Basement Girls run college sorority rushs…
It’s 1 a.m. in Tuscaloosa, Ala. and a coven of barely legal coeds are divining the fates of their friends in the basement of a sorority mansion.
They pore over data sheets, interview notes and custom-made “grading” software program that ranks wannabe sorority sisters in a rigorously calibrated scoring system.
They cross-reference the social media channels of 17-year-old ladies, swiping through grids of tanned, smiling teenagers on Instagram and TikTok.
While typical sorority members put on occasion clothes during rush, “Basement Girls” get to wield their affect in PJs. @isabelhope1/tiktok
And then with a nod from their chief, they wordlessly delete the “bottom girls” who gained’t make the coveted sorority’s last cut — even though they’ve never even met them.
Welcome to the world of the “Basement Girls,” a secret society of younger girls who eat data for breakfast like Pop Tarts, and lounge in Parke sweatshirts and Uggs while their sisters are upstairs performing wildly acrobatic dances for potential recruits — and of course, for TikTok viewers — sporting corset tops, heels and more make-up than an Ulta Beauty kiosk.
Former sorority sister Olivia Bourgeois says being a “Basement Girl” is a coveted place during rush. Courtesy Olivia Bourgeois
The silent energy imbued in these Basement Girls makes it a coveted gig, said Olivia Bourgeois, a former sorority lady at the University of South Alabama. The social media government now makes TikTok videos explaining the behind-the-scenes of rush to sorority hopefuls.
“You got to know everything that was going on,” she told The Post, including “what every conversation was about, who was talking to which [girl], the results of the voting.”
Bourgeois explained that during a typical sorority rush, most collegiate members are the “floor girls,” tasked with making their chapter look the most exclusive (or at least, the most enjoyable and in style) to potential new members and TikTok swipers alike.
But it’s the Basement Girls, those hidden from the prying eyes of Instagram, that choose the recruits of the nation’s most exclusive sororities.
These teams teem with younger girls who are hand-selected for their brains and social know-how to manipulate every transfer of a collegiate hopeful’s rush expertise, from the sisters they meet to the topics they focus on and the soiled laundry that’s either swept under the rug — or not.
The National Panhellenic Conference estimates that over 135,000 younger girls pledge sororities every yr.
“We are the puppeteers of rush week,” an Iowa native named C. told The Post. She pledged an elite sorority at a large midwestern college and served as a Basement Girl in her chapter for three years — elaborating that every thing from rush “talking points” to dialog timing was rigorously managed by the Basement Girls.
C. would know. Now a consulting government for a top-ranked company companies, she also serves as a volunteer “recruitment advisor” — or in her phrases, a “professional basement girl” — for the national headquarters of her college sorority, which she chronicles on her web site, The Rush Guide. She estimates that she has run “over 40” sorority rushes from the basements and back rooms of exclusive, palatial homes across the nation.
C. can’t share her full identify because national sorority organizations are famously secretive — and litigious — when it comes to recruitment processes. Her identify, occupation and background have been independently verified by The Post through pay stubs, business playing cards and LinkedIn.
“You can say that Basement Girls are like the CIA of sororities,” said Bella Lee, 24, who served on her chapter’s secret circle of “logistics consultants” during her college years, but declined to reveal the chapter, citing the same confidentially issues as C.
“We know everyone coming and going from the rush rounds, even though they’ll never meet us. We know where you went to high school, what sport you played, what your major might be,” she said.
A screenshot from a demonstration by OmegaRecruit, the sorority “grading” software program used during rush. Omega Recruit
Lee explained that months before rush even begins, that intel is compiled by the Basement Girls into confidential portfolios of each member, which embody photographs, biographical data, social media highlights, and any notes from current sorority sisters about their potential.
“It was our job to see which girls, from the looks of it, would be great in our chapter,” she told The Post.
Trisha Addicks, a skilled recruitment coach for wannabe sisters and creator of The Rush Bible, told The Post that Basement Girls give potential new members — called PNMs — an initial rating before they even stroll through the home.
“It’s based on her high school GPA, her social media accounts, her application and her letters of recommendation from alumni,” Addicks explained. “Then during rush, these PNMs get a daily score that needs to be analyzed in real time.”
Like a actuality TV audition, the kids are then evaluated by sorority sisters on their dialog expertise, means to join with their friends and their look — or in Addicks phrases, “how they present themselves.”
That consists of how interesting they is perhaps to fraternity chapters, whose tacit approval often determines a sorority home’s standing within the Greek system.
It’s up to the Basement Girls to monitor the women’ impressions, constructive or detrimental, and develop a “callback list” that determines who lives to see another Lululemon-clad day.
This yr’s breakout rush stars are “Basement Girls” instead of star dancers.
Most importantly, Basement Girls have veto energy if a younger girl charms her means through rush while hiding an habit, an undesirable romantic companion — e.g., a sugar daddy — or a past high faculty scandal like dishonest or bullying.
“You’d be surprised how often cocaine comes up,” C. sighed, noting that for some homes, frequent drug use is automated grounds for dismissal. For others, it is perhaps seen as a boon that offers the recruit a leg up on her “social graces” rating.
C. also recalled a time when the Basement Girls did some online investigating on a “great girl who didn’t seem to have much of a resume” and realized she’d been attempting to disguise a key fact about her background: This potential sorority lady was the daughter of a billionaire CEO.
“She didn’t want to be judged differently for her money!” said C. “I respect that, but of course, we found out… That was our job.”
Bourgeois said the Basement Girl task was a “dream” for most sorority sisters, even though videos mocking the unseen girls as “chopped” and “unc” — Gen Z slang for gross and ugly — have hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok.
“Some people think that the ‘less attractive’ girls are put in the basement,” she conceded, “but these are actually just the most organized, most responsible girls.”
Basement Girls decide which sorority sisters will speak to which potential new members in a rigorously choreographed “bump group,” like this one noticed on TikTok. Torey Duhan/Tiktok
“I have seen very beautiful girls, model girls, be Basement Girls,” said Addicks, the recruitment advisor. “There’s no correlation. You’re not down there because you’re hiding. You’re down there because you’re the one with the power.”
“It’s the biggest badge of honor,” said Lee. “Not having to do TikTok dances? Not having to smile for 10 hours straight? Almost everyone wants that, especially if you’re the type to have your social battery drain a little quicker. But to lead a sorority logistics team, you have to be the smartest and most trusted girl in your whole house.”
In fact, Basement Girls are so fearsome that company recruiters often search them out post-college.
As company assistant Libby Basham told her TikTok followers, “As someone who does hiring, I think that if it came down to two applicants and one person was 100% qualified for the job and the second person was 75% qualified, but one of their skills was that they were a basement girl, I would give it to the basement girl… If you can handle that, you can handle anything.”
Professional rush advisor C. agreed.
“After college, I worked at a global workplace consulting firm — a company harder to get into than Harvard. At 19, I had run a team of 10 people in a high-stress environment using data. I used my experience being a Basement Girl to get the job.”
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