How does rush work? Different forms of rush?

[Flying Tiger]

This brings up another thought. I guess the reason why my school does not have any organized events between houses is because Greek involvement is generally low. Houses compete against one another for members. Co hosting an event with another house would be impractical since you risk "losing" a rushee to the "other" house. In fact, my school has lots of "that house is stealing all our rushees this quarter."

So at your school, is there like an abundance of students that come out and want to join your houses? Do you ever have to worry that you won't get enough pledges. I mean at our school, we have to literally drag students out of their beds to get them to attend rush events.

[IrishLake]

Originally Posted by Flying Tiger

als463, I'm not sure what vibe you are getting. I am asking about how rush works because this whole formal recruitment that is structured does not occur at my school, thus I never even knew it existed until recently. After being in a fraternity for a couple of years, I though I knew how rush works. Obviously not, as things are done differently at other schools. Thats why I am asking about it. Recruitment videos and PR tactics are important because you can basically create a profile of your house based on what you show in a video.
Alumi Yum, looks like your campus has its way of doing rush too. Its actually a good idea because instead of having rushees move from house to house, it brings everyone all together into one location.

Yes, but you also have to live the profile you present. You can't bait and switch. You can't use a video to show a bunch of positive things if you guys aren't living it, and in reality your group is associated with a lot of negatives. It takes a lot to turn the image of Greek Life away from what it seems you guys have. It's more than just good PR and a nice video. Make service the focal point of your group. Support other clubs on campus when they have a findraiser. Send notes of good luck and well wishes to other GLOs and other clubs. Maybe if the greek orgs on your campus worked together more, you wouldn't have such a negative stigma attached.

Originally Posted by Flying Tiger

This brings up another thought. I guess the reason why my school does not have any organized events between houses is because Greek involvement is generally low. Houses compete against one another for members. Co hosting an event with another house would be impractical since you risk "losing" a rushee to the "other" house. In fact, my school has lots of "that house is stealing all our rushees this quarter."

So at your school, is there like an abundance of students that come out and want to join your houses? Do you ever have to worry that you won't get enough pledges. I mean at our school, we have to literally drag students out of their beds to get them to attend rush events.

There are different situations at all schools. Some school have 1800 girls go through recruitment every year, with only about 70% receiving bids and with pledge classes at 100 girls. But size does not indicate success or quality. There are plenty of successful chapters that are less than 20 members in size. But in order to make people WANT to go greek, instead of dragging them to events to force it upon them, your greek life groups need to present a united front.

[Alumiyum]

Originally Posted by Flying Tiger

This brings up another thought. I guess the reason why my school does not have any organized events between houses is because Greek involvement is generally low. Houses compete against one another for members. Co hosting an event with another house would be impractical since you risk "losing" a rushee to the "other" house. In fact, my school has lots of "that house is stealing all our rushees this quarter."

So at your school, is there like an abundance of students that come out and want to join your houses? Do you ever have to worry that you won't get enough pledges. I mean at our school, we have to literally drag students out of their beds to get them to attend rush events.

The actives work pretty hard to get people to go through recruitment in the first place, but it's much more difficult for the men. Their chapters are smaller and they have far fewer participants in formal recruitment than the women. I don't know if the fraternities worry about how many man sign up, but they do worry about the sizes of their pledge classes since there are so few men going through in the first place.

Of course there's a lot of "XYZ stole our pledge", but in reality with such a small campus and small number of PNMs this is probably the best way to do it. The parties are themed and are almost always band parties:
ATO Virgin Party (virgin cocktails and a band), DX Censored Party (huge band party), Pike Crawfish Boil, Lambda Chi Iceberg Party (everyone comes in scarves and Uggs and they turn on the AC full blast), AKL Volcano Party (luau themed with a band)

They're all advertised heavily on campus and on facebook, and Greeks in general talk them up to freshman. IMO what usually happens is that the female PNMs are encouraged to go because sorority women WILL be present at all the parties actively meeting PNMs, and once the new guys find out the parties will be full of girls, they definitely want to go. The fraternities also attend each others' parties, and for the most part the fraternities not hosting the party hover around the edges and respect the party hosts...then just try to top that party. IIRC the one night where PNMs visit separate halls/houses (only ATO and DX have houses, the others have halls like the sororities do in the dorms) is Smokers. They dress sharp and are trucked from house to house. This is the only night they are REQUIRED to attend.

Sorority recruitment is very traditional, just on a small scale.

There's always grumbling over "pledge stealing" but it almost never boils over. From the outside looking in, the key is to just realize there are only a few men to choose from and you can't always get what you want. The pledge classes are generally around the same size for each group.