Does being a sophomore or above matter when looking to join a fraternity?

[BigRedBeta]

For those that asked...

We've never needed to "fill space" in my chapter. Our chapter house is usually full with several juniors actually having to live out because we don't have the space. We do summer rush, so our pledges live in, but we only have spots for 21, and if we want to go bigger we have to find pledges that want to live out. In the time since I was a freshman, till now (6 pledge classes total) we've had only 1 class that started out below 21, which was a year in which the rush chairs' performance was an anomaly, combined with very low numbers of guys going through to begin with.


Are there possible exceptions in the future that we might take a junior? Sure, but it seems unlikely. Not to sound cocky, but given our campus involvement (just greeks in general at my school), if a guy did go through as a junior that on paper appeared to be a good fit for my chapter, we'd probably have someone who already knew him and would likely know the reasons he would or would not be worth a bid. Thinking about it personally, if it was me that knew the kid and found him to be a great fit, I'd still worry about his commitment to the chapter, what he was looking to get out of joining, and also what sort of things were coming up for him in the future...If it's a kid who is pre-med or pre-law, is he going to spend all second semester studying for the MCAT or LSAT? If he's in business is he going to be doing an internship somewhere during the summer, and thus not be around to help during rush? There's just too many questions that I'd need answered to my satisfaction to believe that the chapter and the man in question would both be helped. Even if the kid was a rockstar, there are just so many things that would go against the dynamic of my chapter...like getting him in to leadership roles within the house (b/c if he's that good at that point, shouldn't he be on the list?). Except that we don't elect pledges to executive positions (they initiate in january, elections are in November). And if he gains a cabinet level position - well the important positions at that level are where we place the future leaders of the chapter so they get some experience and grooming for the future, and then this "awesome guy" is left being the historian, sergeant-at-arms, or public relations chair...pretty much BS positions. (I was historian for a term because I pretty much dominated Beta lore but it's nothing I'd ever list as one of my leadership accomplishments.)

All in all the more I think about the more remote a possibility it becomes for my chapter - not that it wouldn't work at another, even on my campus (the guy who did rush as a junior did sign with another house), just not my chapter.