How does rush work? Different forms of rush?

[Flying Tiger]

Hi everyone. I am confused on rush.
At my school, rush is held at the beginning of each quarter. Each house hosts their own events and you can attend as many events from as many different houses as you want. There is little to no coordination between the houses and each house basically conducts rush independently from other houses. All events are open invitations so you don't need to be invited back to attend the second events. You also don't need to sign up with any Greek councelor.

Then I hear others speak of a more structured form of rush where the houses all work together. On the first round, you attend all the houses and stay for a few minutes and then move on to the next. Before the second round, you have to eliminate a few houses and the houses also eliminate rushees so you have to be invited back for the second round where you stay a bit longer at each house. The process of continues until you pick a few top choices and the houses also chose their top rushees and you basically hope that you get offerred a bid from a house of your choice. This seems like a very structured form of rush with lots of coordinating between the houses and the university. Also some people say that this happens in the fall and if they don't get enough people they do some do some type of informal rush in the spring.

Can someone please explain to me these two very different forms of rush as I feel I have missed something. I know my school does not have a day where you attend multiple houses and you need to be invited to return the second night. Also can someone clarify what it means between formal and informal rush? Is it what I described and why is one in the fall and informal is in the spring but only if they don't reach the maximum memebers. Who keeps track of the number of actives in each house?

[Flying Tiger]

To fix my mistake, you do not need to be invited back to attend the second event. you simply just show up.

[IrishLake]

Some school are just different. Some schools have a structured formal recruitment, and some schools have informal (which is what yours sounds like). Some offer both at different times of the year, some offer just one type. Also can depend on if your school has national NPC sororities, or Local GLOs.

[Flying Tiger]

Whats national NPC or local GLO?

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by Flying Tiger

Hi everyone. I am confused on rush.
At my school, rush is held at the beginning of each quarter. Each house hosts their own events and you can attend as many events from as many different houses as you want. There is little to no coordination between the houses and each house basically conducts rush independently from other houses. All events are open invitations so you don't need to be invited back to attend the second events. You also don't need to sign up with any Greek councelor.

Then I hear others speak of a more structured form of rush where the houses all work together. On the first round, you attend all the houses and stay for a few minutes and then move on to the next. Before the second round, you have to eliminate a few houses and the houses also eliminate rushees so you have to be invited back for the second round where you stay a bit longer at each house. The process of continues until you pick a few top choices and the houses also chose their top rushees and you basically hope that you get offerred a bid from a house of your choice. This seems like a very structured form of rush with lots of coordinating between the houses and the university. Also some people say that this happens in the fall and if they don't get enough people they do some do some type of informal rush in the spring.

Can someone please explain to me these two very different forms of rush as I feel I have missed something. I know my school does not have a day where you attend multiple houses and you need to be invited to return the second night. Also can someone clarify what it means between formal and informal rush? Is it what I described and why is one in the fall and informal is in the spring but only if they don't reach the maximum memebers. Who keeps track of the number of actives in each house?

The more structured rush you're describing = formal recruitment.

The less structured one = Informal/COB.

Many schools have Formal in fall and informal on their own in the spring.

Some have it the other way around (Informal in the fall and Formal in the spring).

Numbers/rosters are typically tracked by the Office of Greek Life

[IrishLake]

GLO is greek letter organization.

NPC is the National Panhellenic Conference. 26 womans sororities belong to the NPC. They have chapter across the country, and some even in Canada or elsewhere. The NPC member chapters are those who are known for formal recruitment. From the sound of things, your school is just local GLOs? Local, as in there are no other chapters at other colleges.

[Flying Tiger]

Thanks Irish Lake, My college has several fraternities and sororities that are nationwide and a couple of local organizations with only a handful of chapters in the state. I believe some may be part of the NPC but then I know that there are multiple greek councils and coference with similar names so i'm not exactly sure who is a member of who and if they even follow their rules. I believe that our entire campus is all informal rush because there is no greek organization office and the unviersity only provides minimal supervision on greek orgs. They only intervene when there are incidents of "hazing" or "alcohol" related incidents.

I'm interested in how this formal structured rush works. So rushees are placed on some spread sheet and they pick and choose and the houses do the same?

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by Flying Tiger

I'm interested in how this formal structured rush works. So rushees are placed on some spread sheet and they pick and choose and the houses do the same?

NO.

This description of Formal Recruitment from our advice thread may help you understand it more: http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=54403

Scroll down to the section titled "What Do I Do At A Recruitment EVent (Rush Party?)" and read it.

[Flying Tiger]

Thank you KSU Violet, lots of information and very informative. Though from much that I have read on multiple forums, threads, and websites, is it only the 26 sororities in the NPC that participate in this very structured formal recruitment? Do other Greek org conferences/councils also do this or are usually more informal. Personally I think the reason why this type of style would never work at my school is because competition for rushees can be quite competitive so it would not be in the interest of any house to coordinate with any other person. The objective at my school seems like is to get your rushee to attend all of your events, and none of events from other orgs.

[IrishLake]

Oh, recruitment can be very competitive at many schools. Cut-throat competitive. Read some of the recruitment stories to get an idea. The goal of formal, structured recruitment is to let the potential new members (PNMs aka rushees) get a good look at all groups once or twice before PNMs and groups start making "cuts."

And I know some schools that have Local orgs and NPC orgs that do formal recruitment together. But then there are some schools where there may be a formal recruitment for some orgs, but other orgs (Local or national) may opt out of it and do informal recruitment at the same time similar to what it sounds like your groups do. Just depends on the personality and preference of the groups.

For example, my alma mater had formal rush (as it was called back then) in the fall, and we got to visit with all 4 of the NPC sororities. But there was another sorority that isn't NPC and was not a part of our campus greek coucil that held their informal rush events at the same time.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by Flying Tiger

Thank you KSU Violet, lots of information and very informative. Though from much that I have read on multiple forums, threads, and websites, is it only the 26 sororities in the NPC that participate in this very structured formal recruitment? Do other Greek org conferences/councils also do this or are usually more informal. Personally I think the reason why this type of style would never work at my school is because competition for rushees can be quite competitive so it would not be in the interest of any house to coordinate with any other person. The objective at my school seems like is to get your rushee to attend all of your events, and none of events from other orgs.

It sounds like your campus does informal recruitment because you don't have much involvement by a overseeing Panhellenic Council. If you don't have a Greek Advisor to plan and organize a Formal recruitment, it's a whole lot easier to let chapters just through parties when they want to have them. It has nothing to do with competitiveness. It may have to do with size of your Greek system, as well. Formal recruitment can be very expensive to stage. If you have fewer women going through, informal events may be a better option.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Flying Tiger

Thank you KSU Violet, lots of information and very informative. Though from much that I have read on multiple forums, threads, and websites, is it only the 26 sororities in the NPC that participate in this very structured formal recruitment? Do other Greek org conferences/councils also do this or are usually more informal. Personally I think the reason why this type of style would never work at my school is because competition for rushees can be quite competitive so it would not be in the interest of any house to coordinate with any other person. The objective at my school seems like is to get your rushee to attend all of your events, and none of events from other orgs.

Many schools with locals only or a local/national mix also have a structured form of rush.

Preventing rushees from seeing all their options (either implicitly or explicitly) is a good way to turn women off to Greek life if they don't get a bid to the lone sorority they rushed. It's also a good way to turn the campus period off to Greek life seeing all the backbiting, backstabbing and competition.

[ree-Xi]

You should probably ask someone at your school since it's quite different than the more "standard" formal recruitment. Start with the Greek Life office/adviser.


ETA: Are we seeing an inordinate number of "How does Recruitment work" threads this season? I don't recall many "I know nothing, tell me everything" posts in the busy fall recruitment season.

[MysticCat]

I'm confused. Is Flying Tiger asking about sorority recruitment or fraternity rush?

[Flying Tiger]

I am actually referring to fraternity recruitment, but at my school both fraternities and sororities all conduct their own indepenent rushes. Persoanlly I didn't know that there was a difference between fraternity and sorority recruitment but it sound like that this formal recruitment with NPC seems to only apply to the 26 sororities. Actually come to think of it, I remember this one rush where Kappa Kappa Gamma and Gamma Phi Beta actually rushed together, which is highly unusual at my school since everyone is competing against one another to get new memebers, I guess at my school, students are generally not interested in joining a greek organization so all orgs must recruit hard to get new memebers, as opposed to other schools were there is an abundance of students that actually do want to join. All the orgs at my school have quite low numbers.