I agree, but if he's their only/first son to join a fraternity, they may not have understood the risk of jumping the gun. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that they just have lots of money and saw a need, not that they were trying to buy any favors.

OP, give it a shot. Why not? Just remember that you are in college first and foremost for your education. I'm not a huge believer in getting AWESOME grades just for the sake of it (2 minutes after you've graduated, nobody cares in most of the time), but you should be learning enough in your classes that you do at least reasonably well. One benefit of going after this with a little more maturity under your belt is you will understand better how to balance work and play.

Right, I know GPA is important, and I've already had two paid internships in the field I want to work in (and in my field, experience > GPA everyday of the week). Everything considered I feel pretty rounded right now.

A few people have seemed confused with how I was describing how my last house operated with GPA and initiation and what not. To sum it up in a word - clusterfuck.

To get initiated NMs need three things - > 60% "yes" in the active chapter vote for each individual, > 95% on the fraternity history exam, and a GPA of 2.5 or higher. 2.5 is the cutoff as it reads in the chapters bylaws.

In my case, myself and a handful of others had the first two requirements, but had below 2.5s. One of my pledge brothers was a rep for a well known fraternity website and he had a 2.3 so they initiated him so they could keep him because of that, so in doing that everyone who had between a 2.3-2.5 was initiated anyway.

So myself and the others were neophytes for the next semester. They told us we needed a 2.75 to be initiated this time, but there is no clause in the bylaws about that, just the 2.5 cutoff. I don't even think our bylaws has a specific clause for neophytes, or if it does it's vague.

So come initiation round two I again made the first two requirements, and had a 2.5 GPA. So, the members of our executive board voted on me, and they voted yes to initiate me. Our chapter president told me that I was going to be initiated, and then 5 minutes later our VP of membership came and told me that he changed his mind and I wasn't going to be initiated, "just doing his job". There was also a separate incident where the active chapter voted not to initiate one of my pledge brothers, but he was initiated anyway because our pledge trainer forgot to tell him.

The leadership in that house is a mess, backwards, and its a shame, really, because the house is on the rise since they've been recruiting like crazy. Current 1st semester pledge class is bigger than the Junior + Senior, and half of the sophomore classes combined.

Thanks for the advice everyone, I appreciate it.

OP -- On the matter of grades, MysticCat makes a very good point which is as valid for exams as it is for postings: Identify your main point quickly and clearly. For example, your principal point might be: "I am considering depledging a fraternity chapter for several reasons and rerushing other houses next semester. How does depledging (not for RFM reasons) affect one's opportunities during recruitment?" You can then embellish the backstory a bit with salient facts (not TMI). The takeaway is to state your principal point clearly first. Then add secondary and tertiary points. This approach may help you with some of your exams.

As to your specific question, do expect similar responses to those above: There are too many variables (campus culture, specific personal facts, etc) to enable a response other than "Give it a try."

Lastly, kudos for the internship. Depending on your major, your GPA may or may not matter 10 minutes after you graduate. I have had transcripts requested (for GPA purposes, not just validation of resume credentials) 10 YEARS later. It's not terribly informative in my view, but just be aware there are those employers who "care".

The fraternity is just not into you.
For whatever reason, someone or a group people have decided to arbitrarily apply different standards to different people. Even if you stick around and make a 3.0, who's to say they aren't going to turn around and say that you need a 4.0 to be intitiated now? Move on.
As for checking out other fratentities, you won't know unless you try. Like others said, campus culture, how the fraternity you are associated with now is viewed, and your grades may be determining factors. If you have friends in other fraternities, talk to them and see what kind of feed back you can get from them.

At this point it sounds like you could never be completely comfortable in this fraternity without worrying about who was on your side, and who was not. It also sounds like this is another case of too-fast growing pains with some internal differences between members and maybe you being made a scapegoat for "old XYZ" vs. "new XYZ" which isn't fair and sucks, but that's life.

Have guys in your situation (associated with a group, to the point of living in-house, for over a year) successfully gone on to pledge a different fraternity at your campus? That is what you want to look at.