i go to a small school (about 2,000 undergrads), and i got to sort of watch last year as my guy friends went through the long, mostly informal process of fraternity rush. compared to sorority rush (which is insanely structured), fraternity rush, for the most part, takes place on a really casual basis.
at my school, the actual official "rush" parties for guys were right after christmas break. however, all of fall semester was when the guys were figuring out which house they wanted and the brothers were narrowing down which guys might get to become pledges.
if your school has winter rush, during the first few weeks of fall, everyone goes to tons of parties at tons of houses. lots of brothers will try to introduce themselves to you & they'll remember your name & face. you'll find that they'll start calling you up & asking you to come over & watch a game, eat dinner with the brothers at the house, or that they're having a party that night, or that they're doing century club, or whatever, and they'll invite you to do stuff w/ their frat. if they like you, they'll keep inviting you back to do stuff, for the rest of fall semester. so, formal rush happens in the early winter, but the decisions are basically made through getting to know people during the fall. the actual rush parties are a formality.
at my school, the guys list their preferences in order, and then the IFC gives the guys a list of which houses have invited them to the actual rush parties (which happen over 1 week in early winter), which consist of dinner at the house. the guys go to these parties, and are told whether or not to come back to that particular house's final party. if you're invited back, you probably have a bid.
it all ends with "tear night," which is when the guys formally declare which bid they accept, and there are huge parties for all the new pledges at their new houses. this is the last night of fun before pledgeship begins, however...... don't be surprised when they make you clean up the destroyed house at 8 the next morning......
[This message has been edited by -sketchball- (edited July 25, 2000).]
|