Do kids rushing fraternities at big schools....
 

Hey, Greeks at big schools do kids rushing fraternities at your school get confused with you and another frat? I go to a small school where during rush weeks their are only Phi Taus, Pi Kapps, Iota Phi Thetas, and AEPi trying to rush. With us there is no problem with kids forgetting who is who, because our letters are totally different. I can imagine a school like U.C Berkeley where there are Phi Taus, Phi Psi, Pikes, Pi Kapps, Sigma Nu, Sigma Chi, and etc. Shit I'd get hella confused! Has any cat gone up to you thinking you were part of another frat. because the letters were similar?
-Heath
FKT
www.bspotonline.com/phitau

Well, let's just say I'm getting tired of being asked if I'm in the business fraternity..............

And I'm pretty sure Alpha Sigs and Delta Sigs get confused where they both have them too.

so true stan....i know people who lived on my floor this semester that went to a party at your house and came back and said "the business fraternity threw a fun party..."
lol. i set them straight.

The most commonly confused fraternities at my school are:

Phi Sigma Kappa
Phi Kappa Sigma
Phi Kappa Theta
Kappa Sigma
(We also have Sigma Kappa - though it's hard to confuse a sorority with a fraternity :) )

Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Sigma Phi Epsilon
(I think SAE has closed, though.)

Sigma Chi
Sigma Nu

Theta Chi
Theta Xi
Theta Delta Chi

(whew... I think I've just named half the fraternities at my school :p )

No
 

Most rushees at large schools focus in fairly quickly on a handful of houses/chapters. Most of the ones whose names can be confused use popular nicknames (ie. "Pikes", "Skulls", "SigEp") instead of depending on the letters. Rushees are more likely to be confused by the Greek letters that are not similar to English letters. Phi Delta Theta has a hard time sometimes because those three letters together tend to blur. Hasn't seemed to hurt the Phi Delts; they do real well.
Re the Phi Kap, Phi Sig, etc confusion, the Phi Sigma Kappas are the "Skulls", Phi Kappa Theta is a Catholic Fraternity, and Phi Kappa Sigma has a very unique crest that distinguishes it from all others. That seems to provide enough separation to avoid too muc confusion.

I have found that when there's confusion, it's not among rushees, but among the non-Greeks who haven't paid attention to the names enough.

sigma chi and sigma pi....confusing esp. bc they are right across from each other in the greek courts. as well as all the alpha's we have for sororities: Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Xi Delta, and Alpha Sigma Alpha (which just recently closed)

Re: No
 

Are you getting Phi Sigma Kappa and Phi Kappa Sigma confused? I have never heard anyone refer to us as "skulls", but I have hear PKS called that a lot. Doesn't their crest have a skull on it, and that's why they go by that nickname?

I imagine that a freshman at a big university with a lot of GLOs could easily get confused. There were only six NPC sororities at my school, and I got confused because half of them started with the letter Alpha.

I'm not sure about fraternities, but probably so... I do know, though, that going through rush this past year, I saw a lot of girls writing in their books stuff like:
Delta Zeta-Pink and GREEN
Delta Gamma-Pink and BLUE
Alpha Chi Omega-Red and Green
Chi Omega-Red and Yellow

Why do the sororities with the closest related names have the closest related colors? The girls do tend to get sororities confused with each other, though... When you have 10, that tends to happen (nine this year).

Also, I was thinking about it, and we have 15 fraternities... I don't know how the guys don't get confused between:
Sigma Chi
Sigma Nu
Sigma Phi Epsilon
Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Alpha Tau Omega
Tau Kappa Epsilon
Delta Tau Delta
Delta Upsilon
Lambda Chi Alpha
Pi Kappa Phi
Pi Kappa Alpha
Kappa Sigma
Kappa Alpha Order
Chi Psi
Phi Kappa Theta (is that right? They aren't officially on campus, yet)
I know before I learned about some I got them all confused. I mean, even if the names aren't confusing, keeping all the different fraternities straight sometimes is.

the ones that get confused on our campus are Pike, Phi Kappa Theta and Pi Kappa Phi. Because one is called Pike, one is called Phi Kap and one is called Pi Kap...quite confusing. The other fraternities usually don't get mixed up like that though.

For sororities, sometimes people get DG and DZ mixed up or AXO and XO...once you meet the groups though it is easy to remember how to distinguish since we rely more on colors and mascots than the guys seem to.

I also wonder, though, if these guys mixing up these fraternities might actually help the fraternities grow together in a way. For example, at my school, Sigma Chi's and Sigma Nu's are kind of similar. Preppy, frat-type guys who work really hard (can you tell I'm biased to these two particular fraternities?!). And Pikes and Pi Kapps are kind of similar (even though Pikes aren't officially on campus, yet, so they don't go through formal rush).

At Iowa State University
 

In our school, yes. (well, is Iowa State big enough, considered as a big school with 30 fraternities? :D )

You can imagine, a new freshman coming to our campus for the first time, and there are new 45+ new Greek names with lots of confussion, on top of classes, college life, majors ...

Names pretty much similar.

Theta Xi - Theta Chi - Theta Delta Chi - Delta Chi (they're closed now, though)
Pi Beta Phi - Pi Kappa Phi
Sigma Alpha Epsilon - Sigma Phi Epsilon
Alpha Gamma Rho - Alpha Gamma Delta
Delta Sigma Phi - Delta Sigma Theta
Phi Kappa Theta - Pi Kappa Phi - Pi Kappa Alpha
Phi Kappa Theta - Phi Delta Theta
Sigma Kappa - Kappa Sigma
Sigma Chi - Sigma Pi
Alpha Xi Delta (A-Zee-Dee) - Alpha Gamma Delta (A-Gee-Dee)
Chi Omega (Chi-O) - Alpha Chi Omega (A-Chi-O)

Gosh, I am wondering now how did I learn them all?

To DOUTHIT
 

You are correct and I am wrong. The Phi Kappa Sigmas display a skull on their crest, and are often called "Skulls". Your Fraternity, Phi Sigma Kappa, has what I consider to be the most unique crest among all fraternities. In making my point that people do not get it confused...I got it confused.

Thanks for the compliment on the crest, boilingbaker! It's pretty neat to hear someone else think that our crest is the most unique of all!