<p>In terms of partying, which is the best?</p>
<p>I am thinking about joining one next year, and need some unbiased opinions...</p>
<p>lets start from the top of piedmont</p>
<p>DKE: never been, but they have been known to have cool toga parties, and like to become the "after party" spot when other places get busted.</p>
<p>Fiji: very exclusive, kinda "preppy" crowd, not very diverse. some guys are stuck up, but there's also some stand out fellas. great parties, but again hard to get into. Difficult pledge semester.</p>
<p>Sammy's: SAM- been to a few of their's, good fellas, a bit hard to get beer, and they frown upon smoking pot,...which is weird for berkeley.</p>
<p>DTD: right next door to Sammy's, small house, they throw a decent foam party, give out shots too, which is nice for not having to cradle a nasty beer for a while. They have a stripper during rush week, definitely something one should go to.</p>
<p>Acacia: one of my favorites, if I wanted to rush, this would be it. Very laid back, a nice roof (during welcome week, some friends and i smoked some pot outta a hooka and gazed at the stars, one of the greatest nights i've had here). Parties can be hit or miss, depends on how word's been spread and the ratio of guys to girls. decent amount of alcohol. stand up fellas too, very generous. They had a great female jello-wrestling tourny, it was awesome.</p>
<p>KDR: intellectual bunch, good place to find baked goods and acid. parties are more about socializing than dancing, plenty of booze to go around.</p>
<p>Phi Tao: i don't know much about them, but the one guy i know is very laid back. they have beer pong alot, not big parties, good weed too. alot like KDR.
Sigma Pi: Great place, VERY diverse group of fellas. they're having a pirate party, they also have a great black-lit basement for dancing. good smoking room too.</p>
<p>AEPi: the jewish frat. their list parties are great, but their house is very small and they get busted up alot. they do have an amazing 6 foot bong if you're into that, although it's more for the prestige than the experience, its too much work. smart buncha guys, funny guys.</p>
<p>SAE: don't know much about them, seems cool</p>
<p>Sigma Nu: i have one good friend there, he's a stand up fella and he loves it. they have a "Snake Pit" party.</p>
<p>Zete: never been, but they're famous all over for the "Zete Zoo"</p>
<p>Delta Upsilon: often jeered as "delta ups-i'm-in-the-wrong-fraternity" never been, although they did have a show there by Mr. Fab</p>
<p>A Zi O (sorry for the spelling, i'm not a greek): all asian frat, lemme tell yah, i'm not asian, and i though this party i went to on st. patty's day was gonna be lame I WAS WRONG: these guys know how to party, my god. It was like that scene from harold and kumar when they find the asian nerds partying. handles everywhere, DJ, even some good lookin' girls. DANGEROUSLY TOUGH PLEDGE SEMESTER</p>
<p>Pi lambda (next to acacia): this group of guys is characterized as coming from troubled past, and making it together in berkeley. other than that i know nothing.</p>
<p>TKE: they have the bowles hall kegerator/tap. i went to one party once, it was ok.</p>
<p>Beta: this is the party where i met many of my good friends in berkeley. they're into classic rock, a nice deck for toking.</p>
<p>Sigma Kappa (or Kappa sigma): cool building, it's an old apt. building. decent parties, i stole a bottle of rum from their place once, that's all i have to say on that.</p>
<p>KA: they have things every friday, good fellas, not a bad place, great for beirut.</p>
<p>Sigma Alpha Phi: just regaining members this year, they have nice parties, they're one of those "start the night" places. nice dance area, and really laid back fellas. easy pledge
semester.</p>
<p>Sig Ep: known as the "sorority" of the frats or "insta-brother" they have a 1 week pledge time. Because of that they're apparently not very close and have a lot of drama. their president randomly resigned and left the house. I heard they threw a great halloween party, they're not allowed to have kegs though.
There's many more, but i can't think of them all. there's some places that aren't chartered, but have great parties: Lambda Chi Alpha, where the Cal Dems have their party is just full of great guys, and great pot. nice little smoke room, and they buy very good beer.</p>
<p>hope that helps, you've really just gotta look around during welcome week. I'm not into rushing a frat, but the greeks are some stand up people for the most part. Good luck!
btw: these are my personal opinions, feel free to contradict me, prove me wrong and what not CC'rs, these are just my impressions.</p>
<p>It's A Xi O.... :)</p>
<p>Wow, helps a lot punkdudeus, thank you. Couple questions from your post though...</p>
<p>What is the "Zete Zoo" and is it as crazy as it sounds? And if I am looking for one of the crazier frats, it seems like either Fiji, Sigma Alpha Phi or KA is the one for me? Again though, maybe I am over-thinking this whole choice and should just wait until I am there...</p>
<p>Oh and I thought SAE was the biggest frat there, can anyone with experience tell me more about this?</p>
<p>And unlimited, sorry my last name should be clear enough for why I can't join A Xi O...</p>
<p>don't start making any decisions on frats now. SAphi isn't that crazy, its still very low key. when you get to Cal next semester, you just have to go to every frat party you can during welcome week (and EVERYONE will be doing something, i wasn't sober one night that week) and then rush week starts the week after where you can go to different events and meet the guys. SAE is one of the bigger ones. Start thinkin' about what classes you wanna pick right now, you'll figure out what house you like when you get here.</p>
<p>acacia is janky...i warn against it</p>
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acacia is janky...i warn against it
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<p>I'm going with punkdudeus on that one - know some great guys in there, plus it's pretty popular.</p>
<p>judging aside, if PhiG (fiji) sounds appealing to me at this point, which dorm should I be in to fit what I would eventually like to see in a fraternity?? i live in seattle and i am COMPLETELY ignorant when it comes to housing and dorms, etc.</p>
<p>also, with the berkeley greek system, do you have to live in the house immediately after pledging or do you live in the dorms for a year and then live in the house??</p>
<p>at the university of washington, immediately after pledging you have to move into the house but at washington state university you live in the dorms for a year and then move in... i personally prefer the latter, but which is the system at Cal?</p>
<p>after pledge semester, you can opt to move out of the dorms and into you're frat if there's room. if not you have to wait for the next year. if you rush/pledge in spring semester, you can move in the fall semester that comes after.</p>
<p>
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And unlimited, sorry my last name should be clear enough for why I can't join A Xi O...
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</p>
<p>It's an Asian Interest fraternity. Anyone can join.... now whether you get a bid or not is another question.</p>
<p>is joining a fraternity and majoring in engineering a bad combination? how much is GPA affected by joining?</p>
<p>these frats matter (in no particular order):
zete (zoooooooo)
sae (jocky)
dke (think they're cooler than they are)
zbt (the wandering frat ha, heavy smoking)
fiji (preppy)
kappa sig (laid back, heavy smoking)
beta (rugby house)
sigma chi (guys who were tools in high school but reinvented themselves)
delta chi (very jewish)
phi tau (chill, heavy smoking)</p>
<p>realistically these are the heavy social fraternities (and by that i mean they drink/have parties and good exchanges a lot). as far as gpa goes i hold down a 3.8 and am in one of the above fraternities and could def hold my own as far as partying goes so its not a huge deal. the president of my fraternity my freshman year was actually an eecs major so i'd def say its possible.</p>
<p>oh yeah dorms don't matter, my pledge class had kids from unit 3, unit 1, unit 2, and clark kerr</p>
<p>few more comments:</p>
<p>-should have added pike to that list i made
-as a greek who knows quite a few greeks there is def some mischaracterizations in punkdudeus' comments
-biggest fraternity on campis is sigma chi (although this does not necessarily correlate with how good the frat is because there are some huge frats that are downright terrible)
-if you're looking for crazy crap your pants fratastic mischief these are the houses for you: zete, zbt, phi tau, beta, kappa sig</p>
<p>Heh, again, Chia doesn't make it on the list. We're pretty quiet though. So I'm not surprised. I can't really expound wisdom on Frats anymore because what I knew a few years ago may no longer apply. I've been pretty hands off on the whole deal this year anyway. I do my job (manage the kitchen) within the house and that's it. I'm focused on getting my butt outta here. :-P</p>
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-as a greek who knows quite a few greeks there is def some mischaracterizations in punkdudeus' comments
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<p>Good for you. Your characterizations are far more brief and much less clear than his, so I'm going with what punkdudeus has to say at the moment. Unless you can bring more CLARITY to the conversation...</p>
<p>again, TO EVERYBODY, what i posted are my own impressions and opinions, feel free to contradict and post you're own stories and what not. i'm sure i have many mis-impressions and interpretations.</p>
<p>heres some more clarity then:
-a lot of the parties that he claims these frats are known for are in actuality one time deals that just so hapenned to occur this year (like dke's toga party for instance)
-he claims that a lot of the houses on that list are smoking houses but in actuality there are only several houses with a significant minority of smokers and even fewer where smokers make up the majority.
-he doesnt even include sigma chi on that list and they're the largest house on campus with the largest social budget so its kind of hard to ignore them (i'm not a sigma chi before you go thinking that)</p>
<p>if you have any more questions i'll be glad to answer them. the frats i listed are the major social frats (and probably not coincidentally the least "berkeley like") and you can nit pick about a few but thats a pretty good list i'd say</p>
<p>So Zete seems like the craziest...but SAE isn't quite up there?</p>
<p>Oh and whats the Zete Zoo? Or should I wait and find out...?</p>
<p>dood, chill, just chek'em out when you get here.</p>