<p>You never really hear about fraternity hazing unless it's so bad that someone dies or a frat gets kicked off campus, so I'm just wondering, how bad is frat hazing usually? You only hear about the extremes, so what do you guys think is normal is frat hazing?</p>
<p>In my college, I’ve heard about what the rush and bid process is.</p>
<p>We don’t have a serious hazing process, in fact, our Greek life office strictly forbid hazing of any form. They really do monitor the houses and conduct anonymous polls on if recruits feel like they are being hazed or embarrassed in a negative way. Also, our campus police is real strict on underage drinking. They staffed a police desk near the Greek housing and monitor their partying.</p>
<p>Of course, different schools have different frat hazing degree. Some are bad and others are ok…and it varies from fraternity to fraternity. Do your research and leave a rush/bid if you ever feel threatened or seriously embarrassed negatively by some of the process.</p>
<p>^If you actually believe what you just wrote you’re in for a rude awakening.</p>
<p>Well, several of our Greek houses got fined last year for having alcohol near the housing buildings. Our campus police did a house sweep every Sunday and I know from the campus newspaper a couple police dogs were used for sniffing out drugs and alcohol smell.</p>
<p>We have decent Greek system in my opinion…I believe the campus newspaper reported 21 or 22 hazing fines last fall…</p>
<p>There can be fines or little slaps on the wrist but the fact remains that no fraternity will check someone’s age before serving alcohol and almost none will abide by a no hazing policy. You’re class of 16 you don’t quite know yet.</p>
<p>No one can tell you what fraternities do because its a secret tradition. Hazing is illegal also so liability issues.</p>
<p>Try joining a Sorority instead, you wouldn’t have to worry about hazing or any mean things guys do. JK.</p>
<p>Look, I’m in a fraternity and I know what we do. I also hear plenty of what other houses do around campus. Yeah, hazing is technically probably illegal but nobody cares or enforces it. Same with underage drinking, just another one of those things that become not really a big deal at all.</p>
<p>Yeah, I know it’ll happen no matter what. I would expect there to be at least a little bit, but I just wonder is it really that bad or does the media just blow it out of proportion?</p>
<p>In most fraternities, it’s not as bad as you might be led to believe by the constant “boy dies during hazing!” stories.</p>
<p>However, those stories do occur, and they aren’t always at the same place. You’re probably not going to be put in mortal danger, but chances are you will be humiliated and hurt and asked to consume excessive alcohol. If your attitute towards hazing is anything less enthusiastic “That sounds like a cool way to build brotherhood, maaaaaaan”, I honestly think you would be happier not in a fraternity.</p>
<p>As a former frat president I can assure you that not all houses haze, and anyone who says all houses do is just trying to justify their behavior. I don’t know what fraction does or doesn’t but don’t let anyone kid you into thinking it’s a necessary part of the process.</p>
<p>It really isn’t that bad… chapters (and the home office…) make money by getting people to join them. Do you think they are going to make you so miserable that you will not want to join?</p>
<p>Probably in the vast, vast majority of chapters (and pledges who are involved in Rush with them), the answer is “No.”</p>
<p>The main missions of most fraternities are these:</p>
<p>1) Make the members better men
2) Serve the campus/community
3) Have fun
4) Foster brotherhood among members</p>
<p>At my fraternity, the worst I was subjected to was being asked to clean a sink that had vomit in it. Seriously. No pushing pennies, fire dancing, being forced to slam a six-pack or funnel/“gravity bong” a gallon of beer, etc. People try those things, sure, but at their own behest.</p>
<p>You might be asked to get up and get a brother a beer or a soda. You might be asked to order a pizza. Not pay for it – do the ordering. Simple things like that.</p>
<p>It really depends on the school’s policies regarding Greek life, and more specifically the policies of the frats and sororities themselves. At my school, there are certain houses (more so the sororities) that have no hazing. Whether that is followed 100% I’m not sure, because I don’t participate in Greek life, but I have a couple of friends in certain sororities who have told me that there is no hazing.</p>
<p>I think with frats it’s a bit of a different situation, simply because a lot of frats want to push the new guys to the limit and see how much they can endure. A lot of it isn’t really THAT bad - a friend of mine from my floor said that once a week they’d take all the pledges to run 7 miles or do one of those military workouts (100 pull ups/200 push ups/300 sit ups, although they did much less since very few people can actually do that). On the flip side, my friend who lived across from me had to endure a lot of hazing. During his hell week, he lost 9 or 10 pounds and had massive bruises on his knees from having to walk on rice and eggshells on the floor. I don’t know all the specific details but it was pretty brutal.</p>
<p>rice and egg shells? that is awful. we did nothing even approaching that.</p>
<p>It depends on the fraternity, the campus, and the individual house. It ranges from none to life-threatening.</p>
<p>though illegal some will still do hazing. none of it is going to cause you any real harm in the end. and if thats not for you , then dont go with that frat</p>
<p>So many people on CC have a crazy and negative perception of Greek life when in reality they don’t know much about it at all. Fraternity hazing is all relative and yes it still does exist but more often than not it’s only mild compared to some of the stories you may here. My fraternity is anti-hazing and was founded on similar principles, we were never “hazed”, the work we did was hard and time consuming but I never once felt in danger or like I was being hazed</p>
<p>These days most fraternities have a pretty strict non-hazing policy but what constitutes actual hazing is often in the gray area. What one might consider hazing is what another might just consider bonding. The extremes like the OP said are always widely discussed and condemned but things like that happen very rarely these days, but at the same time mild and very light hazing still has its place in a lot of fraternities.</p>
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o.O I might be taking this statement in singularity, but that’s disturbing. My brother would never do anything remotely related to an instance of hazing just for the sake of bonding or for us to call each other ‘brother’.</p>
<p>That’s the main thing I never understood about hazing: I’m supoposed to like you, confide in you, and consider you my brother (or other close relationship description), yet you’re demanding I do things that have the total opposite effect? How does doing these things make me a better person or help foster our relationship? Oh, wait, it doesn’t.</p>
<p>In military training (before we were assigned to a unit or actual duty station) they kept telling us that hazing is bad and to report it if it happens and no one should be doing it anyway. I don’t think I need to tell you what happened the first night at my duty station. Any hazing I was ever placed in did not make me a better person, nor did it foster respect among my superiors overseeing it happen. Take my advice, and at the first sign of it, leave. It most likely means they adhere to the frat as an institution more than to you as a person or human being.</p>
<p>My (co-ed) fraternity does not. None of us would have joined if it did.</p>
<p>My friend who joined a frat told me (although he wasn’t supposed to) that they made them do push ups until they were sore. Sometimes on brick or cement with heir knuckles. He showed me his cut up, bruised up knuckles. They also made him do embarrasing things like dress up like a genie in front of the library and do some persian dance or something. They had to go on scavanger hunts across town that would take them hours. And then the last challenge was when they threw all the rushees into the woods for a weekend. They had to live there for the entire weekend on their own. All necessities like food and shelter they had to find on their own. </p>
<p>Just so you know, when joining the frat he had no idea the rushing was hard. Frats don’t tell you the bad parts to the people that rush. And when the rushing ends, no one tells the outside world about the process. It’s a secret.</p>
<p>But the rushing isn’t usually as bad as people think it is. Especially here on CC. People are full of **** on here.</p>