I guess it's kinda hard to protect students when a chapter has 2 members and one is a pledge.
To the OP, beyond whether or not you COULD or COULD NOT register for recruitment, with a 2.3 cumulative GPA, I suspect that you would not be eligible for membership in most groups. Though, AOII is not present at LSU, you would not be eligible for us. The groups usually are not that far off from one another. I bet the friends that are encouraging you to go through spring informal either a) do not know your cumulative GPA or b) do not know their groups requirements for membership. Once upon a time, groups could tweak their numbers, but with the computer age, HQ/IO or whatever you want to call it has a closer grip on chapters than in those times so it's a lot harder to pass a NM by that doesn't meet standards.