Rush Story: Funny
 

All of you guys know how strict the sororities are about their formal rush rules. There's a whole thread now about how the (Pi Chis, Rho Gammas, whatever they're know as on a campus) women who lead rushees around have to disaffiliate completely from their sorority chapters and cannot reveal to the rushees which sorority they belong to. Any contact between the Rho Gams and their sorority is forbidden, and the sorority can be given a rush infraction.

This is a large fraternity system here and rush is pretty open. This year the IFC decided to experiment and allow rushees to sign up for structured visits to all the fraternities over two days. All this takes place the week before open house week when rushees flood the chapters and bids are given.

Typical of guys as opposed to girls, the guys' version didn't resemble strict, serious sorority rush at all. Rushees were herded around from house to house by IFC "guides" derisively referred to as "Man-Gams" by the fraternities. The IFC guides were quite candid about which houses they represented, and in fact offered a running commentary about each fraternity they took their groups to. Each group visit was supposed to be 15 minutes, but that turned out to be a flexible number depending on how the Man Gam was occupied. There were no rules about what could be done inside the house. I doubt if there were any skits. The whole thing was hilarious. Surprisingly, about 180 guys signed up and apparently enjoyed the whole process. Real rush is next week.

I think having a formal open house of sorts is a good idea. Freshman guys can be intimidated to approach a fraternity on their own so it could take the edge off a little.

Judging from the numbers - much better than anticipated - it looks like you're right.

That seems like a good idea. On our campus we hold "Rho Alpha Night" the thursday before rush begins. All the fraternities set up a presentation and groups of prospects are guided to each presentation. This is also the night when rush guides(books with summaries of every fraternity) are distributed. Participation probably isn't even 75% of the guys who rush but the guys who do attend seem to handle rush better and know more about what they're looking for.