<p>Hi, incoming freshman. I am really interested in early rush (a junior told me that circumventing the mad dash of winter rush is a wise idea) and I'm wondering which frats will probably offer early rush--namely fiji, chi psi, sigep, pike, and zbt. Also, could any seasoned wildcat comment on the reputations of said frats? I definitely want to try to pledge a frat that's very, very social, but not "bro"-y, so to speak.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that incoming freshman are not eligible to participate in fall rush. It’s definitely that way for sororities – some of us do fall rush, but only for upperclassmen. That’s not to say that you can’t make friends in frats during fall quarter – it’d be wise to do so if you’re interested in rushing, and there are lots of informal activities such as weekly dinners for this purpose – but you can’t actually be offered a bid until winter rush. I don’t know that much about IFC since I’m a girl, so someone please correct me if this info is wrong.</p>
<p>Freshman cannot accept bids in the fall quarter. You cannot early rush. If someone give you a bid before (7pm?) on the first night of rush week in January, they could face serious consequences from the inter-fraternity council. This is a great thing. It means you have an entire quarter to get to know different groups of people and figure out where you could actually see yourself instead of a mad rush of 5 days that it ends up being at most other universities where its just a mad rush of parties over people. Northwestern really does it right in this regard.</p>
<p>Reputations are also generally a not great thing to go by, especially when you start off by making a list of fraternities that happens to include some collegeacb favorites. Perhaps your buddy gave you a list of some he thought were cool. Great. I’m a '11 grad and was a pretty typical fraternity guy at NU. I probably went to parties at 6 or 7 other fraternity houses besides my own in my 4 years. I probably had at least a friend in every fraternity. Thats probably true of most people. But I always hate these reputation comments because I find it hard to judge a group of 60, 70, 90+ members based on the handful of people I know in it. Also, anyone you talk to is going to be really, really biased. I look back on my rush experience and EVERYONE has calculated meanings behind what they have to say, besides your fellow freshmen who know nothing. Sorority girls, Fraternity Guys, non-Greeks, myself, we all have agendas.</p>
<p>So how do you do rush? See if you could be friends with the guys at XXX’s sunday night dinner. Go play basketball with the guy in your econ class who invited you and see if he’s ******y or not. Loaded rankings and reputations and starting from a list aren’t the way to do it. You have a whole quarter of people trying to woo you to get to know people, so take advantage of it.</p>
<p>tl;dr: You aren’t allowed to winter rush. Don’t pick a list of fraternities. Trust no one’s advice. Get to know people yourself.</p>
<p>Suppasonic’s advice is credited. Even if he is a dork who was in a lame house :P</p>