The main thing to remember about rush is attitude! You must have your executive board (E.B.) all on the same page and pumped up and the rest will follow. Sometimes it is hard to look forward to shaking 500 hands, trying to remember names and faces and sort through the riffraff of rushees but think of it this way: You are choosing who your chapter is going to let in the fraternity. The men you choose will decide how your chapter will be doing after you graduate. Alumni coming to rush help tremendously; even if you have a small alumni base, try to get 2-3 successful brothers to come from out of town to speak to the recruits. The ACB members would be an easy way to do this.
A few do’s and don’ts:
Don’t play video games at formal rush. This only distracts everyone else and you are too busy watching or playing to get to know the rushees. Have a system set up but don’t put controllers out. That way you can talk about it but no one can play.
Don’t talk bad about other fraternities, if they like another one also than say”those guys are allright but we do this or that better”
Make your differences with other fraternities your strengths. For ex,”We don’t have a house on Greek Row BUT our house is only 3 blocks from campus” “We don’t want to be on greek row because we are able to house more brothers in our house at our present lodge.”
You must be confident. Show your pride, We always sing the Emblem inside while the rushees are outside real loud. This empresses the rushees and lets them know you are serious about rush.
Get as many brothers at the rush event as possible. Even recently graduated alumni. If you have a rushee that is pretty serious about Delta Sig over the summer, invite him to HELP YOU RUSH.
Look for groups of friends. It is easy to get more guys if they both want to join a fraternity, they talk and make sure you are doing a good job rushing them.
Be selective! Let them know that! Make cuts, even if you need the numbers. Tell the rushees the first day that you are only replacing X number of seniors that are leaving. If you end up with more in the pledge class… great!
If your chapter is small, tell rushees that you are small purposely. You only recruit good men and you don’t really care about the numbers. You don’t want to be so large that you don’t know anyone. You are looking to get around 60-70 guys and are working your way up steadily but want to make sure you recruit gentlemen.
Talk to them about their interests. For ex, “You like football, man you would love our flag football games at intramural sports. We always have fun and after the game we always meet up somewhere, win or lose!” “You like Pearl Jam? Joe plays in a rock band, you would love talking to him, here let me get him”
Rotate the brothers, your goal should be that you talk to everyone in the formal rush group. Treat the rushee like he’s your best friend; tell him that you would really like to see him tomorrow. But don’t waste your time trying to rush the guys talking on cell phones or standing outside in the corner, cut them.
Last but not least... have rush fines(and enforce them)… even if it is stupidly small. That way the brothers know they are supposed to be recruiting; jobs are no excuse, it’s simply a question of commitments.
These are a few things that we used at Zeta Zeta (Texas Tech University). We doubled our chapter size, went from 23 to 45 men this fall. Main factor was attitude. It has to start with the EB and trickle down. You have to show the chapter that they need to bust balls rushing and your going to get those 25 pledges… if a brother does not want to help than get out of the way and we’ll do it without you.
If anyone has any question email me (matthew.j.cadwallader@ttu.edu) and I’ll be glad to give my input,
YITBOS,
Cadwallader
ZZ
Fall 2000 class
http://www.ttu.edu/~deltasig