Fraternity Recruitment Standards
 

I did a search but didn't come up with anything too relevant or recent.

I was wondering if fraternity members could chime with what their chapter standards were like for recruitment and, in specific, the voting process on extending bids- specifically chapters where all members have a vote.

What percentage of a positive vote does a rushee need in order to be extended a bid? And what percentage would be too inclusive, too selective, etc..

If you could also include how large your Greek community is/was with your post, to get an idea of your campus culture, I would appreciate it too.

This information may not be public and that is why you haven't found anything in your searches.

I understand some chapters may be secretive about this information, so it's fine if someone doesn't want to be part of the discussion.

I'll bite. I'm an alumni, although I've only been out of school for a short time so I doubt much has changed at my chapter. DTD has no national rules on how to run rush (that I know of) and our chapter had our own system. Every night of rush required a different percentage of a "yes" vote to be invited back, starting at 50% and up to 85% to get a bid. Legacies were given a bid and allowed to pledge. However, after three and six weeks of pledging, discussions took place where pledges were voted on again...they needed a much higher amount to get past these discussions, I don't remember what it was though. Also, at any point in time a pledge class could vote out a member of their class by a simple majority vote.

The process itself was fairly disorganized...rushees photos would be on a big-screen TV and the rush chair would announce their name, school year, major and dorm, and then we were allowed to discuss the rushee until everybody had their mind made up. Most rushees were pretty unanimous (either nobody wanted them or everybody wanted them), but certain rushees could take forever to talk about (the record was close to an hour). Needless to say these discussions took forever and may have veered towards Animal House territory the later the night went on.

I wish we had been a little more selective at the initial stage. It was still very tough to get a bid from our chapter, and I'd say only about 25% of our rushees would get bids. However, some of our competitor's chapters only required three or so "no votes" to keep a rushee from getting a bid. At 85%, the theory was that the less strong pledges could always be kicked out at three and six weeks. However, more than once a controversial pledge that would not have been voted in with a more restrictive percentage caused havoc in the pledge class and was voted out after three weeks, but the damage they caused was already irreversible (either taking another favorite pledge with him when he was kicked out, causing a rift in the pledge class, etc).

The Greek system at my school was large, not SEC large, but still large. 20ish chapters ranging from 60-130 members.

Thanks for your input.

My chapter also has periodical votes on pledges- initial vote, mid-pledgeship vote, and final vote. Our final vote has to take place at least 2 days prior to initiation. Although it can technically take place before, it usually happens the last chapter meeting before initiation. We can also bring anyone up at any point during the pledging process.

I also feel like it's a bit too inclusive for my taste. Right now our chapter standards are 2/3 positive vote, and in the past the Recruitment committee extended "soft bids" and then the chapter would vote on the pledges. It usually works but there have been times when a guy gets a bid that a sizable amount of the chapter doesn't approve of. They eventually get dropped, but I think we should be more selective from the get-go.

My Greek community currently has 12 fraternities in IFC but we're continuing to grow and we're adding 2 fraternities within the year. The chapters range anywhere from small, less popular ones having about 30 guys to larger chapters having 70-100 members.

As far as the competition goes, I'm positive most chapters have a similar system as mine (majority vote, periodical voting, etc). There aren't any chapters here that can blackball rushees with only 1, 2, or 3 negative votes. But that's not to say it won't change in the future.

I was always curious how rush and the voting process worked for very large chapters say anywhere between 80-100 people. The logistics just seem way out of this world to handle. I can't even imagine how the voting process would work. Isn't there a chance that a large number of people will obstain from voting? Are those votes then disregarded?

I'm on a campus where fraternity sizes aren't large, but it doesn't take many abstains for a possible pledge to passed up, at least for another week, sometimes altogether.

Well the formality of the school's rush really depends on the campus. Some large schools have very formal processes, some have very informal processes and vice versa.

I can only speak for my chapter but you can't abstain when voting on pledges. And every guy is voted on, one by one. Which can be annoying and tiring (it always takes a few hours, especially initiation vote).

As far as when voting for rushees occurs, we vote on bid extensions as we go along. My chapter has recruitment events before the formal rush period (mostly during summer) which makes it much easier to vote on guys you want to bid. We don't wait until the second-to-last day of formal recruitment to vote on guys. By that point, most guys have been voted on.

Not to mention our "formal" recruitment isn't formal at all.

ETA: Which is why my chapter has been lazy in the past. We would nominate and then select 5 guys to represent the Bid Committee and they were in charge of deciding who got a soft bid. Then the chapter would vote on the guys after rush ended. It worked for the most part, but we're not going to use this process anymore since it can get sticky (ie. a guy on the Bid Committee is friends with an unpopular rushee, committee not taking into consideration the the chapter's wishes, etc.)

I can see that happening in regards to your ETA.

I guess it's very similar to our process. We also vote on guys as we go, but do not do summer rush, because I guess it really isn;t needed on our campus.

If you're looking to make bid giving more selective you might want to think about implementing values based membership selection (VBMS). So instead of saying, "Oh I liked this guy" you could say, "This guy should get a bid because he exemplifies X, Y, and Z." X, Y, and Z being qualities your chapter values that are measuarable and quantifiable. The idea behind VBMS is that you can actually measure the quality of your pledge class (an in turn, your chapter) because you have a rubric by which you give bids. To make this work your chapter has to agree that a man can't get a bid if he doesn't exemplify a certain number of the qualities defined by the chapter.

This is a really good article about VBMS that probably explains it a lot better than I could: http://www.phiredup.com/index.php?op...p=587&Itemid=2

My chapter was consistently that size. Like I said, the meetings could take forever, and it wasn't uncommon for a brother to sneak out (or angrily storm out if his favorite was cut) after awhile. Nobody was allowed to abstain though, however it was pretty common to count the "no" votes first (since only 15% was needed) because it would simply be easier to count.

Mine is a little bit more complicated as I believe we are one of the few (if not the only) fraternity systems who utilize the sorority system of one round, cut, second round, cut, third round, cut, then finally we have our pledge class. We're much larger than a hundred people in a Greek system where we typically have around 600 rushees come through rush every year.

For the first two rounds of rush, the rush chairs are allowed to act dictatorially. Members will give names of people they want cut or protected, but really the rush chairs have a firmer grasp of the entirety of 600 people and who we want to cut in order to target our core group of rushees.

When it comes down to the final cuts, one blackball will cut someone...theoretically. But in practice if the chapter feels like that "one blackball" is someone whose just being a dick, we'll take it to a vote. We try to limit a person to one blackball each. If several throw their black balls in the ring, then the guy is probably eliminated.

One blackball can take out a pledge before he's officially made a pledge. Once someone is made a pledge, then it takes 50+1% to get him kicked out. A pledge (or pledge class as what usually happens) needs 75% to get initiated in the final vote.

That's pretty interesting. Why is it that your system uses that kind of formal rush? Is it to ensure each fraternity gets a fair shot at rush?

Do you guys use quotas like sororities do?

I'm familiar with Phired Up and I attended a presentation they had on my campus 2 years ago. However, I'm not too sure this kind of recruitment would work very well on my campus and, in particular, my chapter.

We look at character and values when assessing men as it is, but that kind of stuff can also be very subjective.

In my chapter, there are a few different steps to voting on PNMs.

Firstly, we use Facebook as a way to review different PNMs. Their photos and stats are posted in a members only group and Brothers are free to say whatever they want. Then, during Rush, the VP of Recruitment hands out invitations to exclusive events for people we are considering very seriously. Throughout the two weeks, the VPR will announce different PNMs he is considering bidding and, if there is any negative discussion, it is brought up then. Finally, before a bid can be given, Standards Board reviews the PNM. The bid can only be given if all 5 members vote in favor.

Traditionally, though, the VPR and Rush Chair can blackball anyone they want to. Usually, the only person who can fight that is the President.

My school's Greek system is fairly small: 12 different orgs ranging from 5-60 members. Only 3 orgs have over 30 members.

Elephant Walk, I would love to hear more about this process. I've always wanted to hear more about those rare campuses where fraternity rush works like this. I think from your old posts you are at Arkansas, correct? What are the rounds like...are they progressively more formal? How does the rush chair get the idea of who to pledge...I'm assuming summer rushing? How does "pref" work...do they rank and is there a quota system, or does a fraternity just hand out bids to who they want to bid and then the rushee gets to pick from his bids? If that's the case, how much do chapters "over-bid" to get their desired pledge class size...I'm guessing that it varies wildly from "top" to struggling chapters.

I definitely understand that Phired Up is not the best answer for some campuses. However, I think that VBMS takes the subjectivity out of it if you provide concrete examples of how your potentials fulfill certain characteristics.

No idea. It's been that way for my five years of being Greek and perhaps at least three years before that. There are a few other GC'ers who were on campus well before I was so they can say how long ago it might be.
If I had to guess, yeah.
I don't think so. The pledge classes are of wildly varying sizes still. I would imagine quota would come into play to help even that out, if I understand it correctly. You'll have Farmhouse with two pledges and other fraternities taking 65, while still some choose to take 55 for qualities sake.

Correct.
Yep. It's 5 days all told, including Bid Day. The first two days are actually one round. You visit 6/7 houses the first day and then on the second day you visit the 6/7 houses that you didn't visit on the first day (and since the fraternities are in a sort of pseudo-square, you just go in a straight line until you have turn to the next line of houses). These parties are like 20 minutes a piece for each house. It's pretty much polo and shorts wearing. Then on the second round (third day), it's like long pants and an Oxford. Longer parties. Then on the third day it's full suit and tie, it gets very serious and the parties are longer still. Bid day my graduating year the new rushees had to wear polos/pants in gameday colors because they went straight to the football game afterwards.
Summer rushing and rushing in the Fall before the official rush week. Each house gets one designated "rush party" which always includes alcohol to really meet pledges but usually they have a good idea by who comes through the house. Many of the good houses (and alot of the not-so-good houses) will have at least 40% of their pledge class picked out before the Fall semester starts. Basically formal rush will be those rushees going through the motions for the fraternity.

This is difficult to explain even in person but let me give a shot at it.

After the 2nd round the rushee will only be going to three houses (or less) for the third round. At the end of the third round, all the rushees go to a designated spot (use to be the union, now they do it in the hper i think) and make their decisions where they rank them 1-3 or suicide. Each chapter has an A, B, C list. The C list simply means cut. Those rushees, no matter how they rank the chapter, will not be members. However many rushees a chapter wishes to pledge will be the number of spots on the A list. So say they decide to pledge 50, there will be 50 spots there. The order of the rushees on the A list does not matter. BUT, on the B-list it does matter. If a person selects XYZ as #1 and XYZ has that person on their A list, they will be automatically paired and that person receives a bid which comes through the IFC office, not through the chapter. BUT, if the person does not select XYZ as #1 and XYZ still has the person on their A list, he will be removed from their A list. Then, the first person on the B-list will move up to the A-list. So if that person has XYZ as #1 than he will receive a bid from XYZ even though he was on their B list. The A-listers who keep dropping only mean that the B-listers will keep moving up.

Re: overbidding. You may think that chapters would simply keep as many people around as possible to ensure numbers and so forth. Then just cut the people they don't like at the end. It isn't the case. Chapters are required to cut a certain percentage of the list (I'd like to say it's something like 15%) each round. Furthermore, the best fraternities have what our IFC lady likes to call the "Frozen Chosen" where after the first round they make heavy cuts...like 40% or so, so that those fraternities can truly drill into and put on the heat to those who they think are sort of wavering between their house and others. It allows for more members interracting with the fraternities.

Thanks Elephant Walk, that was really interesting.

Like Elephant Walk I went to a school that had formal IFC rush. The setup was practically identical to sorority rush and the entire rush week was "dry" (with IFC conducting random house inspections to enforce the policy).

Monday: PNMs visit the 10 or so fraternities that do not have a house on Greek Circle. The parties are 30 minutes but the day is longer as PNMs have to travel around town to houses or wherever events are held. I heard that now all the non-Greek Circle fraternities host their parties in the Student Union. This seems like a huge disadvantage because PNMs don't get to see where they actually meet.

Tuesday: PNMs visit the 10 fraternities that have a house on Greek Circle. The parties last 30 minutes. The attire is polos and shorts for PNMs and most active members usually wear a date party shirt or something showing interaction with sororities.

After Monday and Tuesday cuts are made. Because of the sheer amount of guys going through rush and the short time of the parties cuts were usually made quickly and on a trust system (i.e. I went to high school with him and he wouldn't be a fit) with most everyone going along with the cuts. We generally cut 30% of the total group.

Wednesday: PNMs are given a list from IFC showing which fraternities invited them to that day's parties. PNMs then sign up for 8 parties. PNMs must attend all eight parties. Not showing up for a party or scheduling less than 8 was grounds for dismissal from rush and not being able to accept a bid (most of the smaller fraternities don't make cuts so scheduling eight really isn't a problem for anyone). The parties last longer and attire is generally the same as Monday and Tuesday and are usually held at the house. For voting purposes we worked on a buddy system so that at least two brothers talk to a PNM. We also set up a camera to videotape the PNMs telling their name, hometown, high school, what dorm they are living in and a hobby. After the parties end we watch the video and vote. It generally went pretty smooth as you had two people that generally agreed or disagreed on the same person. We also cut anybody that did not choose to visit us on that day.

Thursday: PNMs are again given a list of fraternities that have invited them to that day's parties. They choose and sign up for four parties. The rules are the same for having to attend all four parties. This day is an "activity day" and can involve anything from hosting skeet shooting to renting out a bar/restaurant. Attire is khaki's and an oxford or a polo. The PNMs are again videotaped. This is the day that is the most intense in voting as it is generally accepted that if you invite a PNM to Pref Day they will be getting a bid and usually lasted around 4 to 5 hours. Like Elephant Walk's chapter one person could blackball a PNM. 50% of time the vote was respected and the PNM was cut - the other 50% resulted in a discussion and essentially devolved towards Animal House. Again, we cut anyone who didn't attend that day's party.

Friday: PNMs receive a list of fraternities that have invited them to Pref Day. Attire for PNMs and actives is suit and tie. The party lasts an hour and a half and is generally held at a prominent alum's house or a nicer banquet hall. While it is technically the most formal day it is actually the most relaxed - the day is the shortest and for the most part you have invited only the guys you are willing to bid. Virtually the only cuts that are made that day are people who did not attend your party.

Saturday: Bid Day. Unlike sororities and Elephant Walk's school the guys nor the fraternities do a ranking sheet. PNMs are given their bid invitations and virtually every PNM will have one from each fraternity they saw on Pref Day. At 1:30 fraternities are given a list of PNMs that accepted their bid and at 3:30 the new pledges are released to their houses, alcohol is again allowed and the Bid Day festivities begin. We generally had a brotherhood event that afternoon and then a party at the house that night.

Everyone I knew that rushed at a different school had a completely different experience and I hadn't really ever heard of anyone else that had as formal of a rush as we did.

The numbers usually fall along the lines of 700 PNMs on Monday/Tuesday, 450 on Wednesday, 250 on Thursday and 100 to 110 on Friday. We usually had about 45 - 55 bids accepted with the exception of one year when 65 accepted.

The exact same process is used for Spring rush.