is using a coach bad?

yup. (i'm in a top 3)

My mom is making me use a coach. Feels awkward.

do not get a coach! they are a waste of money! if a sorority only wants you because a rush coach basically created your whole MO why would you want to join them?? Join somewhere you can be yourself and enjoy the people around you

If using a "coach" to help you through an unfamiliar and odd process (rush) is wrong, then the system is rigged to favor girls with connections. Most girls in top tiers have connections. The few girls who get bids who do not have connections probably have a coach but would never admit it.

Only you know if you need a coach. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But I wouldn't advertise it. Seems you're going to be judged.

Top tier coaches know how to conceal their tracks, just like top tier PNMs know how to be discreet.

A rush coach cannot get you connected to a sorority or give you some kind of inside track to certain letters. They have no power in that regard. If you aren't connected to members personally there is no help for it. You'll just have to rush well enough to get noticed.

What a rush coach can do is indoctrinate you to the process in detail, walk you through conversations and scenarios, and answer all your questions about what's really going on so you can be objective and have more confidence and not make stupid decisions. Also, if you are insecure, or weren't raised with certain expectations of how to converse and behave, or taught how to navigate in adult social society with confidence and grace, then a rush coach can give you a crash course to help you present yourself better.

Anyone who has been active as a sorority member for a couple of years in a competitive rush system and has good social skills can be a rush coach. Anyone. It's not magic, it's a lot of common sense actually. Women have been rush coaching each other for generations through relatives and family friends. It's just the same as learning social skills and societal expectations within your own family and social circles because it's how you were raised.

No one had to pay for advice until recent times when girls and their mammas became desperate to join a world they had no connections to and no idea how to get in. Enter the enterprising rush coach to fill the gap.

If you weren't raised having the social toolkit needed and have nowhere else to turn then you can pay a stranger with a good reputation to give you a boost. It's much like hiring a tutor to help you polish your SAT except that most girls don't hire a rush coach, only ones who are really worried or know that they are out of their depth.