‘I told her: your TikToks are cringe’ – the consultants who get teens into elite sororities

Members of the Alpha Phi sorority chant as they welcome their new members on bid day at George Washington University in Washington in 2015. Photograph: Congressional Quarterly/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

I need more friends. Or, specifically, I need more photos on social media where I’m posing with my friends. That’s what Lorie Stefanelli, a sorority recruitment consultant who trains girls on how to get into the toughest houses in the country, would recommend if I were an incoming freshman.

“If your whole grid is just you by yourself, it looks like you don’t have any friends,” she says, bluntly. Though in real life I am a boring 28-year-old woman with no plans to rush anywhere except home to my couch, I have asked Stefanelli to advise me as if I were a freshman joining a sorority.