<p>With all the hazing reports, is certain amount of hazing still prevalent at your campus/greek organization? I know some type of initiation ritual will probably be have to performed, but are the stories of being locked in a basement for 3 days and such true?</p>
<p>No person on CC, greek or non-greek, can tell you what it takes to become a full member of a particular fraternity or sorority since all chapters are different. As for hazing, it's illegal in most states. As for whether stories are true are false, sometimes they're just rumors. If you're truly interested in joining a fraternity, then join for what the fraternity is and not for what their pledge process is like. After all, pledging is temporary, but brotherhood is eternal.</p>
<p>I second constantillusion's statement that all frats/sororities are different, and your best bet is to try to talk to actives in the chapters you're interested in to try to get a feel of what their particular pledge process is like. Even within one sorority/frat, chapters at different campuses have vastly differing pledge periods: My chapter of my sorority had a very low-key pledge process, with the only mandatory events being weekly meetings where we learned about our founders/history/etc. However, I have a friend from the south who told me that in his area, the same sorority has a very strict pledge process with many more activities and requirements. </p>
<p>I will say, though, that frats are becoming very careful about health risks to their pledges--at my school, I've heard more about non-Greeks getting taken to the hospital for alcohol issues than Greeks/pledges. What's more common now are events that are rather embarrassing for the pledges but are unlikely to cause physical harm--for example, one frat at my school had their pledge class run naked through the library at midnight during midterms, and another had their guys dress up in tutus and stand around the main quad for an afternoon, doing these ridiculous little dances anytime someone talked to them. (the high school kids and parents going around on campus tours seemed a little bit surprised!). </p>
<p>So... I dunno. I think most of the guys who go through these kinds of things were pretty embarrassed at the time, but most look back and just think of it as insanely funny. Seriously, though, talk to someone who would know--an active, older students who are friends of actives (because trust me, they WILL know a good deal about all their friends' embarrasing pledge stories!), etc. Good luck!</p>
<p>Yes, talk to the chapters you are interested in. Obviously, no one is going to tell you that they haze, but it's up to you to determine the amount of trust you have in those statements. </p>
<p>When I rushed, I asked about hazing and the rush chair of my fraternity at the time looked me dead in the eye, and said "we don't haze" very firmly, and I believed him. I can honestly say that I was never hazed. So it's kind of up to you to read people.</p>
<p>Doesn't that expose the hypocrisy of certain frats then? I once was particularly shocked by two pledges who ran in their boxers into the library, and started worshipping the coffee machine. It's a stupid joke that frats play on you, which contradicts the meaning of brotherhood.</p>
<p>You know what... frats aren't the only ones who do that. At my school, almost every single varsity mens team also hazes, often more heavily than the frats; is the mens' lacrosse team just as "hypocritical" and deserving of condemnation, then, because they require their pledges to get drunk and do embarrassing things in the name of "teambuilding"?</p>
<p>I haven't seen a single argument from you, tenniscraze, that has demonstrated why you exclusively single out frats. Other student groups haze, other student groups pay dues, other student groups have the right to pick and choose their members; why are you so bitter against frats in particular and have nothing bad at all to say about groups that act in very similar ways?</p>