Out-of-stater, want to do summer rush
 

[redacted for anonymity]

I'm feeling generous today since you're from an area that suffered from a natural disaster and one of my dearest friends entered my life due to relocation, so I am not quoting you.

You may want to take out some details from your post, specifically about your schooling so you aren't easily identified as the guy who asked on the internet. Going to the new students thing is a good idea and I am sure other people here will have excellent advice. I live in Idaho and we do things differently, but one thing I completely agree with you on is avoiding jorts and graphic or message tees.

Thanks for the help, man. I did try to keep it relatively vague, but you're probably right - I could do a little better about not disclosing too much personal info.

I'm sorry but I really found the bolded section to pretty arrogant and might very well hurt you if people figure who you are. As for the rest, first the disclaimer. I went to a school in the northeast with a weak greek system and the following is my opinion. As such you should take it with a quite large grain of salt. I personally don't think sending out emails is wrong as long you do it properly. just something like "Hello my name is (yourname) and I am interested in Greek Life. I was hoping you can tell me a little bit about your fraternity." or something along those lines. I don't see how expressing interest is a bad thing.

I apologize for that, I really didn't mean to sound arrogant or like I was trying to insult anybody. But at (university), my understanding is that generally the more selective houses already have most of their pledge class before formal rush even begins - they barely participate in formal rush, so summer rush is very important to having a real chance at getting a bid at those houses.

All I meant by that bolded section was that the less competitive houses generally actually participate in formal rush, so even if I don't get to those houses over the summer I still have a chance to get to know them. If they take the time to meet me and get to know me during formal rush, but still don't want to pledge me, then summer rush probably wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

Time permitting, of course, I'm going to meet as many houses as I can while I'm in town regardless of how exclusive they might be.

Don't worry, I didn't think it was arrogant at all. It shows you have seriously tried to inform yourself about the Greek system at your university - a system that is VASTLY different from the one Psi U MC Vito is familiar with. You sound like you've done your research, but check for summer rush schedules on chapter websites if you haven't already, I've seen many chapters who post them. As to whether or not to send an e-mail, this Yankee couldn't say.

Good point. Anything I can say is just from my own personal experience, so you have to keep that in mind.

Thanks for the reassurance Gusteau. It's easy for things to get misinterpreted over the internet when there's no body language / vocal inflection to help us understand. And I appreciate your reply too Psi U MC Vito; I'm thankful for any input I get.

I did look at one house's site, only to find their "event schedule" completely empty. That discouraged me, but your post made me decide to give it another try - and one of the houses' chapter site lists the rush contacts for fall 2009 and above that info says "PNMs, contact us." So I think I'm going to go ahead and email that particular fraternity, and also check the sites of some other houses I'm looking at and see if I can find any more helpful info.

I'd still feel more confident about this if I could get validation from a southern brother that I'm not venturing into "creeper" territory by sending out unsolicited emails, but otherwise I guess I'll just choose carefully who I email and what I say. If I don't email anybody I probably won't have much chance at the tougher to get into houses anyway, so I suppose I have nothing to lose.

Again, thanks a lot everybody who has contributed so far.

Ignore this.

A good chapter isn't going to have an up-to-date website. Likely it'll be four years old, with a likely dated rush chair phone number. He's probably married by now. If it's an up-to-date website, it's probably not a good chapter because they're interested in using it for rush.

I don't know the conditions of where you're coming from and I don't really remember the specificities of Georgia rush, but I imagine at your orientation you may have the opportunity to meet the fraternities. If not that, find some way to get yourself invited to a rush party. I'm not sure what stage Georgia is in, but many of the fraternities at the Arkansas campus just had their first one last weekend or the weekend before.

Elephant Walk, it seems the ways of the South will forever elude me...

This was my first instinct, but I have managed to find one or two chapters so far with supposedly good reps on campus, who have contact info for their "2009 rush chairs" on their sites. Could be exceptions, or maybe Greeks in general are getting more web-savvy. Or maybe I just got bad info about who is doing well on campus and who isn't. In any case, I will definitely try to take advantage of orientation and see if it makes time for interested incoming students to get acquainted with some houses.

Sorry to take a slight detour on this thread, but another question: is it bad etiquette to ask one fraternity that I'm hanging out with during rush to introduce me to some of the other houses? I mean if they're friends and they all hang out together then maybe it shouldn't be a big deal - but then again, I suppose even houses who are friends are still in competition against each other for pledges.

I wouldn't if I was you. Some might have no problem with it, some might be offended.It can be considered disrespectful. Like you said, they are competing with each other when all is said and done. Also by asking them to introduce you to another chapter, they can take it as you not considering them good enough to hang out with.

do not ask one house to introduce you to another house. they might interpret that request as your letting them know that you are "just not that into them". in addition, if any of the brothers ask which houses you are interested in, don't answer.

Absolutely.

I don't think the Greek system at UGA is one big happy family. Individual guys probably hang out, but you're not going to know that if you just meet them through rush. Don't ask this.

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.