[QUOTE=SWTXBelle;1434276]
Argue with me if you want . . .
]QUOTE]

Wow. I will. You say "gross generalization" in your post. You just made the grossest generalization of my initial argument and twisted it in a way where I am sitting here offended.

How dare you decide that because I wanted to have "drinking buddies" that that is all that my brotherhood means to me and that is all my fraternity experience has to offer. (And yes, you said that...). Nowhere in my original message did I say that. Nowhere. Please point out where I said that.

My initial point is that I wanted brotherhood but also there are certain aspects of a fraternity that I know I personally wanted as well. If you are coming in and you love sports you'd want to make sure the house you were joining liked playing it. If you are coming in and you work very hard on your grades you will be looking for the house with one of the highest GPAs. Many freshmen come in looking for a group of guys they can party with and meet girls.

I was one of them, for sure. But I looked at each house to some degree on my campus (and there are over 20) and looked at the guys. I didn't rush several of the houses with "big parties, hot girl" reputations because I would not have fit in there. But I did want to make sure that I could have my ideal fraternity experience at the house I chose.

My fraternity has an incredibly strong brotherhood. That's very easy to say, especially online, but I stand 100% behind it. Seniors hang out with freshmen, we have almost 100% attendance at all of our events (including not just "party events" but chapter, ritual, community service, leadership fairs, you name it) not because we have to but because we love hanging out with each other and take pride in our house. Our ritual was practiced thoroughly and presented without a hitch and I know for a fact that it is important to all of us (so much so that the position of Ritual Director was the most applied to position out of all our Executive Board). We raise thousands for our philanthropy every year and as a chapter complete an average of 300 or so community service hours every semester. If you are talking about "not putting in work" (as a previous poster alluded to) we had to create more positions this year to fill the demand for leadership from our brothers. We have been honored by our national chapter on many occasions, have won awards from our university for our programming, have a strict membership selection process that looks at leadership and personality and does not even begin to consider looks/wealth/race/etc, have leadership positions all over campus, etc.

And yes, we drink. So I guess that because we drink all of our brotherhood and achievements don't mean anything compared to those of other chapters who don't party as much. I guess that the overwhelming sense of pride and love I feel for my fraternity (on a local and national level) and my dedication to my brothers is actually just because I like drinking. I'm very glad that, since you know me personally, you can make generalizations about my fraternity experience. I learned a lot about myself and my chapter today.

In conclusion, I shouldn't have even posted. As I said, I am a longtime lurker and have seen a general "houses who drink or are the largest on campus, etc can't touch the smaller houses in brother/sister-hood and dedication." This is disgustingly untrue. There is strong brotherhood present in some of the biggest and the smallest chapters on my campus, as well as horrendously bad brotherhood present in yes, the biggest AND smallest chapters on campus. It doesn't always work that way.

Just because members like to party or play sports or meet girls has NO bearing on their overall character, their dedication to their organization, their love for their brothers/sisters and their pride in their GLO. Saying "All ABCs are meat-head drunks who forgot ritual the next day and don't care about their brothers" is as ridiculous and laughable as saying "All XYZs are fat and ugly and slutty".

jwsteele,

Why did you assume she was talking specifically to you? It seemed to me that she was replying to the tone of the thread generally. But maybe I'm wrong.

Statedawg,

Are you from Mississippi? My impression is that a lot of rush activities for guys at State happen over the summer.

If you are from Mississippi, you may want to get in touch with guys ahead of you in school who are already at State.

If you are coming in from out of state, you can probably still get a bid from a group that you like, but your experience may be a little different than that of a well connected guy from Meridian, Greenville, Biloxi, Jackson etc.

Look, I was simply making a comment based on my experiences with my own school and others. Don't tell me though that I am making "gross generalizations" about freshmen guys and what a MAJORITY of them want in a fraternity. I have seen every single guy that comes through rush for the last 4 years. I am damn well qualified to make that assumption. Being a member of a prestigious, well respected, wealthy chapter, with like minded guys, that has good parties and has good relationships with good sororities is definitely at the top of their list. They don't know about brotherhood and fraternity ideals yet......why would we expect them to? Again, those types of things are learned over time and are what we are supposed to teach to them when they are pledges.

Thanks though for your concern. I'm glad you are married to a former president of a local and then Sigma Chi. Congratulations. Next time though........think twice before you tell me or anyone else that we are making generalizations of any kind......because you pretty much made an enormous one with your entire post. I'm kind of talking about the part where you basically stated that we/our chapters don't have any brotherhood and things of that nature because of what I feel most freshmen guys are looking for in a fraternity.

Didn't mean to start a gender war, but the replies bring a lot of insight...

Macallan - the info you can get would be a big help. Thanks.

Leslie Ann - thanks for the links; i'm getting a sense of what each chapter is about through their sites but i know what they choose to put on their own websites can be deceiving.

Alphagamuga - I'm from Biloxi and have seen older friends of mine who stuck together as a group in high school end up at different houses at MSU, which makes this whole thing a little harder to figure out.

To defend my question, I think some of the guys know where I'm coming from... First, I want a fraternity that is going to be fun--and I want a group of drinking buddies too. At the same time, though, I want a fraternity that I am proud of, that will earn the respect of my parents, and strong friendships for the rest of my life. Good people who work hard and play hard. Not so small that the parties suck, but not so big that people don't know each other. Is that too much to look for?

To boil this down, I get the impression that most fraternities have some sort of image--jocks, dorks, potheads, rich guys, preps, animal house, etc. Apparently a few don't really fit in a category, but are just considered "good" or "bad" by general standards. Maybe I have this whole thing wrong, but that's the kind of stuff I'm trying to find out.

Absolutely. You need to take what you can from it.

That's really common, actually. As you get older you start looking for different things in your relationships. Interests start coming into sharper focus when you get to college. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to lose the friends that you have from high school though. I joined a sorority that my close friends from high school would never have joined. The important thing is that it was right for me and helped me develop as a person.

Nope! Not too much to look for at all. I think what you're looking for is right on target. But, ya know, even if all you wanted was the partying it really isn't anyone's business but your own.

Yes, they most definitely do have images. Don't let anyone try to tell you otherwise.

Oh - and if you don't want sorority women's opinions, I'd suggest moving this to Fraternity Rush.

As to making "generalizations " - um, no. My point was that there are men who are looking for more than the superficial when they go through rush. I never attacked any single fraternity, or any specific campus, although you would think I had by the virulent responses. I discussed a very specific situation where successful college students felt the fraternities at that time were not focused on the brotherhood they sought. I argued that you shouldn't assume all PNMs were not also looking beyond sports trophies and number of parties, or the type of thing that you can subjectively measure. I know that when my brother went through rush he was looking for a group of men with whom he could share brotherhood - the type he had known in the Marines. He made up his own mind, not based on what the "top" houses were, but on where he felt that connection.
And when I said I would not say all men were stupid, but feel free to argue the point - I'm really surprised someone took me up on it! So, okay, you've convinced me.
And nowhere did I say that any poster here did not have brotherhood. Some of you need to re-read my post before assuming I was attacking you.
Apparently I was wrong, so I apologize.I bow to the superior understanding of those who have previously posted. My understanding of what fraternities are all about was obviously way off base.
Find out which house has the best record in competitions, craziest parties, best mixers, and wildest formals. Good luck.
"The guilty man flees where none pursues . . . "

I don't understand why honesty is looked down upon so much around here.

If someone asked about Baylor, and you said "Well, the Sigma Nu chapter there isn't very strong". I wouldn't cry about it. I do want us to be strong/leaders on every campus, however, I do realize that is IMPOSSIBLE to do for any GLO.

several of the fraternities have summer rush parties posted, or email addresses for their rush chairmen. good luck, statedawg.

Because you don't know for sure that it IS honest.

I mean say I can't stand the (random example) KDs at my school for whatever reason. I can come on here and say "well even though the KDs are big and popular, they all hate each others' guts and backstab constantly and they all had to pay extra dues last year because their last treasurer embezzled and they make you throw away your old clothes and buy all new ones." This is all complete BS, but now that seed's been planted and even if it is complete BS, it's going to stick in the rushee's head.

I don't have a problem with rushees saying "well I didn't like ASA, they were too quiet for me" because rushees don't have an ulterior motive. But when members of other groups on that campus say it, you never know how much is true and how much isn't.

Dishonesty is a risk you run any time you ask a question on an internet message board.

I don't think one dishonest representation re: KD is going to bring their chapter down. People are just looking for additional information. They'll do their own homework.

You're also suggesting that people here have ulterior motives when writing about folks on other campuses. I don't understand that. Maybe some of us do, but frankly, most of us could care less where/what/if these kids decide to join.

You raise another good point though - if you're writing about folks on other campuses, how well-versed enough are you in the Greek system on that campus to really be giving information?

If you're spouting off second-hand information from friends/acquaintences who went to that school (or third-hand information heard through a friend of a friend of a friend), you're still running the risk of presenting the kind of information that 33girl mentioned above - who's to say that the information that was passed on to you wasn't biased? If your friend is in XYZ fraternity that directly competes with ABC fraternity (for potential pledges, for attention from sororities, for intramural sports titles, etc.), his opinion of them is colored by those factors, even if he isn't intentionally trying to be biased.

Of course, I'd hope that statedawg would rely more heavily on his own opinions and/or the info he got from his HS friends (who he mentioned have all ended up in different fraternities at MSU), etc. before giving too much weight to everyone's opinions here. :)

good points all.

Yeah, I agree.

I'm not going to go back and look, but did someone in this thread actually say that they'd look at chapter websites and then tell the OP which houses were the top houses in Starksville?

I would hope that someone would be smarter than that, but people surprise me every day.

I stated that in order to judge things like chapter size, g.p.a., acomplishments, trophies won, etc., the chapter websites would be a good place to START. Obviously, you could not judge any chapter in its totality by a website.