Does it hurt your chances if you wait till spring semester to rush?

Mrblonde_144000 · #1 08-30-2006, 11:33 PM

Well, the title is pretty self-explanatory, and I am open to any advice you can give me

EE-BO · #2 08-31-2006, 12:04 AM

First off, welcome to Greek Chat.

I do not think it hurts your chances to wait for spring rush.

In years past at some fraternities at certain schools only a fall pledge class was taken. This still happens, but it is increasingly less common. And most of those houses were the kinds of places where if you did not know you wanted to go there before you finished high school, then you didn't have a chance anyway- so nothing to worry about. But even many of those "old line" houses take spring classes now.

At schools with fall and spring rush, fall pledge classes tend to be larger. There is also more to be done. Social calendars tend to be heavier in the fall since you have football games in addition to mixers, date nights and formals. So, fall is a more chaotic time to add fraternity life to your first days of the college experience.

But while spring classes tend to be smaller, so do the number of potential rushees. Mathematically speaking, there is not a disadvantage to waiting for the spring.

And the good news is that you get a chance to adjust to college life and also learn more about the various fraternities during your first semester. For a person who wants to be in a fraternity but did not attend rush events or learn about fraternities in high school, spring rush can be a great way to go since you get that education in your freshman year.

On a final note, a good guy rushing with a fraternity who is the right fit will do just fine in fall or spring. And once you are a brother, you are a brother. Whether you pledged in spring or fall will not matter one bit.

I hope this helps and good luck to you in your search. This forum is here for you if you ever have any additional questions.

Tom Earp · #3 08-31-2006, 03:57 PM

Ditto the welcome!

The mentality of Big Recruitment is in the fall has been this way for years and I am sure will go on for some time to come.

Of course, there are schools trying to change this to defered recruitment and some have, few as it is.

Formal/Informal recruitment is a cattle call per say. One can only visit so many houses as say at a Large School with many chapters of GLOs. It does become a blur for sure.

In my era, the same was true, but while most did not worry about Spring recruitment, we did and after a Formal "Rush" back then got zero, we began recruiting on our own and kept it up for the whole year.

I have tried to instill this into my chapter. Do not ever stop recruitment.

If a Fraternity is worth a grain of salt, they will respect you for wanting to get your feet on the ground with School first and have time to check out the area.

This way, you may have a much better chance of sizing up the people in each GLO and who you want to attempt to be Brothers with and if it is the right Fraternity and chapter for you. Remember, thjis also works both ways.

RU OX Alum · #4 09-01-2006, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrblonde_144000

Well, the title is pretty self-explanatory, and I am open to any advice you can give me

Well, the most important thing there is probably the overall attidude and culture of your campus' IFC. If you can rush in the fall as a freshman, then I'd say go for it, because we had to wait untill spring so the spring classes were mostly freshman party guys and the fall classes were mostly sophmore leader types. I think spring of sophmore year might be kind of late.

Where do you go, if you don't mind sharing?

Elephant Walk · #5 09-01-2006, 09:50 AM

I considered spring rush. But once I actually thought about it, I went fall in a second. The pledges have to do waaaaay more work in spring, it's not near as fun to be wnith a huge pledge class that you can be with, and even more so, you'll always be a spring. We can tell who rushed fall and spring, within our own fraternity. Our spring pledges are good guys, but it didn't really seem that they fit our mold for the fraternity. It took them awhile to fit in. They're still pledging and doing well. But they're still springs.

BigRedBeta · #6 09-01-2006, 02:41 PM

Welcome to GC - the #1 lesson I can tell you about Greek life is that it varies from school to school - even schools that are very similar (ie SEC schools, or public schools in the same state - however you want to group them). What's common at one place is unheard of elsewhere.

So that said, my answer is that it's going to depend entirely upon your school and the culture there. Some places, everything is spring semester, other places no one goes during the spring.

If your campus has a very big fall recruitment process, then going in the spring may very well hurt your chances. At my school for instance we actually do summer rush, and >95% of guys will sign before school starts. A formal fall recruitment is non-existant. For the spring, there are a few chapters where spring rush is done, but not all. For instance my chapter has not had any sort of spring recruitment for more than 10 years. If you want to join our chapter you must go through summer rush. We're not the only house like that so if you want the full opportunity at my school it would be unwise to rush during the spring.

Alternatively, there are many campuses where fall and spring rush are pretty comparable and going either way won't impact your chances.

Of course if you are going to be a first time freshman, it's probably hard to tell what the culture of your school's Greek "culture" is. Use some of the resources you have available to find out stuff - look online and call the Office of Greek Affairs and ask them how rush usually works on your campus.

Mrblonde_144000 · #7 09-01-2006, 06:22 PM

I go to Auburn University if that makes any difference...yeah, it probably does.

Elephant Walk · #8 09-01-2006, 08:24 PM

Huge difference, go fall, you'll be better for it.

TSteven · #9 09-03-2006, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrblonde_144000

I go to Auburn University if that makes any difference...yeah, it probably does.

FYI, Auburn's IFC formal rush for the 2006 fall semester ended August 31st.

You may be able to rush informally (visit chapters etc.) this semester. However, not all (or any) chapters may be doing informal rush now. If not, or if you don't care to rush informally, then you will need to wait until 2007 to rush. Either in the spring, summer or next fall.

shinerbock · #10 09-04-2006, 08:16 PM

No good fraternities at Auburn do informal rush. It depends on where you wanna go. Some decent fraternities take a few guys in the spring, but those are usually guys who've been hanging around and were friends w/ the fall pledges. I'd start hanging out with friends who are going through pledgeship, and see if you can find a place you like early on, and maybe they'll pick you up come spring.

**DU** · #11 09-07-2006, 05:22 PM

How about at schools like San Jose State University?

Tom Earp · #12 09-08-2006, 05:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by **DU**

How about at schools like San Jose State University?

If you do not get any replies, contact the Greek Advisor of School or check web sites of GLOs there.

All of the Schools in San Diego are Neat!

Good Luck!!!!!

gruber · #13 12-05-2006, 07:22 PM

First off, I totally agree with Shinerbock. If you are waiting for spring semester, totally hang out with the pledges & brothers of which ever house your interested in. As others have mentioned in other threads, once your in, your in for life. Might as well make sure these guys are the ones you really want to spend the rest of your college (& beyond?) years with. And as was mentioned, being friends with them shows you are seriously interested in joining them, etc & may increase your chances of getting a bid.

As far as the rest of it goes... As has been said, each school is slightly different. Plus, my experience will be different than others here. Fall semester here I got the required 12 credits & whatever min. GPA requirements out of the way (some fraternities (& I assume sororities as well) do "bend the rules" some & allow first semesters in, just no officially on the books). But instead of going to a social fraternity, I joined up with an honors fraternity (Phi Sigma Pi). We're just as active as a social & do pretty much everything socials do - except for mixers. I don't know about the social greek scene, but generally, for us anyway, we usually get larger turn out for rush in spring.

I pledged in with a large class (I think we started around 20, but had dwindled down to about 15 when we were finally inducted. We were a slightly larger class than is usually taken, but to compare spring to fall, for example, this semester we just inducted 5 new brothers the other weekend, out of I believe like 10 people who showed up for rush.

But I'm now also apart of the Kappa Sigma fraternity (since PSP is honors it technically doesn't count in the whole 1 fraternity only rule). We're still a colony, just got our official start with nationals at the end of Oct. But we managed to get close to 60 guys together to be part of our founding fathers class... Of course this isnt exactly a typical semester for us so I cant exactly speak for the social scene still.

But yeah, speaking from my unique experience, it doesn't matter too much if you pledge spring or fall. Just make sure you find the fraternity that is best suited for yourself and go for it.