Retro Fraternity Rush from the Midwest

[robrun]

I've been a lurker here for a long time at GC, so this is my first real posting.

My rush happened at a small school in the midwest that has a fairly large greek population for both guys and girls.

Before I came to college, joining a fraternity was the last thing on my mind. I was the first person from my high school to ever come to this school, so I knew nobody at campus. Campus itself was relatively strange and unfamiliar to me since I had only visited once before I decided to go to that school. Rush for both fraternities and sororities is deferred which mean that it happened at the beginning of spring semester at night, which meant that it was very cold outside between rounds. Although my older sister was in a local sorority at her school, I never really thought about joining a fraternity until the interest meeting for freshmen who were interested in going through rush happened and it seemed like it would be fun. Also, it was assumed that everyone would rush, even the people who would just become independents and not join a house. That, and the major factor was that it was not hard to figure out that if you wanted to have any kind of social life at all, you were going to go Greek. That's just the way it was. There was a stereotype of GDI's that never left their rooms and were socially awkward and never had any fun at all and were out of touch with the campus mainstream.

My parents were fine with my rushing, more than anything because I emphasized that I could go through rush all the way through the final round and not join a house if I decided it wasn't for me.

Being that rush happened at the beginning of fall semester, freshmen guys had the opportunity to visit houses on their own time during fall semester, most of the visiting happened during weekends at parties and stuff like that. Girls weren't allowed to go to sorority houses at all fall semester; they didn't even get house tours of any kind like the guys did during fall semester.

At my school there were 11 ifc fraternities. I follow major league baseball, so I'm going to use major league baseball teams as pseudonyms for the houses.

After listing the house is the general impression I had of the house going into rush.

Braves - I didn't know this house even existed until house tours fall semester, and they seemed like ok guys but I didn't really know any of them and none of my friends had really heard much about them either.

Astros - This was traditionally referred to as the soccer house, since most of the soccer team was in this house. Aside from that, I knew nothing about them, other than that the girls I knew never went there alone on purpose.

Phillies - This house liked to party alot, and they were pretty nice guys who had a relatively good house, but they were known as drinkers...and nothing else.

Yankees - This was the supposed football house, way out on the edge of campus...they threw some wild parties fall semester but didn't really appeal too much.

Indians - This was THE house. They had the most members, they had a nice house, threw cool parties, had the top fraternity gpa, and the rumor was that they could get any girls they wanted to attend their formals. This was the house that seemingly everybody wanted to be in, regardless of whether they liked to party. I knew a few of them.

Twins - The smallest house, I knew quite a few of brothers in this house. They had a less than favorable stereotype, but they still seemed like pretty cool people and I could tell during fall semester that they really wanted me in their house.

Giants - The stereotype of this house was that they were all the basketball and baseball players and that they were about the "frattiest" of any fraternity. I knew a few guys in this house.

Rockies - Aside from Indians, this was the largest fraternity. They were known for being really fratty and having parties almost every night of the week, but not really standing out from all the other houses which partied hard all the time. I knew a few of the guys in this house but didn't really like it too much.

Cardinals - I'd visited this house a few times late in fall semester, and they seemed like the house I would join if I had to pick one. Cardinals partied a little bit; not as much as the most "fratty" houses but moreso than other houses like Braves and Twins. the guys were pretty chill and I knew quite a few of them.

Red Sox - This was the country club house. They partied quite a bit and were known as the dressiest house, this is what I imagine most of the SEC fraternities to be like from reading GC. Their parties constantly had country club themes such as golf and they were somewhat uppity. They sorta seemed like wannabe southern gentlemen to me. I didn't really know anybody in this house.

Marlins - Although this wasn't the "frattiest" house, they were known for being the most wild and crazy. This was I think the only fraternity where you were allowed to smoke indoors and breaking stuff was encouraged; I'd visited here quite a bit during fall semester for no other reason than that they were really close to my dorm.

I made two really good friends during fall semester that played a part in my rush story. They will be referred to Mark, who I lived next door to me in my freshman dorm and Greg, who I met the first day at campus and I also had a class with.

[violetpretty]

Go Cardinals!

[Soliloquy]

Oh good Lord, a GC'er after my heart!

I am in love with baseball so I absolutely adore the names.

GO BRAVES!

*tomahawk chop*

[key*key]

This is super! I do the JYA (Junior Year Abroad) and really not been on gc for a long time. Of course my computer crashes and I cannot remember my password nor any of the prompts as I am not that into wanting to know any or everything computer, so I just finally gave up and started a new account which makes me feel even more like a geek. Oops, soory, too much!

But good grief, WOW, come back to all of these great stories! Love it! LOL!

Hope you get the best for you. How chill!

[Sister Havana]

What, no Cubs?

[LegallyBrunette]

Red Sox are the Southern Fraternity? Interesting combo. GO SOX!

[EEKappa]

Originally Posted by robrun

Marlins - This was I think the only fraternity where you were allowed to smoke indoors and breaking stuff was encouraged; .

Why reading guys' rush threads is so much fun.

[robrun]

The first round of rush was organized that every dorm floor(s) had two rho chis assigned to them and led the same group around to every house first round. First round took two days, 6 houses on Sunday and 5 houses on Monday...this being the Sunday before and Monday of the first day of classes, when everybody is busy anyway and most of campus comes down sick from exhaustion.

Anyway, the houses I visited the first night were

Braves
Cardinals
Giants
Yankees
Indians
Twins

All I knew going into first round was that each section at each house would be half an hour long.

Sunday night started at Braves, which was conveniently the house furthest away from my dorm. At first it was really weird for me to see all of the guys in the house come line up outside and form what would become a line of handshakes. Just about every house did this, and I didn't really see the point because the line moved very quickly and the handshakes were superficial at just about every house with the brothers saying "Hi, robrun" or "Welcome to Braves". As I said, this happened at every house first round.

After the line of handshakes we came upon a food table which had really good beef kebabs. We were then seated in their formal room which was weird because all of the rushees and all of the brothers only took up half of their formal room; Braves was the smallest fraternity after Twins. It became more weird when the brother surrounded all of the rushees and started clapping and doing this weird non-sensical chant that didn't talk about the house at all. Then what happened at this house and just about every other was a speech about why Braves was the best house and how they liked to party. The speech was interesting, mostly because the president of the house was not a very good public speaker.

I was then taken to a room by a brother whom I introduced and when I told him where I was from the brother "just so happened" to be from a town close by. The conversation was pretty superficial stuff about school although the guy did seem pretty chill but before too much longer it was time to go and we were whisked out of the house because there were steep fines for going over the half hour time limit. Overall, the two or three guys I talked to seemed nice and I decided that I wanted to get to know this house more before I would cut them.

Next was Cardinals. Just like at Braves, there was a line of handshakes then getting some food (chicken strips and cheese sticks) and then hearing about how Cardinals like to party hard all of the time which struck me as weird because I knew that they didn't party near as much as they said they did in their presentation.

During and after the one-on-one (or actually 2-on-1) at Cardinals I guessed that they really wanted me in their house because the president and the ex-president both talked to me about how Cardinals was such a great house and how they could see me in the house, although it was kind of awkward when they asked me what I thought about rush when this was only the second house I had visited, and rushees were strictly forbidden to talk about what happened at other houses during rush rounds. Overall though, the conversation was pretty good and I thought I could really see myself in this house.

Then the same routine as before, whisked out of the house to avoid the time penalty yada yada yada and it was off to Giants.

I could tell from the moment I stepped in at Giants I wouldn't fit in there. During their opening presentation they talked about how they took hazing very seriously and said that they didn't haze at all, which I would have believed if not for some of the brothers smirking or laughing during this bit. During the one-on-one it was pretty much me in a room with someone who I had never seen before and would probably never see again, although we both understood that there was no chance in hell I'd join this house so we had a civil although somewhat half-hearted conversation. This house definitely had the loudest chanting as the rush group left the house.

Next was Yankees, the football house. This was probably the funniest presentation because all of the presenters were very, very drunk and the presentation itself was filled with lots of innuendoes (two curvaceous hills right next to each other? what they could possibly be talking about?) and jokes about the brothers themselves. The one-on-ones here were pretty funny and laid-back too as it turned out everybody in the house was drunk (breaking rush rules, btw) wich led to fun moments. Although I could tell I probably wouldn't join this house, the guys were still pretty chill and nice.

This was followed by Indians. Indians' house was kind of close to my dorm so I knew quite a bit about the house. I came in with the stereotype that this was THE house, but I ended up disappointed. The guy doing the opening presentation wasn't near as funny as he thought he was and the 70 or so guys in the house made an effort to surround the rush group of 18 which was pretty weird, as they all had stern and serious looks on their faces during a presentation which was supposed to be funny. The presentation talked about how great the house was and that being a member of Indians would immediately put you on top of the social ladder and that you could get any girl you wanted, as well as that everybody in every other house wished that they could have been in Indians. The one-on-one was weird too as I was paired with the house president and the rush chair, they really didn't talk to me as much as talk at me telling me about why Indians was such a great house, pretty much repeating what the presenter had talked about earlier.

Last on Sunday night was Twins. By this point I was getting tired; this round started at aroudn 10:30. Twins was hurting for members it was not hard to tell. The presentation talked about the great experiences that a certain brother had at Twins and how Twins was not like the other houses and how the stereotype of their house wasn't true. Unlike most of the other presenters, this speaker actually seemed sincere and earnest which was a definite plus. I was paired with with someone who I knew very well in the house who gave me a house tour even though I had visited the house on multiple occasions which didn't make very much sense to me.

By the time I had gotten to Twins, all of the different food that the houses had started running together as three different houses had some form of cheese sticks or fast food. I made the mistake of not pacing myself and getting sick which led to a visit to the restroom at Twins. The guy giving me the house tour actually handled this pretty well and used it as an opportunity to show off the newly remodeled bathroom which made the situation funny more than anything else. Overall, Twins seemed like they were genuinely interested in me

After the first night of rush, I ranked the 6 houses I had visited so far as follows:

Cardinals (easily #1 so far)
Twins (Impressive, but not as impressive as Cardinals)
Braves (From what I learned about the house, I could see myself in it but I really didn't know that much about the house)
Indians (I got the impression they were interested in me, but I wasn't very interested in them)
Giants & Yankees (there was no chance I would ever fit into either of these houses, and they realized this too)

[robrun]

2nd half of first round

This was on a Monday night. Having been through the first part of first round, I felt more prepared about what to expect. On this night I visited houses in the following order:

Phillies
Rockies
Red Sox
Marlins
Astros

The opening presentation at Phillies was one of the funnier ones during first round, as the skit had multiple characters that were stereotypes of the other houses asking if they could be a member of Phillies and the head presenter would tell them no for some reason. They made sure to talk about how much they partied. The one-on-one here didn't go well at all because I put in a room with two guys from India (the only two Indians in the house) - what made it go badly was that I could not understand what they were saying at all and when I could understand what they were saying it was only questions about how much I drank. I left this house almost hoping that they would cut me because there was no way I wanted to return if they only cared about how much I drank.

Rockies was next. Their opening happened in the lobby of their house which was a fairly small room which made all the screaming and chanting when we came in sound that much more impressive. Their presentation made repeated hints that their house mom was promiscuous. The food here sticks out more than any other house mostly because it was fried chicken....except it was cold chicken. The one-on-one was okay at best because the guy I was paired with and me didn't have much common ground at all which made for forced conversation...however, I was leaving the house, one random brother in the stairwell started talking to me and we did have some common ground and all of a sudden Rockies seemed like a much better house. Overall, the first 29 and a half minutes of the round at this house sucked but the last 30 seconds was good which meant that I was considering going back there 2nd round.

The country club house, Red Sox, was next. All of the brothers were dressed like they had just left church. Their skit was all about how much classier they were than all the other houses and how Red Sox could turn even the most socially inept guy into a "refined gentleman with class and manners that all mothers would approve of". the one-on-one was more of this, except they tried to talk about how much they partied and all the kick ass parties they had which seemed a bit forced. I left this house thinking I probably wouldn't come back.

Next was Marlins. All of my friends who had seen Marlins on Sunday night told me this was easily the best ski during round one. I was not disappointed. To play up the image of being badasses who didn't care about grades or anything, one of the brothers took a large sip of gasoline and then produced a huge flame with the help of a blowtorch. Next, another brother had someone throw a clay pot. At his forehead. It shattered into many pieces although I would find out later that all of the clay pots had been pre-broken so that nobody got injured. The last wild stunt featured the fire guy needing something to get the gasoline out of his mouth so he grabbed the closest available bottle which had a blue liquid and was labelled Windex. The one-on-one played on all of this more as they talked about how they had a party that involved 2 tons of velveeta cheese and the brother himself showed me all of the illegal parking and drunk in public warnings he had amassed on the wall. This was easily the best skit as far as shock value was concerned and it all seemed like fun.

The last house of first round was Astros, the soccer house. Their presentation was crazy but not as crazy as Marlins. It was fairly obvious that the speaker was quite drunk as he at one pont forgot the name of the fraternity itself. They combatted their image as the soccer house by saying that they had other varsity athletes and IM athletes as well, which for the most part cemented that I would not be coming back to this house. The brother paired with me for the one-on-one acted like he didn't want to be there so we actually ended up watching tv for a majority of the time before the round was over.

At the end of the night, this was the ranking for the 5 most recnet houses:

Rockies (i wanted to see if the last 30 seconds there were a fluke or not)
Marlins (this house was lots of fun and it was easy to tell that everybody there enjoyed themselves)
Phillies (just because it wasn't as bad as the last two)
Red Sox (i didn't really like the whole country club thing)
Astros (no chance I would fit in there)

That was the end of first round. On Monday night, we found out who cut us after first round and then we preffed houses for second round. This is where Mark comes into the story. After first round, me and Mark talked about the houses we liked and didn't like and he told me that he wanted to suicide Cardinals and that he wasn't really interested in any other house, and he tried to convince me to suicide Cardinals as well. He was first in alphabetical order and I was near the bottom, so he got to find out what houses he got cut by first.

As it turns out, he got cut by Cardinals. And 5 other houses. It ended up that he didn't get to pick 5 houses becuase that's all that was left in the first place. I felt anxious at this point because I didn't know why Cardinals would cut Mark which made me worried about whether or not they had cut me.

As it turns out, I was cut by:
Giants
Phillies
Red Sox
Astros

I wasn't surprised about any of these. This left Braves, Cardinals, Yankees, Indians, Twins, Rockies, and Marlins.

I knew that I wanted to go back to Braves, Cardinals, and Twins and that I didn't want to go to Yankees anymore. This left Indians, Rockies, and Marlins for the last 2 houses. In the end, I cut Indians because I decided that I would rather be associated with a house that partied hard or broke lots of stuff than a house that had its head up its ass.

After the first round of rush, I went from having 2 houses that I thought I could see myself in to 5. Little did I know, the hardest decisions of the week hadn't even happened yet.

[tnxbutterfly]

More please. The retro fraternity rush threads are awesome

[Pike/PhiDeltmom]

Well, I never would have guessed Marlins would make it so far! Can't say this would be a moms dream fraternity, but it does so sound like it would be a standout for a lot of guys.