When I joined a sorority my freshman year in college, my mom was pretty indifferent. Since I was a first-generation college student, my mom didn’t know much about sorority life (and, to be fair, neither did I). I went to a small university in Texas, way before TikTok existed or sorority rush gifts were a thing. Back then, sorority rush was more about impressing people on campus and finding a place to fit in. With the influx of “RushTok” and over-the-top, coordinated videos designed to go viral and draw in huge crowds, sorority rush looks a lot different.

For the unfamiliar, TikTok videos tagged #RushTok have more than 309 million views and #BamaRush, the most famous sorority rush, has over 756 million views, showing the glittery, emotional, spectacular inside view of sorority recruitment. And it’s not just teens today who are doing the most for a bid — moms are also shelling out tons of cash to gift their daughters nice things during rush at Southeastern Conference (SEC) schools like University of Mississippi and the University of Alabama.

Ole Miss alum and Delta Delta Delta member Jane Clair Shettles compared her experience rushing versus her two daughters’ experiences. Her eldest, Sally Grace, rushed Alpha Chi Omega at the University of Alabama in 2020, an experience which Shettles told PEOPLE was “more rigid.” As she helped her youngest daughter Mamie go through sorority recruitment at Mississippi State this semester, Shettles described it as “a little more relaxed.”

Still, there’s a lot of work that goes into it. “Leading up to it, Mamie had all the recommendations, resumes, thank-you notes, and she had to make [an introductory] video,” Shettles told the outlet, adding that she helped her daughter pick her outfits for each day. This included “what shorts or skorts went with which T-shirt and how to coordinate all of that.”

All of that seems fairly normal (as normal as Southern sorority recruitment can be), but what makes it stand out is the fact that moms are going the extra mile to dish out gifts for their daughters.

To help, Shettles wrote little notes for her daughter to read each day, which she put in a “rush bag” along with snacks and other items, reminiscent of packing notes in elementary school lunches. And that’s just the beginning.

Amy Sergeant, whose daughter Abigail also goes to Ole Miss, went to a northern university, where Greek life wasn’t as intense. Still, she’s supportive and sending her daughter packages each day of recruitment with notes and small presents.

“We tried to leave them notes for every day based on what they’re doing,” Sergeant told PEOPLE of her and the mom of her daughter’s roommate Becky, who is also going through rush. She added that they were hesitant at first. “We weren’t sure. We were seeing $100 to $600 a day, and we were like, ‘Holy crap, that’s for 13 days.'”

$600 a day!? On top of the outfits and makeup they need, not to mention monthly sorority dues and the other expenses from being in Greek life. Not to mention college tuition in general! What are in these magical gifts that they need $600 gifts every day to get through rush? My mom would have a heartache.

Amy and Becky didn’t want their daughters to be the only ones without gifts. They told PEOPLE, “We were like, ‘We don’t want them to feel like everybody else is getting this stuff and they’re not.’”

Some of the gifts include Kendra Scott bracelets with Greek eye charms, face masks and GrubHub gift cards, deliveries of Crumbl cookies, fragrance diffusers and lotions, and more, all tied to what they were doing that day (bracelet for first day, self-care for break days, perfume for Bid Day).

And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that these teens are spending over $19,000 on wardrobe and accessories for rush and even shelling out as much as $6,000 on “rush consultants” to help prep them with etiquette, personal styling, and social media curation. This is definitely fueled by the fact that everything will be posted online, something that we didn’t have to worry about when we went through rush 10+ years ago.

“RushTok and the culture that comes along with it is highly aspirational and niche,” mindfulness coach Michelle Maros previously told SheKnows. “Viewers can easily pick up on what aesthetics and personalities will be successful throughout Rush, and thus can cultivate feelings of competition and comparison to try and live up to those expectations and standards. The ethos of RushTok is competition and it can feel cutthroat and exclusive.”

If this is the new standard, then maybe moms can be prepared. All you have to do is save a few extra thousand dollars to help them physically prepare (and emotionally recover) from sorority rush.

Before you go, check out where your favorite celeb parents are sending their kids to college.