This is part one of a two-part series on fraternity and sorority recruitment at Tech.
Many Jackets find unmatched communities and lifelong friends in Greek Life, but with over 30 fraternities and 10 sororities to choose from at the Institute, it can be overwhelming to find the right one. With Fall recruitment for the Interfraternity Council (IFC) and Collegiate Panhellenic Council (CPC) only lasting seven days, sororities and fraternities look to maximize their time by getting to know as many potential members as possible.
Typically held at the start of the fall and spring semesters, rush week is a time when fraternities and sororities open their doors to host events, allowing potential new members to get to know the different chapters around Tech. While events might differ from place to place, the goal at the end of the day remains the same: find new members.
When it comes to fraternities in the IFC, things start a few days before the formal rush with most chapters doing some small tablings around campus where potential members can start getting to know some of them. However, the real meat of rush week is the formal rush period, where the fraternities put out some food, set up some games and let anyone interested in joining come in and get to know the current members. Students who are interested don’t just have to go to one house; they can visit as many as they want.
Tony Tanory , fourth-year CS and IFC President, explained that exploring different houses and meeting other students is encouraged for everyone, even if they have little interest in joining Greek Life.
“I think it’s just a big thing for networking at the very minimum. I think if you have no intention of joining a fraternity, I think it’s still good to go out there and meet people,” Tanory said.
If it seems like someone is making a good connection with a fraternity and is a good fit, they could be offered a bid: a formal invitation to join the fraternity. One person can receive multiple bids; however, they can only accept one and have to reject all the others. Once they accept a bid, the new member will go through a pledge process, learning all about their fraternity, completing some tasks and eventually becoming a fully-fledged member!
Sororities with the CPC have a similar bid system to fraternities; however, the process of getting there is radically different and a lot more structured. Instead of freely roaming from house to house, potential members follow a strict round-based system.
Day one starts with the open house, where potential members will break into small groups and go to each of the different sororities, spending 25 minutes at each. Once they’ve visited each house, the potential members will rank the sororities to which they wish to return . The sororities will then use that ranking, along with a callback system, to determine which sororities the potential members will return to the next day.
Rankings and callbacks will continue for a few days, with conversation topics deepening each day as the potential members go to fewer and fewer sororities. Things come to a head on the last day, when potential members typically visit only one or two houses, with at least one of them offering a guaranteed bid.
Unlike fraternities, sororities give out their bids on a designated bid day, where every potential member receives their bid simultaneously. If they decide to accept their bid, potential members will then go through a new member period where they learn more about their sorority and its history before they are fully initiated into the sorority.
Rush can also be fun and intimidating for all the potential members going through the process. While recruits probably aren’t going to be talking to hundreds of new people every night like those running rush week, they still have conversations with tons of new people while darting between all the different houses.
“It’s definitely socially straining, ” said Natalie Ferry , first-year LMC. “I am an introvert, so after open house day, it was hard getting back to my regular setting … I never fully recharged that week.”
Adding all this up makes rush week a chaotic but rewarding journey. Current members of fraternities and sororities are out there every day, talking to potentially hundreds of new people for hours on end, all while having to take a mental note of which people were a good fit and which ones weren’t.
“You’re meeting hundreds of people a day, it’s kinda hard to keep your social battery going at that point,” Tanory said.
Planning everything is a colossal challenge for fraternity and sorority leaders too. Between preparing food, handling events and marketing, most planning begins in the spring semester, with the workload intensifying as rush week approaches.
“Especially in the weeks leading up to recruitment, we’re working on it pretty much all day, so it can get a little tiring,” said Grace Strickland , fifth-year IE & MATH and CPC President.
While rush week can be pretty intense, there is still fun to be found for the members of the fraternities and sororities. Getting to meet new people, spending time with friends and watching others discover Greek life for themselves are all things they look forward to, despite the challenges that come with it.
It can also be really intimidating to hit the streets and rush, especially for those who are going through it alone. Having to approach and start talking to people you’ve never met before is a big challenge for many, so combining that with the loud and fast-paced nature of rush can be overwhelming.
“You have to get inside and meet everybody for the first time — that’s a little bit harder because it’s unfamiliar. You have to try to remember like 30 names and never can,” said Avyn Ebersold , first-year ECE.
Having to turn down bids can be rough too. After establishing a connection sufficient to secure a bid, turning one down in favor of another while maintaining politeness is no small task.
“I received like four bids, so three of them I have to turn down at some point, which is hard because I can really like the people there, but they still aren’t my first choice,” said Ebersold.
But just because there are hard parts about rush week doesn’t mean it’s all bad. Getting to meet new people, forming real bonds and connections and finding the right fraternity or sorority is unique to rush week, which can make the experience worth it for those who might not even join Greek life.
“You would run into the same [recruitment counselors] over and over again, and you’d have a lot of fun really getting to know those girls … I feel like I made a lot of friends, I would say, with some of these older girls,” said Ferry.
With the strong sense of community and friendship that comes with Greek life, getting involved through rush week is one of the best ways those interested can find the right place for them. With the way Rush is set up for both IFC and CPC at Tech, finding the right fraternity or sorority is made fun and easy for anyone willing to get out there and meet some new people.
As Ferry said, “I don’t think I would have been able to rush anywhere else but Georgia Tech.”