Do sororities significantly reshape these girls' identities? Do you think that people come out of them different from how they went in? Or did they all start out similar and that's why they joined the same club?

Sororities are sort of input-output machines where you go in one way and there is definitely an aura of conformity in there, and it spits you out of the machine another way. Instead of enhancing a girl's individuality, there's a tendency to swallow a girl's identity whole. That's why I've heard countless stories of girls going into a sorority looking one way and after a year they look like everyone else. Or you hear girls say "that's the blonde sorority" or "that's the brunette sorority," and they'll identify people that way. "That's the slightly pudgy sorority."

Does it go beyond looks, though? Do they want the same things from life? Do they have the same attitudes about social issues

Oh yeah, you will find conformity in a lot of areas, attitudes toward ... well, in the sororities I was in there weren't a lot of deep conversations, so it's hard to address that.

"Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities"

By Alexandra Robbins

Hyperion

384 pages

Nonfiction

Buy this book

What about professional aspirations?

I rarely heard them talk about professional aspirations. But you will see sororities where everybody's a dance major or an elementary education major because they gravitate to each other.

You were in the meeting when they chose the pledges after rush. What sort of things are they talking about?

Kate Spade. Gucci.

Right, they're looking at hundreds of girls and they remember them by their purses.

To be fair, that's why they focus so much on designers -- it's a memory tool. In some sororities they blow up pictures of the rushes and the sisters have to memorize them all. Oh -- homecoming queen! Cheerleader!

I was surprised because after getting to know the four girls you profiled, I could not imagine any of them really being that shallow.

That was so important to me -- I'm glad you said that. That's why I chose these four. These are bighearted girls. They're sweet, they're smart and they're friendly.

So do some of them seem passive about their decision to join? Sometimes it seems like they don't think about it much, like it's just a thing to do.

It depends on where you are in the country. In the South, some people take their affiliation so seriously that if they think they won't get into a particular sorority at a particular school, they'll matriculate at a school to get into that sorority and then switch to their [first-choice] school after initiation where they have to be taken as a sister. For some people this decision drives their entire college career.

What about the hazing stories? You give many examples. There's the "circling the fat" stories where sisters or frat brothers mark up the cellulite on girls' bodies. At Northeastern University, girls had to prove they hadn't showered for a week and stay up all night "separating candy with their noses." At DePauw University, girls were branded with lit cigarettes. Women have been left in the snow and gotten frostbite. They've drowned in the ocean. What else?

There are so many body-conscious activities -- "boob ranking" comes to mind. They had a certain amount of time to take off their shirts and bras and go around and examine each other's chests and by the time the clock was up they had to line up according to size. The sisters did that to humiliate them.

Just last week there was a sorority at Loyola University in New Orleans that was accused of making its members drink and then eat their own vomit. It's still going on.

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