<p>Hey I was wondering how hard it is to balance joining a frat with doing well in your classes, getting involved in clubs and being competitive for Ross? </p>
<p>Also I was wondering which frats haze the hardest, and how hard it is to join any of the professional business frats?</p>
<p>very possible… there are a lot of frat boys in the bschool, lol</p>
<p>“competitive FOR Ross,” so I am assuming you are to apply regular.</p>
<p>Yea of course everything is possible. But Practical? Would I recommend that? Absolutely not. Besides, the REAL business frats are for Rossers, so you might as well work hard, get in, and rush in the right one.</p>
<p>Yeah haha I’m applying regular. Do the professional frats actually have fun parties and have the same “brotherhood” experience that traditional frats offer? Do they also have houses?</p>
<p>Also, is it harder to get a bid if you rush as a sophomore?</p>
<p>I just finished my first year, and I’m waiting to hear from Ross. The professional business fraternities (PCT and AKPsi) are EXTREMELY competitive, but they are a great experience from what I understand if you get into one. They don’t have houses, but they do seem to have a good time. If I were you, I would rush both the professional fraternities and social fraternities. Pledging will be rough, especially if you pledge both a business and social fraternity at the same time. Both are a huge time commitment. In my opinion, you should definitely rush social fraternities. I just finished pledging a social fraternity this winter and believe me it is definitely worth it. The time commitment is huge, but it shouldn’t really distract you from your classes too much (but it really depends on how tough the pledging will be for your fraternity). In fact, I was kind of able to get more work done because I was able to manage my time well to be able to have time for pledging. In fact, I was able to get a 4.0 without too much trouble during my pledging semester. As for rushing as a sophomore, it is pretty common for the professional fraternities, and for PCT and AKPsi you are welcome to rush multiple times if you don’t get a bid at first (I’m planning on re-rushing these next year, because I think it will still be a great experience along with my social fraternity). But, trust me, you will not regret joining a social fraternity. I can guarantee you that the “brotherhood” experience is much stronger in a social than professional fraternity. Let me know if you want to know any more info.</p>
<p>You can be a member of both a social and professional fraternity at the same time? I thought it was just one or the other? Do the professional frats charge dues, and would joining one help you get into Ross? </p>
<p>As for the social frats, do you still have enough time to do other things beyond pledge (eg: join clubs, hang out with friends, etc). And will joining a social frat help with ross admissions in any way? </p>
<p>Also, do you think that joining a frat is really necessary to have a great social life at michigan? Or can non greek people still get into parties/pregames and have things to do on the weekends? </p>
<p>Thanks for the detailed reply!</p>
<p>To answer your first question, yes you can be a member of both a social and professional. However, pledging both at the same time could be difficult. If I had to do it all over again, I would have pledged a social fraternity in the fall, and then tried to get a bid at a professional fraternity in the winter (I think I forgot to mention that I never got a bid at a professional fraternity; I think like 150 rushed the one I did and they had like 20 spots). I believe the professional fraternities charge dues, and they will look good on a Ross application for sure. Also, it sounds like they really help you with your essays and overall application. Also, there’s a lot of networking opportunities down the line. To answer your questions about social fraternities, you will have time to do other things, however, you should expect that academics come first, followed by the fraternity, followed by everything else. So you really have to have pledging be a number one fraternity. For my fraternity, we only had two nights out of the week where we had formal pledge “events,” but we were expected to do other things throughout the week (favors, cleaning, sober monitoring mixers and parties). Still, school will come first, and even in the fraternities with the toughest pledging you will be able to do your work without a problem. Joining a social fraternity isn’t the greatest thing as far as looking good, but it’s sure as hell better than nothing. Definitely join another club, and try and get some sort of leadership role. People will tell you that joining a fraternity isn’t that big of a deal and that you can still have a great social life either way. While that is true to a certain extent, there is no doubt in my mind that, especially if you are a guy, joining greek life significantly enhances your social life. You will have a difficult time getting into parties as a GDI, and most weeks most houses will have closed mixers. As for pregames for football games, those are a lot more open. I wasn’t in a fraternity my first semester, and was able to go to pretty much every pregame I wanted to. Even next year I will probably go to other houses to chill with some of my friends in different fraternities. Even though I was pledging my second semester, I think the quality of my social life was much much better during that semester than my first one. During welcome week I was able to get into almost every party, but you will soon discover that after that, if you are a GDI you won’t really be able to get into parties easily. Plus, the bonds I’ve formed with my brothers are incomparable to the friendships you will make in clubs, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Academics, Extracurricular, Social life.</p>
<p>Now choose 2.</p>
<p>That is not the case, at least for me. I was able to experience all three with plenty of time leftover. Trust me: Do not let a fear of not performing well academically or not being involved with extracurriculars prevent you from rushing fraternities. In fact, people involved with Greek Life at Michigan have a higher average GPA than people who don’t.</p>
<p>OP: Just don’t rush in freshman year. It’s not worth sacrificing something else you could have done. But then of course, rushing is not huge of a disadvantage if you can keep up all the work you need to for the application.</p>
<p>“In fact, people involved with Greek Life at Michigan have a higher average GPA than people who don’t.” </p>
<p>Correlation, not causation.</p>
<p>Pat1120, that is a good point, and I would agree that being in Greek Life will not cause someone to have a higher GPA (in fact, I must admit that part of the reason behind this is that if you have below a 2.6 or something you can’t participate in Greek Life). However, what I’m saying is that chances are, being in fraternity most likely won’t lead someone to take a huge GPA hit. Also, I would suggest that you don’t wait until sophomore year to rush. At the latest, you could wait until second semester like I did, but even I wish I would have pledged first semester. The reason behind this is that you’re kind of put in a strange position pledging as a sophomore when almost all of your pledge brothers will be freshmen, and it is harder to get a bid at many houses as a sophomore. It is much more common for people to pledge as a sophomore for professional fraternities, as I hope to do next year if I get a bid at a professional fraternity. One last note, being in a fraternity was definitely a plus when I was applying to Ross, as many fraternity brothers in the b school were glad to give me advice. Whatever you decide to do, it can’t hurt to at least rush; if you get a bid and decide it’s not for you, then you can always drop (however, most people do not regret the decision to pledge when it’s all said and done).</p>
<p>It really depends on the student. Some students require very little preparation time for class and exams and can still manage a respectable GPA (3.6+ for Ross). Others require a great deal more effort to maintain such a GPA. For the former, belonging to a fraternity and to an extracurricular club is perfectly manageable, while for the latter, a sacrifice will have to be made.</p>
<p>I would recommend either getting involved in clubs, or joining Greek life. A combination of the two seems like a hassle to juggle, and an unnecessary one at that.</p>
<p>^Applying for Ross with just a fraternity without a stellar GPA would be a tough sell, I would go for at least one or two other clubs.</p>
<p>Another important thing I would suggest is to participate in clubs a lot in the semester that you’re not pledging. This is because once you are done pledging the fraternity will be much less of a time commitment. Also, being in a learning community looks really good on a Ross application too, and it doesn’t require that much of a commitment. Although it’s probably too late, if you end up in a dorm with a learning community in it, you could probably join. For instance, I did MCSP in West Quad, and some of my neighbors who didn’t even know about MCSP before asked if they could join since they’re already in West Quad and they were allowed to.</p>
<p>Hey thanks for the input everyone!</p>
<p>Rossbound: I was wondering if every frat offers spring rush? And what the pros/cons of it are? I was also really wanted to make sure: You will have time to do homework/study/do other clubs while pledging? </p>
<p>I was also wondering what the pros and cons were of rushing a professional frat in the spring?</p>
<p>Suburbanwanabe, the question you need to ask yourself is how well am I able to juggle academics and extracurriculars? How did you do in high school? Were you involved in lots of activities or just a few? Did you keep a good GPA juggling these other commitments? Your previous history is the best indicator of how you will be able to juggle these clubs in college and keep a high GPA. My son is in Ross and did a social frat in the fall and a business frat in the spring. He was also involved in a learning community and some other clubs (some charitable ones). This required a great deal of time management and loss of sleep, but he was used to this from involvement in many activities in high school. Pledging takes a HUGE amount of time for both types of fraternities, and several of his frat brothers did not make it into Ross because their grades suffered. Only you can decide whether you will be able to manage all those activities you are interested in doing.</p>