Summer Rush Begins!!! - Page 2

Betarulz! · #16 05-23-2003, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by trisigmaAtl
I'm a little confused on how this type of fraternity Rush works. You fill out an application and can possibly recieve a bid after just meeting the pnm once after a few hours? and you just keep on giving bids out all summer? I've never experienced summer rush before, could someone please explain the process

thanks in advance

Okay, summer rush is mainly a midwestern thing (talking midwest like Kansas...not Chicago), and is pretty much only at the larger schools (Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, K-State...Big XII schools). For us it is the main time during which pledges are signed, and it allows the pledges to move into the house at the beginning of the year (I've never been inside a guy's dorm room while a student at Nebraska...Girl's dorm rooms yes, but never a guy's).

Since the students are not on campus yet, a rush application is used. This app provides the chapters with contact information, HS activities and awards, GPA, and ACT score. On the friday of our finals week, at around noon, Greek Affairs gives copies of the recieved rush apps to all the houses and they may begin calling rushees at that time.

The manner in which bids are given out is different for every house. My house in general has a rule that a rushee must have been talked to either on the phone or in person (a lot of free dinners can come a rushees way during their rush period) with two of the three rush chairs, and then the rushee must meet the guys in the house at some event before getting a bid. Other houses give bids out to anyone who stays at a rush party longer than 3 hours, others require rushees to ask for a bid...there's a lot of variance, but yes some guys get signed having only met with a house for a couple of hours.

We can give bids out nearly the entire summer, all the way up until 2 weeks before classes start...after that guys must go through formal rush, but not all the houses participate in that (since the houses only have a certain number of spots available in the chapter house for pledges, they may close their pledge class...some will take guys who live in the dorms; others won't.) However despite that ability to give bids out all summer, most guys sign before mid July b/c at that time University Housing starts charging fees to break housing contracts, and either the pledge or the chapter must pick up that extra fee.

I hope this cleared up any confusion.

DeltAlum, the Delts here at UNL do a great job on rush, there's quite a few guys in Delt that I would love having in Beta. I love Delt's HouseMom...she's the Director of Recruitment for the College of Arts and Sciences, and the head of the Student Ambassador program that I'm involved in...just a fantastic, fun, and friendly woman.
I think the biggest thing about summer rush for chapters is that it has to be the way everyone else is rushing guys...and if chapter feels that they are doing fine without it, they probably won't see any reason to put the effort in to it.

DeltAlum · #17 05-24-2003, 12:12 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Betarulz!
I love Delt's HouseMom...she's the Director of Recruitment for the College of Arts and Sciences, and the head of the Student Ambassador program that I'm involved in...just a fantastic, fun, and friendly woman.

This will go way off topic, but I have to respond to your comment above. And I don't want to PM, because I'd like all of the people who read this to know it.

She is very impressive. I sat with her at dinner one night when I was visiting the UNL Delt Chapter while making calls on broadcasters in Omaha and Lincoln. (Actually, it was the day before the 9-11 attacks). I was surprized at how young she is -- given that most of the house moms I've met are post retirement.

It really took me back to my pledge days when nobody sat down at dinner until the chapter or pledge class president escorted the house mother in and seated her. That made a big impression on me those many years ago.

At that dinner at Lincoln, they seated the pledges across the head table from her (us) so she could help them with any questions they had regarding table manners or anything else really. Two or three times during dinner, members of sororities stopped by to announce things, or thank the chapter for its help. Of course, when they entered the dining room, everyone stood -- as they should. I don't think you find that in some of the chapters today -- particularly the smaller ones with no house mothers.

I wish all of our chapters had them.

I would have liked to chat a few more minutes with her, but the chapter was initiating that evening, so we went from dinner to Ritual -- which, of course, she couldn't attend, so I didn't have the chance. I suspect they have a lot of dinner guests and she probably wouldn't remember me in particular, but, as I said, she was impressive.

Betarulz! · #18 05-26-2003, 03:41 PM

We got our first pledge of the year over the weekend. One of the guys who got a bid on Thursday.

The pledge is from Lincoln, plays soccer (yes!), and all the comments I've heard about him have been outstanding. He knew one of the rush chairs pretty well since they had gone to the same high school. Hopefully he'll get at least one of the other guys from that school who we really want to sign too.

When I hear more about this weekend I'll post.

DeltAlum...That sounds like Laura to me

. Every chapter has the formal dinner on Monday nights, and that was the reason for the house announcements. Delt is one of the few (if not the only) houses to have a second "sit-down" dinner during the week (on Wednesdays I think), where the housemom must be escorted in and so on. But as I've said previously, the Delts are a great group of guys and I've got quite a few friends in that house, probably more than any other.

GeekyPenguin · #19 05-26-2003, 04:07 PM

Betarulz, I have a question for you. What happens if a guy you signed depledges after moving into the house? Does the school find room for him in the dorms?

steelepike · #20 05-26-2003, 04:10 PM

We have the same rush here and yes he would just go over and get a dorm room. A guy in our house depledged another house and the next semester pledge us and he said he put his stuff in his car drove over to housing and had a dorm that afternoon and was moved in by 6pm.

Betarulz! · #21 05-26-2003, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GeekyPenguin
Betarulz, I have a question for you. What happens if a guy you signed depledges after moving into the house? Does the school find room for him in the dorms?

Yes, the school is required to provide housing for all freshmen, so whenever a guy depledges, housing has to find room for them, which usually by the middle part of the semester isn't that difficult as people decide to leave school.

Update from the rest of the weekend in Ogallala.

Three rushees came out, one got lost apparently and didn't make it out there until after the party was over so he only talked to the rush chairs. So far the comments on the two that were there early enough are pretty split: one guy has some good comments and the other has been called a lush four times in three posts...we like to party but I think that this kid will probably think that we don't party enough, but that's the beauty of extended rush periods in that he'll be able to find the house that meets his criteria best.

The_Nash · #22 05-26-2003, 06:29 PM

I have to say I am really impressed by your whole summer rush. It seems that you guys have it down to a science. We pretty much only do fall rush, and as far as I know thats how it has always been at ASU. We do a big Fall rush, and then during spring dont do as big of a rush.

Betarulz! · #23 05-27-2003, 01:06 AM

Okay, for the most part all the stories I'm getting from this past weekend are about what happened AFTER the rush party with my bros...nothing too exciting, just parents taking shots and such.

This week: Another Barbeque on Thursday, and then on Saturday a rush party in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

You may thinking "wait, isn't that outside of Nebraska?" Obviously yeah. We actually have a very large contingent of guys from Sioux Falls and South Dakota in our house. In fact a lot of people from SD come to Nebraska, probably b/c it is one of the bigger universities in the region, is a good distance from home (not too far/too close), and the weather is slightly better.

So b/c of the large % of our house being from SD, we knew we were going to get some SoDak's anyways and thought that this might be a good way to meet those guys.

I actually will be attending this rush event, so expect a more detailed review of the weekend next week. I'll try to put up some info about the Thursday night BBQ, but I have to work at 10am on Friday and very little is likely to be posted thursday night.

Betarulz! · #24 05-29-2003, 10:29 AM

Two guys got bid cards earlier this week, bringing our total number of bids offered to 4, with one guy having signed so far. Barbeque tonight that could see a whole lot more bids extended depending on who shows up. Could see the guys who already have cards turn them in tonight (Bid Cards must be signed by parents).

justamom · #25 05-29-2003, 11:04 AM

Betarulz, what is the Greek climate on your campus? Is fraternity rush competative for the PNMs as well as the fraternities?

Betarulz! · #26 05-29-2003, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by justamom
Betarulz, what is the Greek climate on your campus? Is fraternity rush competative for the PNMs as well as the fraternities?

I'm not sure what you're getting at exactly, but I think I understand.

I'd say the Greek system is super strong at Nebraska. Last summer 4 sororities (APhi, Theta, ChiO, and Gamma Phi)won their GLO's top chapter award, and so did 4 fraternities (Beta, Pike, Acacia, Sigma Nu), and I know that ATO and Delt, are very respected within their own orgs.

There is some anti Greek sentiment, but not that much, cause I think most GDI's don't really care. Greeks run our campus, and their involvement is WAY more than that of GDI's.

As for rush...I think that the great thing about our Greek System is that there is a lot of variety. There isn't that one house who wins grades, and intramurals, and has the best social calendar, and the guys girls are after. Therefore there each house has its own top competition. My house is constantly battling Farmhouse and AGS for pledges, and also Delt and SigEp to a lesser extent. Pike is in a bigger battle with ATO (for athletes) and Lambda Chi (guys who are going to live in the dorms) than they are with us, although they are a really strong house. Each house is different in that respect, so we're going after different types of rushees. This is not to say that we arent' competing against all the houses b/c we are...the strength of the System as a whole brings in a lot of great guys and every house can/will bring in some super guys.

In terms of rushees, there is some competition for certain houses I guess...I know last summer we had a ton of rush crushes...a lot of guys saying they were only going to sign Beta and no one else. With our extended rush though, we can at least find that out and encourage them to explore everyone. I also know last year we had more guys that we wanted to sign that we couldn't b/c we didn't have enough room, and they weren't receptive to living in the dorms. But overall the variety of our greek system means that pretty much every rushee is able to find a chapter that they can really click with.

Hope this answered your question...let me know if I'm no where close.

justamom · #27 05-29-2003, 07:30 PM

Yes, that gave me a pretty good idea! It's just that PNMs for sororities and their quest for a particular house or houses seems really heartbreaking. I just wondered if the way men handle their rush ever got as hard core as what I've seen for sororitues here...cutting because of every nit-pickity reason under the sun.

Betarulz! · #28 05-30-2003, 12:01 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by justamom
I just wondered if the way men handle their rush ever got as hard core as what I've seen for sororitues here...cutting because of every nit-pickity reason under the sun.

I think that there are several reasons for the severe cuts seen during women's formal rush that the summer rush process avoids. The biggest thing is that the length of time is so much longer. It took me a month from first meeting the rush chairs of Beta to getting a bid card, and during that time I went to a Thursday night BBQ, and two parties at two different lakes, and talked probably 3 times with the rush chairs on the phone. That's a lot of time to really get a decent idea of what a house is like.

The other thing that I think makes a major difference is that guys can self select which houses they are going to be interested in over this long period of time on more objective measures (goes back to the greater variety of chapters). For me, the first question I asked was about the house GPA was for the previous semester and whether or not that was an average semester for them. If a house didn't have at least a 3.2 they weren't an option. I also didn't go to all the houses, nor does anyone have to get invites back to a rush event since all the houses pre-schedule their events before school gets out so that the brothers can schedule accordingly to get off of work and such. As a rushee if you can make it, then you can show up unannounced.

Finally, since there are no cuts, the guy just never gets a bid...sometimes in the cases of rush crushes it becomes awkward, but usually if a guy is ready to sign he'll tell the rush chairs so and get a decision back fairly quickly.

breathesgelatin · #29 05-30-2003, 01:57 PM

Wow. I'm really impressed.

This seems like one of the most casual and best rush systems I've heard of. More like a sorority COB period, almost. Good deal.

Betarulz! · #30 06-01-2003, 07:55 PM

Okay, another busy rush weekend for the Alpha Tau of Beta Theta Pi.

Thursday had a BBQ at the chapter house, 6 rushees and the one pledge showed up. No bid cards were offered, and all of the 6 rushees I think were new. One guy was deemed very annoying and probably won't be seen again. The guy who has signed has caused a lot of interest from other kids at his school, which is good. This school is a really big school, and yet the guys we're seeing come out have all found ways to distinguish themselves and have a ton of involvement and activities to go with good grades.

Yesterday was a rush event in Sioux Falls, and I finally made a party. Two rushees showed up, and I was pretty impressed with both of them. I was really impressed by one of the guys, he was asking some great questions (about philanthropy, social stuff, study hours, costs) and seemed really comfortable with everybody there. It's good that he impressed everyone in person b/c his app didn't really stand out. His HS grades weren't so hot, but the general feeling is that in our pledge program we'll be able to help him out a lot. The other guy was really good too and while you could tell there was some nervousness early on, he settled in. He also asked some really good questions, and might be a guy who decides to live in the dorms his first year, which is okay. (We usually look for a couple of guys to do this so we can have a bigger pledge class.)

Had a great turnout of brothers with 18 guys showing up for at least part of the time. This is a continual goal to get as many guys as possible to each event so that rushees can meet as many as possible, as well as get a chance to see how important the house is to each brother.

This week: Thursday BBQ and Saturday lake party at Lake Calamus in central NE. I won't be there, as I've got work, but will post any more news.
Following week is a Parent's Day at the chapter House, and looks like will be the biggest event of the season. I will definitely be at this event.