Sorority rush is a matching market
One of the biggest components of college is Greek life. At Cornell, for example, around 1/3, or 33% of the student population is involved in Greek life. (“Sorority and Fraternity Life”) This includes both females and males. Female students are generally involved in a sorority, or a sisterhood, while males are involved in a fraternity or a brotherhood. Sororities and fraternities are tightly connected communities that are meant to create long-lasting friendships during and after college. To get involved in sororities, one must “rush.” This means that they are required to attend events and they would then get matched with a certain sorority based on a ranking system from both parties. Sorority recruitment can be seen as a matching market.
The basis of sorority rush is the same as that of any market. There are two parties: essentially, sellers and buyers. The sellers in this case are represented by the girls who are looking to be a part of the sorority. The buyers could be seen as the recruiters of each sorority. The way that it works is so: the sellers attend many events hosted by many different sororities and meet the current sisters and members. Based on this information, they rank the sororities based on which ones they would most want to be part of to the least. The sororities observe these members and do the same – they rank the girls based on which ones they most want to least. If both parties rank each other as their first, or top, match, then it could be considered a perfect match. If both parties rank each other in general, it would be considered a stable match and both would be happy. The basis of sorority rushing is the same as matching markets that we see in the economic world. In economics, we can rank many different items to determine how scarce items can be used with the most optimal results.
The matching markets model can be used in many different scenarios, as we can see above. Sometimes, we might limit our thoughts to only monetary situations. Matching markets are not limited to those that use prices. Markets that use prices are known as commodity markets and are seen to be separate from matching markets. As we can see, matching markets are a very diverse and broad idea that can be used in many different aspects of life – in college and beyond.
links:
https://scl.cornell.edu/sorority-fraternity-life
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/07/1127543123/how-sorority-rush-is-a-matching-market