How does rush work? Different forms of rush?
 

Hi everyone. I am confused on rush.
At my school, rush is held at the beginning of each quarter. Each house hosts their own events and you can attend as many events from as many different houses as you want. There is little to no coordination between the houses and each house basically conducts rush independently from other houses. All events are open invitations so you don't need to be invited back to attend the second events. You also don't need to sign up with any Greek councelor.

Then I hear others speak of a more structured form of rush where the houses all work together. On the first round, you attend all the houses and stay for a few minutes and then move on to the next. Before the second round, you have to eliminate a few houses and the houses also eliminate rushees so you have to be invited back for the second round where you stay a bit longer at each house. The process of continues until you pick a few top choices and the houses also chose their top rushees and you basically hope that you get offerred a bid from a house of your choice. This seems like a very structured form of rush with lots of coordinating between the houses and the university. Also some people say that this happens in the fall and if they don't get enough people they do some do some type of informal rush in the spring.

Can someone please explain to me these two very different forms of rush as I feel I have missed something. I know my school does not have a day where you attend multiple houses and you need to be invited to return the second night. Also can someone clarify what it means between formal and informal rush? Is it what I described and why is one in the fall and informal is in the spring but only if they don't reach the maximum memebers. Who keeps track of the number of actives in each house?

To fix my mistake, you do not need to be invited back to attend the second event. you simply just show up.

Some school are just different. Some schools have a structured formal recruitment, and some schools have informal (which is what yours sounds like). Some offer both at different times of the year, some offer just one type. Also can depend on if your school has national NPC sororities, or Local GLOs.

Whats national NPC or local GLO?

GLO is greek letter organization.

NPC is the National Panhellenic Conference. 26 womans sororities belong to the NPC. They have chapter across the country, and some even in Canada or elsewhere. The NPC member chapters are those who are known for formal recruitment. From the sound of things, your school is just local GLOs? Local, as in there are no other chapters at other colleges.

Thanks Irish Lake, My college has several fraternities and sororities that are nationwide and a couple of local organizations with only a handful of chapters in the state. I believe some may be part of the NPC but then I know that there are multiple greek councils and coference with similar names so i'm not exactly sure who is a member of who and if they even follow their rules. I believe that our entire campus is all informal rush because there is no greek organization office and the unviersity only provides minimal supervision on greek orgs. They only intervene when there are incidents of "hazing" or "alcohol" related incidents.

I'm interested in how this formal structured rush works. So rushees are placed on some spread sheet and they pick and choose and the houses do the same?

Thank you KSU Violet, lots of information and very informative. Though from much that I have read on multiple forums, threads, and websites, is it only the 26 sororities in the NPC that participate in this very structured formal recruitment? Do other Greek org conferences/councils also do this or are usually more informal. Personally I think the reason why this type of style would never work at my school is because competition for rushees can be quite competitive so it would not be in the interest of any house to coordinate with any other person. The objective at my school seems like is to get your rushee to attend all of your events, and none of events from other orgs.

Oh, recruitment can be very competitive at many schools. Cut-throat competitive. Read some of the recruitment stories to get an idea. The goal of formal, structured recruitment is to let the potential new members (PNMs aka rushees) get a good look at all groups once or twice before PNMs and groups start making "cuts."

And I know some schools that have Local orgs and NPC orgs that do formal recruitment together. But then there are some schools where there may be a formal recruitment for some orgs, but other orgs (Local or national) may opt out of it and do informal recruitment at the same time similar to what it sounds like your groups do. Just depends on the personality and preference of the groups.

For example, my alma mater had formal rush (as it was called back then) in the fall, and we got to visit with all 4 of the NPC sororities. But there was another sorority that isn't NPC and was not a part of our campus greek coucil that held their informal rush events at the same time.

It sounds like your campus does informal recruitment because you don't have much involvement by a overseeing Panhellenic Council. If you don't have a Greek Advisor to plan and organize a Formal recruitment, it's a whole lot easier to let chapters just through parties when they want to have them. It has nothing to do with competitiveness. It may have to do with size of your Greek system, as well. Formal recruitment can be very expensive to stage. If you have fewer women going through, informal events may be a better option.

Many schools with locals only or a local/national mix also have a structured form of rush.

Preventing rushees from seeing all their options (either implicitly or explicitly) is a good way to turn women off to Greek life if they don't get a bid to the lone sorority they rushed. It's also a good way to turn the campus period off to Greek life seeing all the backbiting, backstabbing and competition.

You should probably ask someone at your school since it's quite different than the more "standard" formal recruitment. Start with the Greek Life office/adviser.


ETA: Are we seeing an inordinate number of "How does Recruitment work" threads this season? I don't recall many "I know nothing, tell me everything" posts in the busy fall recruitment season.

I'm confused. Is Flying Tiger asking about sorority recruitment or fraternity rush?

I am actually referring to fraternity recruitment, but at my school both fraternities and sororities all conduct their own indepenent rushes. Persoanlly I didn't know that there was a difference between fraternity and sorority recruitment but it sound like that this formal recruitment with NPC seems to only apply to the 26 sororities. Actually come to think of it, I remember this one rush where Kappa Kappa Gamma and Gamma Phi Beta actually rushed together, which is highly unusual at my school since everyone is competing against one another to get new memebers, I guess at my school, students are generally not interested in joining a greek organization so all orgs must recruit hard to get new memebers, as opposed to other schools were there is an abundance of students that actually do want to join. All the orgs at my school have quite low numbers.

I know there are some colleges where the fraternities offer a more formal recruitment, but I can't think of who, at the moment. The traditional formal recruitment described above is pretty much just for the ladies.

At ours they have parties (dry) open to the campus the week after school starts. Each night one fraternity has a themed party...all the Greeks go, and many PNMs attend, both girls and guys. They have Smokers on the last night, then Bid Day. I've only actually been to one Bid Day (they go to the school theater, get their bids, then go to their group that gets all excited...once all of the bids have been given out they walk to their hall/house) because us ladies usually just sit in strategic points on campus to watch our favorite group bring the new guys back to their hall/house. I believe they do have to register, but all in all it's a pretty laid back process.

Between this thread asking about how rush works and a thread asking about videos for rush and their PR tactics-I'm starting to wonder about the OP. Is anyone else getting the 'Alexandra Robbins' vibe from this person or is it just me? It's almost as if this person is doing some sort of research on GC.

If I remember correctly, Arkansas in one of them.

als463, I'm not sure what vibe you are getting. I am asking about how rush works because this whole formal recruitment that is structured does not occur at my school, thus I never even knew it existed until recently. After being in a fraternity for a couple of years, I though I knew how rush works. Obviously not, as things are done differently at other schools. Thats why I am asking about it. Recruitment videos and PR tactics are important because you can basically create a profile of your house based on what you show in a video.

Alumi Yum, looks like your campus has its way of doing rush too. Its actually a good idea because instead of having rushees move from house to house, it brings everyone all together into one location.

This brings up another thought. I guess the reason why my school does not have any organized events between houses is because Greek involvement is generally low. Houses compete against one another for members. Co hosting an event with another house would be impractical since you risk "losing" a rushee to the "other" house. In fact, my school has lots of "that house is stealing all our rushees this quarter."

So at your school, is there like an abundance of students that come out and want to join your houses? Do you ever have to worry that you won't get enough pledges. I mean at our school, we have to literally drag students out of their beds to get them to attend rush events.

Yes, but you also have to live the profile you present. You can't bait and switch. You can't use a video to show a bunch of positive things if you guys aren't living it, and in reality your group is associated with a lot of negatives. It takes a lot to turn the image of Greek Life away from what it seems you guys have. It's more than just good PR and a nice video. Make service the focal point of your group. Support other clubs on campus when they have a findraiser. Send notes of good luck and well wishes to other GLOs and other clubs. Maybe if the greek orgs on your campus worked together more, you wouldn't have such a negative stigma attached.

There are different situations at all schools. Some school have 1800 girls go through recruitment every year, with only about 70% receiving bids and with pledge classes at 100 girls. But size does not indicate success or quality. There are plenty of successful chapters that are less than 20 members in size. But in order to make people WANT to go greek, instead of dragging them to events to force it upon them, your greek life groups need to present a united front.

The actives work pretty hard to get people to go through recruitment in the first place, but it's much more difficult for the men. Their chapters are smaller and they have far fewer participants in formal recruitment than the women. I don't know if the fraternities worry about how many man sign up, but they do worry about the sizes of their pledge classes since there are so few men going through in the first place.

Of course there's a lot of "XYZ stole our pledge", but in reality with such a small campus and small number of PNMs this is probably the best way to do it. The parties are themed and are almost always band parties:
ATO Virgin Party (virgin cocktails and a band), DX Censored Party (huge band party), Pike Crawfish Boil, Lambda Chi Iceberg Party (everyone comes in scarves and Uggs and they turn on the AC full blast), AKL Volcano Party (luau themed with a band)

They're all advertised heavily on campus and on facebook, and Greeks in general talk them up to freshman. IMO what usually happens is that the female PNMs are encouraged to go because sorority women WILL be present at all the parties actively meeting PNMs, and once the new guys find out the parties will be full of girls, they definitely want to go. The fraternities also attend each others' parties, and for the most part the fraternities not hosting the party hover around the edges and respect the party hosts...then just try to top that party. ;) IIRC the one night where PNMs visit separate halls/houses (only ATO and DX have houses, the others have halls like the sororities do in the dorms) is Smokers. They dress sharp and are trucked from house to house. This is the only night they are REQUIRED to attend.

Sorority recruitment is very traditional, just on a small scale.

There's always grumbling over "pledge stealing" but it almost never boils over. From the outside looking in, the key is to just realize there are only a few men to choose from and you can't always get what you want. The pledge classes are generally around the same size for each group.

Irish Lake, I agree with you that it we must live up to the profile we present. Deciding what to present our main goals as during rush will allow PNMs to decide if they want to rush us or not. Yes some PNMs are looking for parties, drinking, and girls, while other do want community service. Our campus actually does have one co ed fraternity that is puts itself out as a service fraternity and they are quite big for a house on our campus. Their pledge classes are like 30 pledges which is unheard of for other houses. Of course I can't say for certain that students rush them because they are a service fraternity, but I think its more because they are big and have lots of connections, not to mention that this co ed fraternity is nationwide with hundreds of chapters. They place a big emphasis on bonding to, not partying. That org is accused of taking pledges by all the other orgs.

The general reputation of the greek orgs at our school is not exactly negative, but more of just something that unnecessary. Students not joining because they already have their own friends. The biggest step for us is getting them to come out for the very first time. After that, it becomes much easier and they start to express their own interest. Then they will come to our events on their own.

For us, our recruitment tactics and public relations comes down to selling ourselves in that split second that we first meet them when they walk past our rush table. We need to have a solid first impression. In that few second coversation, which must present ourselves in a way that makes them feel comfortable enough to come out to the events. Unlike formal recruitment, we have to go to them as opposed to them coming to us. At the event we have to present ourselves again and if they come on info night they will see our rush video. So basically its like your right that our other rush events should be a reflection of our rush videos, and usually it is.

I agree with you too that Greek orgs on a united front would be better, but with so much rivalry, I doubt it could happen at our school.

Hi Alumi Yum, yea everyone works hard to get through recruitment, espcecially fall because this is usually the best rush for all the orgs on my campus. We get the most rushees and the largest pledge class. This is when freshman know very little about the school or classes and still have lots of free time. They are finding there way around when they are approached by invididuals wearing jackets and sweaters displaying two to three unusual looking symbols. They are given a flyer and are invited to come out to an event with them that night by total strangers. Is that going to convince them to come out?

Personally I think this scenario might seem kinda intimidating so its makes rush difficult. By spring they know who we are so its more of either they are interested or not. I think fraternity recruitment is harder then sororities though it doesn't quite show that much on my campus since its seems that both only have pledge classes of about 5 to 10. The sororities talk about their community service and bond easier with their rushees making them feel more comfortable. They emphasize their sisterhood.

The fraternities emphasize their brotherhood as well but I think the rushees are more interested in girls then wanting to hang out and bond with a bunch of guys. Of course this aint true for everyone, yes some guys really are looking for brotherhood and connections for after graduation. But yea, we have to go out to them, though on rare ocasions some guys have walked up to our booth being interested in joining our fraternity. I wish more people would come to us, but I doubt it will happen.

Do you mean Alpha Phi Omega? If so, they don't "put themselves out as a service fraternity, they ARE a service fraternity. As for them stealing pledges, people can join both APO and a social fraternity/sorority, and there is quite a contingency of people who hold dual memberships. If you are losing people to a service fraternity, ask yourselves what you guys are offering that isn't as appealing. Perhaps your campus culture is more interested in a service organization versus a social one.

As for people wanting to stay with their own friends, if you're getting them in the fall, you have prime the opportunity to MAKE FRIENDS. Encourage groups of friends to rush; if their friends are doing it, it might keep them interesting during the uncertain parts of rush.

That might be true for the parties, but generally, people will want to join groups because of the people in the group. You have to make the personal connections.

PS. I almost cried when I saw the word "aint". Do people who have graduated college really use this word???

I use "ain't" when making a point and/or in jest. This does not appear to be the case here, though.

ETA: I just remembered that one of my standard audition monologues has "ain't" in it - but the character is a homeless woman...sooooo....

I do all the time, though never in writing and never in anything other than relaxed conversation. It's okay as long as you know better. ;)

By the way, one does not graduate college. One graduates from college, while a college graduates its students. Sorry, but this one is a pet peeve, so as long as grammar is being commented upon . . . .

Meanwhile, I still want to know why an alumnus is asking all of these questions about rush and talking as though he still participates in it.

I agree. There's something here that just isn't right.

Something here just isn't right? I'm asking because I want to help my fraternity out. Just because I have graduated does not mean I am completely separated from my fraternity, so yes, I am still involved. After a few years of low recruitment, its clear that are recruitment tactics aren't working so thats why I am asking others for their opinions. Its thats simple. Maybe its just us, or maybe its the way greek orgs are on are campus. Either way, I'm just asking for others opinions.

The fact that you're an alumnus and still don't understand what Alpha Phi Omega is (after having four years on campus and an intraweb to ask about it) and don't know what NPC is either is what's making many people go hmmmmmm.

Either you're willfully ignorant, or you've got an ulterior motive.

For one, I have not specifically mentioned any organization so you can stop assuming one. Also I am very well aware of other houses, but not with these national councils and conferences because my house was not part of one. And as I have said before, my school rushes on its own so when I heard about formal recruitment, of course I wanted to know more about it, and how to to change our rush up a bit. I have actually gotten lots of good comments and suggestions. I don't see any ignorances nor do I have any ulterior motive. Just trying to get some good information. And really I'm not interested in arguing back and forth here on a forum, or explaining why I'm here, so just please answer the questions or give any good commencts about rush.

:rolleyes: Troll....

Creeper troll.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! My thoughts throughout his entire time on GC. This person asks a lot of questions, almost as if he is some sort of Alexandra Robbins troll or something-looking to write some book about how Greeks are bad or how they do certain things.

Flying Tiger, do you go to UCSC?