Structured IFC Rush
 

Do any schools out there have a structured IFC rush system? or anything more than a free-for-all... looking for some different ways of doing things...
:p

not really structured

other than that we're given a day on which we can start holding rush events, and a day we can start handing out bids.

If those rules are broken then you go on probation.

I assume that's what most schools have though. It seems to work for us for the most part.

yeah... we kinda have that going for us.. i'm looking for ideas where everyone gets equal time for like 1 event, then after that its up to the individuals.

so kinda Panhel style.. but not that hardcore

SigEp, what school are you at in Philadelphia?

At UCSB we have a loosely structured IFC rush. Rush begins on a Monday, in which members from IFC walk all of the potential rushees around to each house. When the rushees arive at a given house, that house is given 10 minutes to give a speech, show the rushees the house, basically anything that house wants do. Our rush goes from Monday-Friday. Tuesday is the first day that rushees are actually allowed to visit houses on their own. Bids are not allowed to be extended until Wednesday and most bids are given Wednesday-Thursday. Friday is usually reserved for rushees that are unsure. The hours of rush are (6:00-9:00) and rush is alcohol free. Girls are also prohibited from any events during rush week.

Send an email to Miami of Ohio (http://www.muohio.edu) and ask their IFC. They have a semi-structured rush and it works pretty well from what I know....

We have 5 (recognized) groups on campus -- TKE is not.

If a man wants to pledge a house he must take a card and visit each house on campus. He must obtain their stamp. There are about 20-30 rules about how that works which I won't go into here -- to REALLY simplify it, he must provide his own transportation and do that stuff on his own so that theoretically each house gets to tell him what they're about without another pushing him out the door.

Rush is 2 or 3 nights (I'm not sure what we've decided on)..

Why Would You Want That?
 

Why would you want anyone to be able to tell you when you can bid, or when and how to rush? I would think that it would always be to your advantage to have freedom to rush as much and as often as you want, to take advantage of every opportunity. Take advantage of your rivals' laziness and lack of ambition.

It helps when you don't have a bottomless pit from which to draw funds.

Those chapters on my campus which are below IFC membership average can rush outside of formal and sign people informally. To do so though really complicates things... Imagine adding new candidates throughout the semester. How would you have unity in your candidate class?

To do it together means that even though we are competing with eachother we work together to get interested men on campus to come check us out. By creating this larger draw I feel that we attract more men because there's a greater variety from which to choose...

Would you rather go to the dealership that only sells one brand of car or the dealership that carries 'em all?

Re: Why Would You Want That?
 

It would be nice to get the rushees to visit or hear from every chapter at least once as like a first event.

Then give them the freedom do check out who the want more after that.

This is one of the great things about the IFC system. As opposed to other systems it allows the body of the chapters to design their own rush by what would be the most effective on their individual campus. This helps keep us strong and in competition with eachother -- that makes us all better.

At my school, IFC has moved more towards a somewhat structured rush.

For the first week of classes, the fraternity guys are not allowed to wear their letters, they can only wear IFC shirts. There is a table set up in the student center for guys interested in joining a fraternity to sign up, and the information is given to all the IFC fraternities. Then there is one or two events, usually dodgeball and a BBQ for the fraternities to do together before they split up and do their own rush events.

Re: Why Would You Want That?
 

I see your point Firehouse, but sometimes things get out of hand, and a structured rush is needed to keep a level playing field.
We always have a chapter that "dirty rushes" by inviting rushees out and informal bidding them on 1st meeting, and either talking mad crap about the other fraternities or forbidding the guys to rush anyone but them.

Its not really fair to the other chapters, and the rushee. I think each chapter should have at least the same access to the incoming Freshman and prospectives. There should also be more structured events like Open Houses where a guy can see ALL his options, and rush the chapter where he feels most comfortable.

ABC may see it as losing the rushee they really like to XYZ, but I see it as a guy going where he feels he belongs, and not just going to ABC because they dirty rushed. I think this cuts down on depledging rates, and makes IFC stronger as a whole.

You might want to PM lifesaver. He worked really hard with rush last year and it turned out very successful!

edited-I found his thread! http://forums.greekchat.com/gcforums...threadid=22990

I was just talking to our IFC VP about this on Thursday. In past years guys rush has always been two weeks, the first week is open house week. each day a different house is open and all the guys have to sign in (if you do not go to every house, you do not get a bid). Open house is pretty much a meet and greet (b/c all the guys have been hanging out before rush anyway). The next week all the houses have a dinner night. Some houses take thier rushees out, while others have catered dinners in the chapter house. days not filled by activities are pretty much what would be considered "dirty rushing" for girls but is fine for guys (taking them out, inviting them over etc.) then there is bid day. Girls are allowed by invite only in thoughts that it will make the guys feel more comfortable. All the brotherhood stuff is conveyed during those private hang out times.

The VP said next fall guys rush will be three weeks long, and each house will get three or four days spaced out in the week resrved for only them. Pretty much, all of that casual "hang out" rush time will be structered and delegated. This way guys can't "hoard" quality guys from the other houses. I hope that makes sense and is helpful instead of just rambly.

OK - I Seem To Be The Only One
 

I respect the opinions of the posters here. It sounds like all of you are personally involved in helping your chapters rush, and everyone wants to do as well as possible. It looks that I am the ONLY ONE who sees it the way I do. I recognize that I'm in the minority (in fact, it appears that I AM the minority), but please let me lay out my perspective one last time, just to see if there's anyone who might agree with any part of it.
Here it is: fraternity formal rush does two things. It guarantees every chapter a pledge class, and it makes everyone lazy. The pledge classes are composed almost entirely of men who come through rush, and not men the chapters have actively recruited on campus. Inevitably, even though you can get some top quality guys through formal rush, this leads to smaller numbers, and a kind of 'in-breeding' when the chapters are made up of just those types who come through formal rush.
The harder you make it to complete the rush process prior to pledging, the smaller the number of men who will come out. However, the more competitive you make it by dropping all the rules, the harder and more aggressive the fraternities will be, and the better the pledge classes.
KTSnake, a Sigma Nu who offers us a lot of excellent posts on this forum, used a car dealership analogy to illustrate the majority side. He asked, "Would you rather go to a dealership that carries all lines of cars, or the one that carries just one brand?" Well, with respect, the answer is that I probably want to go only to those dealers I want to go to. If I know I want either a Mercedes or a Jag or a Corvette or a BMW, I already know don't want to be forced to hang out at the Kia or Saturn dealership all afternoon. Now, let's say I hadn't made up mu mind yet that I wanted a new car at all, and I hadn't been to any dealerships. And, let's say the Saturn salesman approached me and made me his friend and asked me to come over the the dealership. I probably would go, and they might make a sale that they surely would NOT make if I was forced to go see all the dealers. Also, if all the dealers agreed to close on Saturday, I'd be resentful that I had that Staurday option taken away from me, the customer.
Look, here's the real heart of all this. Do you want your fraternity system to grow and prosper much moreso than it's doing now? Then turn loose the power of the entrepreneur. Free the creative and ambitious men to go out and get the best guys. Free the aggressive men to create a fraternity that is so powerful and strong thatr it WILL FORCE the competition to get better just to keep up.
I was a member of a chapter that was right in the middle of a strong system, and we had full, formal rush. The system was set up to benefit the strong, and hurt the weak. We had a much better chance of getting top guys if we could go out and rush and pledge them before the Sigma Nus or Phi Delts and SAEs or whoever was on top had the chance to just stand there in formal rush and cherry-pick guys that we never really had a shot at if the rushee got to comparison shop. We overcame it by being super-aggressive in open rush, and IFC got out of the formal rush business. I'm hearing a lot of talk about 'fairness' in this thread. Formal rush is never fair to the weaker houses, just like it's not fair to the weaker sororities when they have their formal rush. What's 'fair' is to give everyone the same opportunity to either succeed or fail on their own. If everyone has 40 members and the Lambda Chis suddenly grow to 100 and they're a quality chapter and they dominate sports and social and leadership, then Lambda Chi's rivals (hating to take a back seat) will work harder to grow to meet LXA'a threat of dominating the system. yes, some fraternities are going to go out of business, but men, that is always because they just don't have enough to offer to attract enough members. Or, it's because they don't know how to rush. And there are enough of us out there who DO know how to rush, in every national, that no one should ever find themselves without that good advice.
Thanks for listening. I really enjoy reading the comments on this board.

Some excellent points Firehouse. Thanks for the kind words!

Anything that adds to the number of men and women in GLO's in my opinion is good! If just one of us grows we ALL become more visible. Your average non-affiliated kid doesn't know one greek letter or one house from another in most cases.

If IFC rush does bring guys out and lets you sign a few then what harm has it done? None.

The IFC at our school (I may have already said this in this thread) has a provision that effects chapters that are below the IFC average. Anyone below average in size can participate in informal recruitmen -- ie. stage events outside of "formal rush."

This allows groups that are in trouble to catch up after a (usually) poor rush. Some groups are the exception to the rule though. Kappa Sigma after getting all but around 6 members thrown out by their alums were able to put together a GREAT rush and signed one of the biggest classes on campus last Fall. This is because they did a great deal of work with potential new members and alums over the Summer.

Rush is always something where you'll get as much out of it as you put into it.

my problem with formal rush (which we have) is that it in my experience encourages dirty rushing... In our system, every fraternity has one 2 hour event each day for 4 days, and the 5th is bid day... before formal rush, we aren't supposed to advertise the fraternity, and we aren't allowed to give bids until bid day... from that point on, it is a free for all... now, the problem I see with this is that the fraternities that follow the rules take the shaft, because they are doing what they are told, and the rest of the fraternities see who can throw the biggest and best parties, thereby drawing many prospects away from everyone else... To complicate the whole system, we don't have greek housing, so the parties are all off campus, and hard to monitor... every semester gets worse than the last... if it were just open rush from day one, every fraternity would stand on the same ground, and it would be those who most actively recruit that would get the most and best guys... not the chapters that break the rules and throw the best parties in the first week of school.