Spring Rush at Indiana University

[yeahlink236]

I’m an out of state student who goes to a Indiana University and I was thinking about rushing our greek system during the spring. I rushed in the fall but was too busy to take it seriously. The rush process also seemed incredibly biased towards people who had gone to high school with people from the house or who otherwise knew people who were already brothers. For example, rush kicked off with a big event where all the fraternities set up booths and you would go write your name and number on the lists of the ones that you were interested in. I learned later from someone in one of the houses that these lists were all for show and many houses threw them out afterward. The lists that the fraternities actually used when inviting rushes to their rush events were largely made up of people that brothers in the house were friends with in high school or knew from their hometowns or families. This was a problem for me since I’m an out of state student and don’t know anyone in most of the fraternities. The only parties I got to go to were at the house that I am a legacy at. I didn’t mind at the time because I wasn’t planning on pledging a fraternity first semester but I really do want to check out at least three to four more fraternities during spring rush which is apparently much more informal.

So here are my questions. Should I contact the rush chairs of the fraternities that I’m interested in prior to the initial spring rush event? I heard that only people who are really interested in a certain fraternity do this but seeing as the lists at the initial rush event are thrown out and I have no connections in the houses I feel like I have no other choice. Also how should I best go about looking at a few different houses if rush only lasts for a week? I want to have a few options to check out but the short time frame seems like it would force me to focus on just one or two houses. Anyways I just need some advice on how to deal with rushing a big greek system where I don’t already have connections in the houses. If anyone has advice specific to IU that would also be appreciated.