I love serenades!!!!!!

At Illinois guys and girls serenade each semester to determine the next semester's social calendar. First semester the guys come to your house from around 10 - 1am singing and dancing on two different nights. Usually the first night is a sweet song and then second round is a little more fun. Then the next week the girls go back to the houses they want to have exchanges with on two separate nights. Boys don't have any rules as to what they can and cannot do during serenades but sororities have pages and pages of things we can't do. It's basically meant to keep everyone on the same playing field and to make sure we're classy girls. Then you vote in chapter for who you want exchanges with and the fraternities vote too. The voting is somewhat stressful but in general, serenades are fun for everyone and not a bad way to spend an evening!

We do serenades for sorority pledges, and once in a while for sorority girls who are girlfriends of the brothers. Girls who are really good friends with us will usually request that we do it for their little sis, and we end up bringing them presents or stuff too.

Funny story with that - one of my best friends wanted us to sing to her little sis, so I rounded up a few guys to do it. It had been a tough day, so I hadnt' shaved, looked a little dishevled and all that. Well, we sing, and somehow the topic turns to me being a preschool teacher (which I do for a part-time job). Well, the girl takes one look at me, and immediately thinks I'm some sketchy molestor, one of those guys who drives the big white vans. Considering I'm the least sketchy guy ever, it was pretty funny - except she still thinks it, although her big (my really good friend) has repeatedly told her differently.

Collin

So AXiD owns the AGD house now???? Where is Gamma Phi going to live?? How did AXiD buy the AGD house if they weren't going to colonize?

Serenades at UM happen when sororities want SAE to pick them for the annual Mud Bowl, Just to get your name out on campus, pledgings and composite stealings to get them back.

We get seranaded before homecoming by all the fraternities that wanted to be paired up with us.. then we pick the one or two that we want and call them (there are twice as many fraternities as sororites at my campus, so sometimes you have 2 partners) The hard part is to call the house that you want to be paired up with before another house does. It's actually a lot of fun trying to figure out which houses you want first and then trying to call them or wait till they come to tell them yes! We also seranade all the fraternities to invite them to participate in our philanthropy, which is a lot of fun, because we take a song and change the words around to make it an invitation. :D

Serenades at U of Illinois
 

I agree with UofI AXO, serenades at Illinois are awesome! There is a lot of practicing usually leading up to the serenade weeks. Lots of costumes and dances, roses, candy, Pokey Sticks from Gumby's pizza, etc... for the big show though. Basically, each sorority/fraternity house tries to out "wow" the other for the next social semester. I've seen the *NSYNC themes, Brittany Spears (from fraternities. :D)Blue Man Group, Saturday Night Live, "The Perfect Fraternity," rock bands,...you name it!
Sadly, this is my first year as an alumna, and I miss the craziness of it all. The voting part was a bit stressful like UofI AXO said, but I loved the entire process of serenades! Every one usually brings their homework to their house and it's almost a given that none of it will get done as the shows go on all night as the houses arrive. So fun!

Once again, thanks so much for all of the detailed responses!

AggieAXO, check your pm!

Here at Maryland everyone serenades before Homecoming and Greek Week. We go to all of the fraternityies, but for the ones we're considering for Greek Week or Homecoming we bring fun stuff. There is usually a second serenade where there is "asking" for Greek Week or Homecoming (guys ask in the fall, girls in the spring) and then there is a sing back if you accept the invitation. Also, a lot of fraternities serenaded Christmas caroles before finals. One of the nicest things I've seen was when AChiO serenaded sororities as well.

At Kent, the fraternities would serenade on certain occasions, and often during the times when they were introducing their new pledges to the sororities. If they serenaded one chapter they pretty much serenaded them all----with one exception, which was the night of Sept. 8, 1993. On that night, an elaborate jacket-and-tie serenading was planned and executed only at the Chi Omega house......because it was for the purpose of Brent proposing to me!!!! The guys sang the first song and then Brent stepped out from the circle.....he pulled me into the center of it and I figured they were just going to sing the sweetheart song or something. But instead Brent asked me if I loved him and I said yes, of course, and then he dropped to one knee and said "Well then will you marry me?" and pulled out a ring!!! It was really cool because most of my sisters were there and it was fun to have all the guys there.....Brent's brother (who was a Sigma Chi) and his girlfriend were hiding behind a car, videotaping the whole thing.

Sidenote.....the AXiD house was a block over and our backyards kind of butt up against each other. One of my closest friends was their pres. and she was at the house that night. The AXiDs could hear the cheering and singing and got mad because the Delts didn't come to their house....but one of the girls who was hanging out with one of the Delts said "No, it was a set-up, one of them is proposing to his girlfriend tonight....." well Aimee knew at that second that it had to be me.....so by the time I told her she already knew!!!!

At MSU, we had our new member class do a serendade during i-week. They got all dressed up and did a routine with a few dances then traditional songs. The actives would do an intro too. From the semester that I remember, the fraternities came and did a pledge serenade as well.

Ooooooh, I LOVE stories like this!!! It kind of restores my faith in the male gender :)

Being greek, I always felt kind of gypped because my husband went to the Naval Academy (i.e. no fraternities there). I never got serenaded, never got lavaliered or pinned, never got to blow out the damn candle at a candlepass! :mad: You know, all those things that are so near and dear to a sorority girl's heart!

But I'm not complaining, really, I'm not....:rolleyes:

At my school UCSB, all the houses serenade. You have the option of singing which we do and when I was a pledge we sang (as recommended by me) all my loving/beatles, and give it up/pepper. We even acted out the scene in the middle. Then we did pick up lines with roses, as sororities do the same (they get really dirty!). Theres a pledge dance, lap dance, then the actives dance. Check it out here:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref...ubj=1540162209
Nevermind the slap dick in the middle, he was dropped haha

At my school only NPC and IFC really do serenading, thats only 6 orgs out of 30+ on campus, my local does serenades, but we derived from a national, so it's just a tradition that was carried on and revamped. Only our pledges sing, they are given two songs at the beginning of their pledge process, the girls practice for weeks and then perform during I-week. One song is a currently popular song with a lot of the words changed so that it pertains to greek life, the fraternity were serenading, etc. Then we have a dance number that follows where girls sing and dance to a popular song. Our org has a big reputation for having amazing serenades, mostly because its not just your average look cute and sing pretty routine.

Most fraternities do serenades, i personally love when they get creative and stray away from their traditional songs. I've seen some really amazing ones, and ive seen some very boring ones, i think it depends on how much actives are working with pledges to make a serenade perfect.