Well it makes sense.

The only thing websites are really used for is rush, to my knowledge. I suppose that alumni could use it to keep up to date but if they want to know something they can call the President. But if you have so many people coming through rush that you don't have to do any "reaching out", there's no point in keeping one updated. And that's the status of most Southern schools. We had over 600 kids go through rush last year with 13 chapters (well 12 that actually participate in it). But if the chapter isn't very good, it'll definitely try to get it's name out everywhere possible so that someone, anyone will contact them. So for that, they keep theirs updated.

I'm pretty sure it's not. It might be okay if the person is a senior and you met them at a bar or something. Not at the house, which is likely going to be filled with sophs and maybe a few juniors. Seniors tend to be more open minded about these things.

The thing that you'll probably learn is that you'll meet other rushees that can introduce you to other houses. Or girls. I remember as a young'n this girl I dated was a Phi Delt groupie so she instantly wanted me to become one and I met alot of guys that rushed me pretty hard, through her.

Just don't come off as that Yankee.

Wow, this thread has been great. Thanks a lot for your help everybody.

I hadn't even thought about that. Thanks for pointing this out - I probably would've just absent mindedly listed off some other house names if a brother asked me who else I was looking at, without even realizing how loaded a question that is. Thinking about it now though, it would seem to me that it's probably never a good idea to mention any house's name in front of another one.

Obviously I don't have much experience with this stuff, but so far I've actually made contact with / been contacted, either via phone or email, by three different fraternities in the last few days, all of which appear to have pretty good reps on campus. Maybe the Greek scene has changed somewhat at UGA, but so far it seems to be not nearly as cutthroat as I thought it would be, at least not for upper-middle tier houses (to be fair I haven't made any contact with the reputedly uber-elite top 3 houses yet, nor do I really expect to). Everyone I've talked to so far has been reasonably friendly, but of course I suppose brothers are all going to be as cool as they can right now to attract the best/most pledges. This could also be because maybe I'm more "valuable" than I realize - my profile on UGA rush registering website place is very good as far as grades/extracurriculars go. I'm not sure how much fraternities really care about GPA, but mine can only help me. (Unless maybe it's too high and they think I must be a nerd. I'm not a nerd, promise.)

This was also very valuable to me. Even though it turns out it's not as hard to get in touch with fraternities as I thought, I've still only spoken to a fraction of the houses on campus. I'll remember to make friends with everybody, not just brothers, since you're right - just about anybody, but especially girls and other rushees, can be a connection.

That much I can handle.

Definitely try to meet some girls. That should help. And I know it sounds lame, but try finding a house with guys you actually like. The guys in the "top tier" houses aren't always guys you want to hang out with for 4 hours, let alone 4 years. I missed your first post, but figure out why you want to join a fraternity in the first place and then find one that's right for you and what you want. Guys can smell desperation just like girls can. Not saying that you are desperate, but things usually work out as they should. Good luck!

Yeah, dont' put too much emphasis in grades or extracurriculars.

To my knowledge very few chapters even look at the grades. We started to because we were getting down to the lowest chapter in terms of grades, but that was only for less than a year and then we got back to high grades and didn't care.

Biggest factors: What hometown you're from, what friends you have, and how you dress.

That's on the superficial level. They'll cut tons of people on the basis of that. Then once they take all the people who are equivalent on those levels (which are still hundreds), they'll be looking at people who match the chapter in terms of attitude and character among other things. I'm fairly certain after meeting plenty of Greeks from Georgia that they're fairly consistent with the rest of the big Southeast chapters.

If your school is part of the profile, some of the contacts maybe because they recognize that, as well as the other stuff.