Fraternity Recruitment Standards

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by JohnnyCash

I did a search but didn't come up with anything too relevant or recent.

I was wondering if fraternity members could chime with what their chapter standards were like for recruitment and, in specific, the voting process on extending bids- specifically chapters where all members have a vote.

What percentage of a positive vote does a rushee need in order to be extended a bid? And what percentage would be too inclusive, too selective, etc..

If you could also include how large your Greek community is/was with your post, to get an idea of your campus culture, I would appreciate it too.

Mine is a little bit more complicated as I believe we are one of the few (if not the only) fraternity systems who utilize the sorority system of one round, cut, second round, cut, third round, cut, then finally we have our pledge class. We're much larger than a hundred people in a Greek system where we typically have around 600 rushees come through rush every year.

For the first two rounds of rush, the rush chairs are allowed to act dictatorially. Members will give names of people they want cut or protected, but really the rush chairs have a firmer grasp of the entirety of 600 people and who we want to cut in order to target our core group of rushees.

When it comes down to the final cuts, one blackball will cut someone...theoretically. But in practice if the chapter feels like that "one blackball" is someone whose just being a dick, we'll take it to a vote. We try to limit a person to one blackball each. If several throw their black balls in the ring, then the guy is probably eliminated.

One blackball can take out a pledge before he's officially made a pledge. Once someone is made a pledge, then it takes 50+1% to get him kicked out. A pledge (or pledge class as what usually happens) needs 75% to get initiated in the final vote.

[JohnnyCash]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

Mine is a little bit more complicated as I believe we are one of the few (if not the only) fraternity systems who utilize the sorority system of one round, cut, second round, cut, third round, cut, then finally we have our pledge class. We're much larger than a hundred people in a Greek system where we typically have around 600 rushees come through rush every year.

For the first two rounds of rush, the rush chairs are allowed to act dictatorially. Members will give names of people they want cut or protected, but really the rush chairs have a firmer grasp of the entirety of 600 people and who we want to cut in order to target our core group of rushees.

When it comes down to the final cuts, one blackball will cut someone...theoretically. But in practice if the chapter feels like that "one blackball" is someone whose just being a dick, we'll take it to a vote. We try to limit a person to one blackball each. If several throw their black balls in the ring, then the guy is probably eliminated.

One blackball can take out a pledge before he's officially made a pledge. Once someone is made a pledge, then it takes 50+1% to get him kicked out. A pledge (or pledge class as what usually happens) needs 75% to get initiated in the final vote.

That's pretty interesting. Why is it that your system uses that kind of formal rush? Is it to ensure each fraternity gets a fair shot at rush?

Do you guys use quotas like sororities do?

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by JohnnyCash

That's pretty interesting. Why is it that your system uses that kind of formal rush?

No idea. It's been that way for my five years of being Greek and perhaps at least three years before that. There are a few other GC'ers who were on campus well before I was so they can say how long ago it might be.

Is it to ensure each fraternity gets a fair shot at rush?

If I had to guess, yeah.

Do you guys use quotas like sororities do?

I don't think so. The pledge classes are of wildly varying sizes still. I would imagine quota would come into play to help even that out, if I understand it correctly. You'll have Farmhouse with two pledges and other fraternities taking 65, while still some choose to take 55 for qualities sake.

Originally Posted by DTD Alum

Elephant Walk, I would love to hear more about this process. I've always wanted to hear more about those rare campuses where fraternity rush works like this. I think from your old posts you are at Arkansas, correct?

Correct.

What are the rounds like...are they progressively more formal?

Yep. It's 5 days all told, including Bid Day. The first two days are actually one round. You visit 6/7 houses the first day and then on the second day you visit the 6/7 houses that you didn't visit on the first day (and since the fraternities are in a sort of pseudo-square, you just go in a straight line until you have turn to the next line of houses). These parties are like 20 minutes a piece for each house. It's pretty much polo and shorts wearing. Then on the second round (third day), it's like long pants and an Oxford. Longer parties. Then on the third day it's full suit and tie, it gets very serious and the parties are longer still. Bid day my graduating year the new rushees had to wear polos/pants in gameday colors because they went straight to the football game afterwards.

How does the rush chair get the idea of who to pledge...I'm assuming summer rushing?

Summer rushing and rushing in the Fall before the official rush week. Each house gets one designated "rush party" which always includes alcohol to really meet pledges but usually they have a good idea by who comes through the house. Many of the good houses (and alot of the not-so-good houses) will have at least 40% of their pledge class picked out before the Fall semester starts. Basically formal rush will be those rushees going through the motions for the fraternity.

How does "pref" work...do they rank and is there a quota system, or does a fraternity just hand out bids to who they want to bid and then the rushee gets to pick from his bids?

This is difficult to explain even in person but let me give a shot at it.

After the 2nd round the rushee will only be going to three houses (or less) for the third round. At the end of the third round, all the rushees go to a designated spot (use to be the union, now they do it in the hper i think) and make their decisions where they rank them 1-3 or suicide. Each chapter has an A, B, C list. The C list simply means cut. Those rushees, no matter how they rank the chapter, will not be members. However many rushees a chapter wishes to pledge will be the number of spots on the A list. So say they decide to pledge 50, there will be 50 spots there. The order of the rushees on the A list does not matter. BUT, on the B-list it does matter. If a person selects XYZ as #1 and XYZ has that person on their A list, they will be automatically paired and that person receives a bid which comes through the IFC office, not through the chapter. BUT, if the person does not select XYZ as #1 and XYZ still has the person on their A list, he will be removed from their A list. Then, the first person on the B-list will move up to the A-list. So if that person has XYZ as #1 than he will receive a bid from XYZ even though he was on their B list. The A-listers who keep dropping only mean that the B-listers will keep moving up.

Re: overbidding. You may think that chapters would simply keep as many people around as possible to ensure numbers and so forth. Then just cut the people they don't like at the end. It isn't the case. Chapters are required to cut a certain percentage of the list (I'd like to say it's something like 15%) each round. Furthermore, the best fraternities have what our IFC lady likes to call the "Frozen Chosen" where after the first round they make heavy cuts...like 40% or so, so that those fraternities can truly drill into and put on the heat to those who they think are sort of wavering between their house and others. It allows for more members interracting with the fraternities.

[DTD Alum]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

Mine is a little bit more complicated as I believe we are one of the few (if not the only) fraternity systems who utilize the sorority system of one round, cut, second round, cut, third round, cut, then finally we have our pledge class. We're much larger than a hundred people in a Greek system where we typically have around 600 rushees come through rush every year.

For the first two rounds of rush, the rush chairs are allowed to act dictatorially. Members will give names of people they want cut or protected, but really the rush chairs have a firmer grasp of the entirety of 600 people and who we want to cut in order to target our core group of rushees.

When it comes down to the final cuts, one blackball will cut someone...theoretically. But in practice if the chapter feels like that "one blackball" is someone whose just being a dick, we'll take it to a vote. We try to limit a person to one blackball each. If several throw their black balls in the ring, then the guy is probably eliminated.

One blackball can take out a pledge before he's officially made a pledge. Once someone is made a pledge, then it takes 50+1% to get him kicked out. A pledge (or pledge class as what usually happens) needs 75% to get initiated in the final vote.

Elephant Walk, I would love to hear more about this process. I've always wanted to hear more about those rare campuses where fraternity rush works like this. I think from your old posts you are at Arkansas, correct? What are the rounds like...are they progressively more formal? How does the rush chair get the idea of who to pledge...I'm assuming summer rushing? How does "pref" work...do they rank and is there a quota system, or does a fraternity just hand out bids to who they want to bid and then the rushee gets to pick from his bids? If that's the case, how much do chapters "over-bid" to get their desired pledge class size...I'm guessing that it varies wildly from "top" to struggling chapters.