<p>I know this has been asked before but I want a little bit more information.</p>
<p>I'm thinking about joining a frat and just wanted a little more info on the frats.
I'm gonna be a MechE major and also playing football.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info.</p>
<p>since you know it’s been asked before, i won’t bother linking to previous discussions.</p>
<p>Are there any questions in particular you want answered? I started to type a more in depth description of each frat, but I got bored and figured I should probably get back to work instead of CC. </p>
<p>Examples of what could be discussed:</p>
<p>-Recruitment/Rush
-Pledge Process
-Academic Standards
-Academic Support
-Campus Leadership / Involvement
-Varsity Sports
-Intramurals
-Booth / Buggy / Greek Sing
-Philanthropy
-Parties
-Appeal to chicks
-Stereotypes on campus
-Physical house/quality/location
-Meal plan</p>
<p>I’m going to be a sophomore CS major. I rushed and got bids from a handful of frats last fall. I joined mine, and have been for the most part happy with it. My involvement this past year mostly consisted of eating meals at the house, pushing buggy, playing (and winning) a few IM’s, planning some parties, yelling at people to donate blood as they walk to class (charity), and now I’m living in our house for the summer. However I have a pretty good feel for most of the topics above, so if you want to know more about them or have any other specific questions feel free to ask</p>
<p>There’s actually a frat that is really popular for football players.</p>
<p>Beta Theta Pi.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about it other than that almost all the members play football.</p>
<p>I’d like to hear more about the pledge process, campus involvement, parties and the meal plan. Also some more info on Beta Theta Pi</p>
<p>@Odeh</p>
<p>I think we got an email/mail with a lot of information on each frat.</p>
<p>sorry I forgot I never really responded to this.</p>
<p>Let’s see…</p>
<p>Pledge process. Most of the fraternities on campus have a pledge process of some sort. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s basically a trial period for you to be a part of the organization. At least one of the larger frats on campus does not have a pledge process. This means that if you rush, are offered a bid, and accept the bid, then you are immediately a member of the house.</p>
<p>Pro’s: -You have a chance to be a part of the fraternity without becoming a full member and committing yourself to the organization. This is good in case you decide it wasn’t really the best fit for you, you will still be allowed to depledge and then rush another frat.
-On the opposite end, the fraternity has the chance to evaluate you further before admitting you as a full member. If your grades slide, you turn out to be a <expletive>, or whatever, they can say sorry and turn you away.
-Build’s brotherhood. Like many initiations in all types of organizations, once you make it through you will tend to have greater camaraderie with your brothers.</expletive></p>
<p>Con’s: -The biggest thing I’ve seen is that pledge processes can be very time consuming. Usually you’ll be doing the grunt work of the house, whether it is cleaning dishes, building “multipurpose tables” ;), holding the fence, or whatever. It can get tough if you have a tough week of school work and what essentially amounts to time wasters on top of it.
-Not extremely common on campus, but hazing is not unheard of (although it is strictly forbidden). You may be subjected to uncomfortable (or fun) but probably illegal activities. The key imo is don’t be stupid and if something doesn’t seem right then ■■■■.</p>
<hr>
<p>Campus involvement:
You’ll see a lot of Greeks around campus on any given day. Most houses have a fair amount of people who are either on sports teams, part of student government, or serve as an RA / OC (orientation counselor). You’ll regularly see events (bbq’s/battle of the bands/etc) that are put on by greek organizations with cmu funding. Beta probably has the top varsity athlete membership while SigEp probably has the most representation in student life/development. Sometimes you’ll hear people say (or more likely threaten when their house gets in trouble) that if you were to take away the greeks, the campus would come to a standstill. I call B.S. on those types of claims, but I do believe there are strong ties between the greek community and the rest of campus.</p>
<hr>
<p>Parties:
The parties at the frats vary mostly by who’s at the parties, not by what’s going on. Basically there is always going to be beer/pong/game of choice, there will be music and some sort of dance floor. Some houses have pretty nice basements to hold the bulk of the party in. The big variable is the # / attractiveness of girls at the parties. For the most part you can tell from the stereotypes of the houses which ones college girls will flock to. Beta and PiKA seem to have the best luck from what i’ve seen, along with a few others. </p>
<p>A lot of houses will have lower key things going on most weekend nights, and once every month or two will throw a huge theme party. A lot of the girls i know will tend to just hop frats based on which is having the big party that weekend. Hell, I may even do it too on occasion haha.</p>
<p>Quite a few houses are on probation right now, so parties may be non-existant / low key at those places this fall.</p>
<h2>I’ve also never heard of a party at a frat getting busted by the cops. people do get sick though on occasion, so still be smart.</h2>
<p>Meal Plan:</p>
<p>Frat meal plans will be cheaper than the campus meal plan, you will usually get more food, but it may come at a cost of nutrition. Most of the time the food will taste better than anything on campus, but thats what butter/fat do lol.</p>
<p>That said, I love my meal plan if for no other reason than it gives me access to a fridge that is always full with gallons of milk. It’s also under $2k for the year, so if I want to supplement it with my own food now and then it won’t break my wallet.</p>
<p>Freshmen who join a frat and enroll on the meal plan are allowed to back out of their campus meal plan that they were required to have. These savings alone offset the membership costs of joining the frat.</p>
<hr>
<p>Like was already mentioned, Beta is basically the football frat on campus. They’re big, they’re bros, most are athletic… or at least were at some point in their college career (for the ones who quit the team). They do well in intramurals. They usually have a funny greek sing performance. their buggy and booth are really bad, if non existent. Most of my friends who are women varsity athletes prefer to go there on the weekends. Really like any group of football players (in my experience) there are going to be really cool ones, and then there will be others who are ******s. You probably can say that about any house on campus, actually.</p>
<p>Anyways, hope that helped if you were still looking for more info.</p>