how wealthy is 'sorority wealthy'?

Southern wealthy so not very wealthy since cost of living is much cheaper here. Anywhere else would probably be considered upper middle class / slightly touching upper class.

I'm wondering this too! I'm interested to see actual numbers

I'm a Southern OOS girl from a big city (Atlanta, Dallas, Nashville, etc) and I'm in an Old Row house that isn't KD/Kappa. My dad's an engineer for a Fortune 100 company and my mom's a dentist, so we make good money, but because we're from such a large city where there are actual billionaires and CEOs of truly multinational companies, I always grew up thinking that we were middle or upper-middle class. I don't know exact figures, but I'd say between my parents' salaries and income from investments and rentals, we're making $250,000+ pre-tax? There was a house a few streets away from ours that sold for about $800,000 recently.

I'm not even from like the top 3 richest neighborhoods in my city. I know a few girls from my hometown from those wealthier neighborhoods (home prices are like minimum $1.2 million) who were debutantes and went mostly Kappa and Phi Mu. One of them has a dad who's like a real estate guy who flips houses and another one has a dad who owns a loan company. They're blonde and like to party, kind of dumb, but pretty nice to me.

Wealth doesn't matter. You can be a millionaire from out of state, but less desirable, because you don't know the Alabama moms who decide with their daughters who gets in the sorority.

There is a girl who's Dad sold his company for 13.6 billion and these little Alabama girls think they're wealthy when reality they really aren't because to live in Alabama in comparison to California, Florida, etc, its dirt cheap. If these rich girls lived in expensive cities / states, they wouldn't be classified as rich, it's just because they come from an unhealthy state.

Actually, there are some very affluent areas in North FL- Jacksonville, Destin/Fort Walton/Santa Rosa, even Tallahassee has some very wealthy people/affluent areas because it's the capital (cost of living is also disproportionately high here). South/southern central FL may be more affluent but I mean come on now....

If you are from a family that could and has bought you a vehicle worth at least $40K at graduation from high school, you are sorority well off at Bama. If you already had a $40K vehicle like for your 16th birthday, then you are sorority wealthy at Bama. I know a lot of kids don't bring cars to school and stuff like that, but this is just an example to allow you to compare and contrast. Absolutely a lot of OOS are very well off and even wealthy back home. No doubt. But living in the nice suburbs of Philly or Seattle is about the same in terms of real income as living in the nicer areas of Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery and Huntsville Alabama. What a $400k family income can buy in the Southern states is a lot more than it can buy in New York, that is for sure. So if daddy makes a $1 million a year in Los Angeles, the actual wealth you have is probably about like the kids in Mountain Brook and the other good suburbs in Alabama. And one of the posts above is absolutely right that the truly wealthy, like really rich, usually opt to go to private schools. That said, there are some seriously rich kids at BAma and they are scattered all around, including new row. Some kids want that SEC experience and the sorority life, etc.

Can you or your family easily afford spending $7-9k per year on your social life (not including housing or included meal plan- that's separate and gets tax write-offs)? I'm talking the dues, your pictures, formal and semi dresses, going out outfits, extra food, side trips? If you or your family have to discuss this number, there is your answer. It doesn't mean you are in a bad position (in fact, I admire you if you have to work for it a bit), but most houses want a majority of girls where this is a non-issue.

How do sororities research a PNM's wealth?

I'm OOS from a suburb of a large midwestern city where living costs of living are about the nationalaverage and went to public school (albeit the ranked 3 in the state, which increases home values and makes homes worth more). My parents "only" make about 160k before taxes, which could be a lot to some people but I'm probably slightly lower than average for Greek life in general. I got the full tuition to come to bama so my parents helped me pay for Greek life but won't pay for extras like outfits for parties and formals or shirts should I want them. I also don't have my car here. Side note: even though you can zillow houses it doesn't necessarily show wealthiness bc there's only 4 people in my family so we live in a normal sized, not big not small, house and my parents would rather have money for other things. Despite our house only being worth like 300kish, I still preffed one old row house and two new row. Keep in mind though that if you're parents are truly average income, that's about 65k. Going Greek could cost them 10% of their yearly earnings at a school like bama.