[PhilTau]

First, you're talking about two public universities in sparsely populated Idaho. For about 20 years, I lived about 300 miles west of Boise. Kids in the Pacific Northwest are just not the same as in the South where I grew up. I would never expect Idaho kids to be angsting over getting into a particular fraternity or sorority. They just would just never do that up here. Though to be clear, the OP is not doing this, he is just asking if he should expect competitive recruitment. So my guess would be no.

I would recommend that you edit your original post to remove information that can be used to identify you. You put way too much personal information in it. Though helpful to members of Greek Chat, for obvious reasons, you don't want to do that. (Not that too many local chapters of fraternities monitor Greek Chat.) From what I see, you will have no problem interacting with fraternities and finding one that suits you. Especially, if you go to UI with their 18 IFC fraternities. From what you say, your mom is right.

There are a lot of earlier posts in Recruitment/Fraternity Recruitment you should look at about how to pick a fraternity and behave during recruitment/rush. You are not the first to ask and many of your questions have been answered there.

My guess (and this is only a guess) is that a major difference between the fraternities in Idaho is between fraternities composed of big town kids verses ones composed of small town kids and all the differences that that implies. But that is only a very speculative guess and I do hope someone from Idaho can chime in to correct me and to help you with more specific information.

For Greek Chat members:

From Wikipedia: The University of Idaho is home to 18 housed fraternities, 10 housed sororities, and 6 multicultural Greek organizations that make up more than 20% of the student population, and over 44% of the students who live on campus (around 1,800 students). This fraternity and sorority community is unique in that it's one of the few that allow freshmen to move in first semester as a living option, as opposed to waiting until second semester or sophomore year. This system works very well for the University and the students, with the Greeks having the highest GPA for 9 consecutive semesters as of Spring 2011.

From Wikipedia: Boise State has seen a growing in Greek Community on campus, from less than a couple hundred in 2010 to over 1,400 today. There are eight fraternities, * * * [Note: I counted nine on Boise State's website.]