Rushing APO!
 

Hey guys! Sooo I'm rushing APO( my school has an event tomorrow night. I was just wondering if anyone would love to give me any advice, info about APO.

What would you like to know?
 

With about 350 active chapters, there are differences from chapter to chapter of course, but there are certainly things that all chapters have in common. (We may be able to give more specific advice if we knew what school, but maybe not. :) )

First of all, Rush for Alpha Phi Omega is less formal and structured that the Social Sororities. I've known brothers (which includes both males and females) that when they first showed up (as non-members) for Rush events didn't know much more than that we were a service fraternity. :) Knowing about a service project or two that the chapter does will give an ice breaker, but they're likely to tell the rushees about them anyway.

There will almost certainly be information on service projects that the chapter is doing between now and pledging, if they include information on when they are, I would consider that as an invitation for rushees to attend.

Given the rush activities at this time in the semester, I expect the pledge ceremony to be sometime in mid to late september with the brotherhood ceremony before the end of the semester. Nationals expects the pledging process to take between 6 and 10 weeks.

The national Rush pamphlets are available in the Membership Recruitment/Rush section of http://www.apo.org/show/Publications...s/Publications

While no chapter will *expect* you to have read them during rush, the pledge manual and national pledging standards are also publicly available at and may answer some of your questions.
http://www.apo.org/site/site_files/pledgemanual.pdf
http://www.apo.org/site/site_files/n..._standards.pdf

Let us know what other information you would like...

Thanks for the links and extra info! I'm beyond excited! So as far as after pledging there are littles and bigs? Is there anything else to expect. Initiation, etc?

We can't tell you what to expect because we are likely not alumni from your chapter. Just go and experience it. Good luck, have fun, and come back when you've been initiated. :)

Most chapters do bigs and littles and there is both a pledging ceremony and an initiation ceremony.

And as for when to come back, we've had pledges on here, but understand that each chapter has its own vibe. I pledged 25 years ago, so even the vibe at my chapter has probably changed...

However, I'm personally curious as to how your experiences are.

As Senusret I and naraht said, get to know the chapter you're rushing. There are common threads within all chapters of APO, but each chapter does have its unique flavor. When you have an idea of what to expect, you can make your decision accordingly.

All of the best to you!

Thanks guys. :) This Friday we have an event. I will definitely let you all know how it goes. :) I dooo have another question in the meantime....are any of you in social GLOs? I'm still considering one, maybe next semester. And if so, how difficult was balancing the two with school/wrk/ other orgs?

Well, I do know that we have some brothers on Greekchat who were in both APO and a social greek, so I'll let them comment. 13 of the 14 founders of Alpha Phi Omega were also in a social fraternity (Sigma Alpha Epsilon or a local called Krescents) and remained active. I knew of three brothers at my home chapter who were in both APO & a social greek, two joined APO first, one a social first. The one thing *not* to try is pledging both the same semester...

I actually pledged APO and a social greek at the same time. it was a little much time-wise, but it was a great experience. I'm sure it differs from chapter to chapter, but if you're not pledging both at the same time, you probably won't have much of a struggle with time management. And if the social you're rushing has a philanthropy requirement, you can kill two birds with one stone. I would definitely recommend both APO and social greek, but greek life on my campus might not be like greek life on yours. good luck with whatever you decide though!

Sooo I knw it's been a while since I've been on here. I'm now a pledge of APO! :) And I love my chapter so far! I've met tons of people already! The reqs seemes overwhelming at first, but I'm ready for the challenge! I'm so excited! Thnks for the advice. And AGD1111, we will be talking more often, if that's okay! I'm thinking of social greek for next semester so I have tons of questions. :)

Oh and also AGD(sorry for all the inquiries) did you pledge recently?

Just curious, which school/chapter and is there a web page with the requirements?

Don't worry about it, that's what this site's for! I pledged fall 2010, so pretty recently. If you wanna know more, PM me and I'll tell you what I can :)