Are my hopes for joining a fraternity over?
 

I'm a sophmore at the University of Arizona in Tucson and I decided to rush this week to try to join a fraternity. There's like 16 of them here and since I didn't really know much about them, I just randomly kinda picked to visit 7 of them which were having open houses in the evening.

Monday: Visited Phi Delta Theta, Sigma Chi, and Delta Tau Delta in the evening. I was somewhat rushed because I had an intramural basketball game that night so I didn't get to spend a whole lot of time at each one.

Tuesday: Visited Tau Kappa Epsilon, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, PIKE, and Delta Chi. Phi Delta Theta had called and invited me back that night (even though it was still an open event) but I decided to take the time and visit those four new places instead.

Wednesday: Delta Tau Delta called me and said I could come to their invite-only event. I got there kinda late since I had class in the evening, but I was still there for like an hour and a half and I met/talked to some of the guys there.

TKE and Phi Delta Theta were my other two favorites and they still had open events on Wednesday, but since I had class late I only had enough time to go to Delta Tau Delta. Now its Thursday and I didn't get invited back to any of the three tonight. Bids aren't given out until Saturday, but seeing as how its doubtful that I'll get invited to tomorrow's invite-only events it looks like I wasn't even close to getting a bid from any of them. I'm pretty disappointed because I wanted to join, and since I'll be a Junior in the fall I'm not sure if its worth trying again.

First, I believe GC doesn't like actual names used.

Second, why didn't you visit AEPi? (I'm in sarcasm)

It's for the PNM's protection. We don't care, but you never know who is reading.

Have you established real relations with the brothers of the chapters you visited? Do they know about your busy class schedules?

If they don't reach out to you, at this stage, I think you should reach out back to them and check out what's going on.

Paging AzTheta!

It's alright if you don't get in. There are still a bunch left and you can always try again next semester. Also, if you don't get in you can still use the time during the spring semester to meet other bros and chill with them increasing your chances next semester

Good Luck! If you want the fraternal experience and try hard enough you'll do fine

WOW! How did I miss this? Let me ask around today. I'm going to an Alumnae Panhellenic Brunch & then over to the Theta Facility for a Dads' Weekend BBQ & will reach out to some of the wonderful fraternity men I know on campus.

Don't know anything at all about how Fraternity rush works, but through the Office of Greek Life, attending meetings with both fraternities and sororities, I've met many fraternity advisors in addition to sorority advisors. Give me a couple of days to do a little networking.

This illustrates to me a major flaw in the "formal" recruitment for IFC chapters. There is too little time to visit and establish a relationship with the members. Furthermore, the brothers continue to measure a PMN by their interest level- ie time spent at the house during open houses.

And why does this not exist for formal recruitment for sororities??

I think it works just fine if done properly. They go to all the houses they can, and go from there.

The difference with the sororities is it is utterly formalized. There is an exact start and stop time so you can't gauge interest on amount of time spent. They both have their positives and negatives, but I think the fraternities could benefit from a little more structure to the process. It would be nice if all the rushees were at least introduced to every fraternity, maybe a 20 minutes at each house in rotation format. I know on some campuses there are a freakish amount of fraternities so it would probably have to happen over a 3 day period or something, just to get the introductory round through. But I think a lot of guys really miss their chance because they're only visiting the fraternities they've heard of, which could easily be due to house location and not about the quality of the guys, their programs, whatever.

You are a sophomore at UA and you don't know anyone in fraternities (or sorority women who could guide you)? If you choose to rush as a junior, your easiest (and perhaps only) way into Greek life is really going to be pre-exising friendships with fraternity guys.

If you don't receive a bid this semester and still want to get involved in Greek life, make friends with guys in fraternity chapters.

For one, without revealing an MS secrets, I would say sororities rely on their sisters more as in not every member meets every PMN whereas Fraternities seem to still want everyone to meet the PMN before invites are extended. There just isn't enough time given in most formal recruitment schedules that I have seen for a PMN to accomplish this at 3 or more houses.

lucgreek is right when she says "pre-existing friendships with fraternity guys" is still the standard way into Greek Life for men. However as it stands many sign up for Formal Recruitment not knowing this and end up with no bid. As we see very often, PMN are not always very good about identifying independently on their own which group is their best match. So for a third of the PMNs, the 2 or 3 houses they chose to go back to during open houses (which follows after the required visit to all houses) have little interest in them, and blink, no match.

I'm not against Formal Fraternity Recruitment, I want it to be successful, I just think it is in a stage of evolution where men are going to left on the sidelines.