-speed train.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: But flights aren't too bad I've booked some already and
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: like if you book them in advance that's like fine.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah people just hop around Europe it's no big deal
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: that's so fun so what year are you in school
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: then so.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be a senior or I technically am a.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Senior but okay fine yeah that's so exciting.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: Have you been in a sorority all four years I was.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: A COB my freshman year in the spring okay well
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Technically like three and a half, I guess.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: That's so fun.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: And were you, did they call it like a basement
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: girl at your school during rush? Like if you were
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: in the back room or in the basement, like kind
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: of scene?
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: We called it back room because I guess we didn't
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: really have a basement.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: And so you were in the back room. How many
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: girls were in the back room given, you know, any,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: any recruitment year?
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: I think in.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Total it was around 15, but you'd kind of work
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: in shifts. So at each time it'd probably be like
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: maybe five to six girls all working, depending on the shift.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: And the late night shifts had everyone there, but during
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: like the daytime during rounds, it was usually like five
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: to six girls.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: So when you weren't there, did you have to actually
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: go out and recruit?
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: No, I got to lay in bed the whole time.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: It was great.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: What?
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: That's so nice.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: Okay, your sorority's been doing it right because no one
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: else we talked to has had that experience.
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: No, really?
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: No.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I lived in two, so it was so
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: easy to just hop into my bed in between my shifts.
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: It was awesome.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: Did a lot of girls want to do the back
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: room at your school then or no?
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of girls would say they'd want to,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: but then wouldn't actually volunteer for it.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: Got it.
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: I didn't really have, none of my friends did backroom
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: with me. I was a lot of seniors.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I did it my junior year and most of the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: other girls were seniors because I guess they're just kind
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: of tired of recruiting at that point.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Tired of making small talk.
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: And they don't have as much skin in the game.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, cause they're not going to be actually in
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: the house with the girls. So it's actually an idea
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: for the seniors to do that.
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Did you have a big summer commitment with your, like,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: you know, with that position or? Um, somewhat.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: We all had to go through every single PNM, and
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: we had 2,000 girls rushing. So divided by the 15
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: of us, we had to essentially, like, fill out, like,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: we had to find all of their Instagrams, put this
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: in this big, like, Excel sheet with their Instagram, and
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: then go through their little profile and, like, see if
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: they did sports and whatever. So that took a very
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: long time because 2,000 divided by 15 is.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: A lot of people.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: I did procrastinate, but I finished it all within like
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: two weeks towards the end.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: So is there anything that you found like during your investigations,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: like in their, on their Instagram or how, whatever else
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: you did to get information about them? Anything that you
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: ever found that you're like, okay, this girl is not
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: going to be for us just based on the work
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: you did over the summer?
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, GPA, because it was basically like a point system.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Like say if someone had a leadership position, they'd get
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: two points. But if they were just a member of
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: the club, they'd get one point.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: Got it.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: So kind of at the end of that tallying, if
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: they had a lower score, that kind of meant like
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: they were a little rocky. They would be able to
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: slip through and say they were a really good speaker
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and like had other great attributes. attributes once you met them,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: but kind of that just scoring system from just the
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: PNN profile did.
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: Kind of have a bit of a sway during it.
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Cause you, you have to weed through a lot of people.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: So you like, you almost have to have things that
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: are like, okay, this, this is like our cutoff, like
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: you GPA or something just to weed through some people.
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: And obviously there's so many girls that were like tens
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: across the board.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Like you're having all of these and then you have
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: to kind of narrow down like which of these like
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: girls would be perfect for sorority. Like, It's kind of
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: like a hard decision at the end of the day too.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: And was your back room?
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Were they like the same as the like recruitment people
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: and recruitment chairs or who made all of like the
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: final decisions kind of?
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Honestly, that was a bit of a mystery to me.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I think it really went into the recruitment team.
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: Like I forgot who.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly did it, but like the president and then like,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: VP recruitment, and then our chapter advisor. Okay.
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: Background didn't have a say in it. Like we would
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: just like sit.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: In our computers and like log all the numbers and
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: all the ratings and then ship that off to somewhere.
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: Somebody else did it.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: So you, the work that you did over the summer,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: that huge job of reading through 2000 people, you just
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: kind of gave them the preliminary points like leadership position, GPA,
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: whatever else you use, put that in there. That was
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: just data. And then that got shipped off to other
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: people based on also conversations they had during, during rush.
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: Okay, great.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: It's like a job that has a lot of responsibility.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: I wonder though, if like you saw somebody that you
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: knew when you were doing your part of the point
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: system and you thought, Oh gosh, they're really, really good.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Would you ever like, like maybe up that point a
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: little bit, like, oh, they were in a club. Let's
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: just give them the leadership in the club. Like give
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: them a two instead of a one.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I personally didn't do that, but I'm sure there definitely
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: were some girls.
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: And I was also, because we had, we, I know
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: a lot of.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Sororities now use an app for recruitment, but we like
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: It the old fashioned way.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: And we still have massive filing cabinets and manila folders.
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: And we have to do that.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: And like, sometimes if I did see one, I was
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: kind of like, ooh, like, I have the power to, like,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: take this out or, like, leave them, you know.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: It did cross my mind.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I never actually did it. But you could also obviously
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: put in, like, a bit of a word. Like, say
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: if someone, like, if it was the opposite and someone, say, like,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: heard bad things about a PNM from high school or something.
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: You'd also type that in the notes on the doc
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and say, like, oh, they– By the way. We did
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: have some problems with that this past year I recruited too.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Like what kind of problems?
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Just one of the PNMs at the very end of recruitment,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: someone came up about something they did that was like
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: pretty beyond bad.
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: So then it was like this whole thing of like,
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: oh my gosh, they're way at the end. Like, do
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: we drop them? Do we leave them? Like they've been
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: perfect with us, but. Yeah.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: What did you guys end up doing?
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: I think she ended up getting dropped.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: But I do think she made it to bid day
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: and then got dropped after bid day. Because I think
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: they found out like after prep round happened.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: It was like a super late thing we found out about.
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: And then she did bid day. And then the second
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: bid day started, she was on probation.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: And it was just like back and forth with her
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: getting like going to the risk share and all that.
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: She showed her colors eventually.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Wow.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for coming on. This was awesome.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: And I hope you have the best time in London.
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: Have so much fun.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: I hope you see Harry and Megan and the kids
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: and take a picture of the kids.
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: If you see them, please.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, they haven't published any pictures of their faces.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: So if you see them, you need to get it
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: and sell it to TMZ.
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: I think. Okay. It was so nice meeting you guys.
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: Enjoy the rest of your day.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Bye.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: See you later.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: Have so much fun.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Bye.
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning in to Dirty Rush. We have more
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: coming on the next episode about basement girls. So tune
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: in and make sure you listen to the next episode.