What’s the rush?

To most people outside of sororities and fraternities the concept of “rushing” is utterly foreign. But rush is simply something that can happen twice a year for sororities and once a year for fraternities.

Fall rush is more formal. Kirsten Bjorn, a freshman pre-mass communication major rushed this past fall and then ended up joining Kappa Delta.

“The experience was very nerve-racking because you wanted them to like you, but it was, overall, very fun,” Bjorn said.

Fall rush is a weeklong process with the girls moving in on a Sunday and then going to little parties for the rest of the week. All the sororities do it together at first, but as the week goes on sisters make cuts.

“In the morning you find out which parties you get to go to,” Bjorn said.

Each day has its own theme. Monday is tea party day and then Tuesday is philanthropy day and so on. The whole process ends on Friday with bid day and the girls find out which sorority has picked them.

Each member of the sorority has to be in attendance to vote on new members. Next year Bjorn will be a part of the rush process all over again, but this time she will be talking to the prospective members of Kappa Delta.

“The girls rushing you are even more nervous than the girls trying to be in the sorority,” Bjorn said.

The whole rush process was explained to Bjorn at orientation. She had to sign up in order to be able to move in early.

Spring rush is very different. Not all sororities do it. This year only Zeta Tau Alpha, Delta Zeta and Kappa Delta did it. Kappa Delta was open to any one who wanted to try out, but the other two were by invite only.

Delaney James, a freshman creative writing major, was invited to rush Zeta in the spring and she did it for the experience of meeting new people, she said.

“The due sheet was a little scary. That’s part of the reason I didn’t join,” James said.

The first Thursday James went to rush was very informal. It was more like an informational meeting, she said. Then, the next week they met they made cookies for a nursing home and talked about the sorority some more. Another party was held, which was more formal, where the girls dressed up and went to different rooms in the Zeta house.

“It was pretty laid back and I got to talk to a lot of new people,” James said.

Fraternity rush is a lot different than sorority rush. They have informal and formal rush, which are in the fall and spring respectively. Tyler Ebrite, a junior and member of Pi Kappa Phi, explained what the difference between the two was.

“Formal rush is for freshman. They have to have a minimum GPA and a minimum of 12 hours in order to rush. The informal rush in the fall is for sophomores and above,” Ebrite said.

Each fraternity does it differently each year, but the basic events are a meet-and-greet, formal dinners and visits to fraternity houses. Then the members vote on which guys they want to give bids to.

Posted by Danielle Paluga on Feb 26 2010. Filed under Focus On. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry