With the conclusion of men’s fall fraternity recruitment, fraternities have finished their rush processes, and new members are beginning to start a new segment of their lives as affiliates of Greek life. Interfraternity Council president Guillermo Amaro ’18 said that 341 men were offered bids at fraternities.
Thirty men were offered bids at Alpha Chi Alpha, 36 at Beta Alpha Omega, 29 at Bones Gate, 29 at Chi Gamma Epsilon, 36 at Chi Heorot, 23 at Gamma Delta Chi, 21 at Kappa Kappa Kappa, 27 at Phi Delta Alpha, 25 at Psi Upsilon, five at Sigma Nu, 36 at Sigma Phi Epsilon, 30 at Theta Delta Chi and 14 at Zeta Psi fraternities, according to Amaro.
While a majority of houses either increased or maintained the number of bids extended compared to fall 2016, Chi Gam, Psi U, Sig Nu and Zete decreased their number of bids.
Compared to the two-week long recruitment process for women’s rush, men’s rush takes place over the course of two evenings. The evenings are comprised of open events during which prospective members get to visit their houses of interest and interact with brothers. At the end of the evenings, prospective members can “shakeout,” which is a chance to express their interest in their top choice of fraternity by shaking hands with all of the brothers in the house. Fraternities then deliberate and offer bids.
Although Amaro said men’s rush experienced little to no change this year, one difference was that the IFC held one more mandatory rush event in the spring. The event, a cooperative effort between the IFC executive board and presidents of fraternities, began with IFC sending out emails to all potential members eligible to rush, which included the list and details of rush events for each house. The prospective members could then choose the fraternities they were interested in, and the information would be sent to the respective fraternities that would have a list of people who expressed interest.
“Through the dry mandatory rush event, fraternities were [able] to open their spaces and engage in meeting more potential members that members had not interacted with in the past,” Amaro said.
Another change in men’s rush was the time at which it took place. In previous years, men’s rush frequently happened on the third of week of the fall term, although IFC bylaws dictate that men’s rush should occur on the second week. However, due to the fact that the third week overlaps with religious holidays and Homecoming this year, men’s rush took place on the second week, IFC vice president Manmeet Gujral ’18 said.
“The option was either week two or week five, and week five is a little late to do the normal new member term that people want to do to integrate people into the house,” Gujral said. “It’s really cool to have the new members in so early.”
Because of this new change, by the third week, Brandon Yu ’20 and Henry Chen ’20, who both participated in rush, have already begun the process of integrating themselves into their newfound community, they said. Yu rushed Phi Delt and Chen rushed Sig Ep.
“[I rushed] mostly because I wanted to be a part of another community on campus and have really strong relationships with a lot of older brothers and other people in my grade who I wouldn’t have otherwise easily been connected with,” Chen said.
Approximately 65 percent of students at the College are members of Greek organizations, according to the Dartmouth Factbook.
Yu said he felt the need to rush because of the big presence of Greek life on campus.
“There are different facets of it. For sure, one big part is social expectations and pressure to rush,” Yu said. “It’s definitely the main social scene on campus. And so, whenever you meet someone, it’s what’s your name, your year, your major and what house are you in.”
Not only did the perceptions of Greek life influence students’ decisions, but the perceptions of each house and friendships that were previously established also impacted the students, Yu added. However, both Yu and Chen said that it was important to be open minded in order to have a successful rush process.
“It’s basically two hours of talking, making small talk and getting your face out there,” Chen said. “[But] the thing with the rush process that’s good is that you have almost all of freshman year to visit most of the [fraternities], see where you fit in and where you really want to go. You get to know a lot of brothers, and that’s basically where you begin choosing, finding and building those relationships.”
Chen said the most important thing is to “be yourself” and see what house suits you best, regardless of its stereotype.
Overall, Chen, Yu and Amaro spoke highly of the opportunity to get closer to people whom they would not have met otherwise through their fraternities.
However, Amaro advises underclassmen not to see fraternities just as a social avenue and not to base their social lives on Greek affiliation.
Jasmine is a freshman from Seoul, South Korea. Jasmine plans to major in Government or Sociology at Dartmouth, and also has an interest in Economics and French. Jasmine decided to join the D because of her love of writing and of the life experiences she learned from being the editor on her high school paper. In her spare time, Jasmine likes to travel and learn about different cultures, especially through cuisine, architecture and fashion.
