Hia! I was wondering if it was feasible to rush for both fraternities and sororities. I plan on doing research beforehand (to make it easier), but there could be other problems I have yet to discover and solve. Thank you!
Unlikely you will rush for both as frats are male and sororities are female.
Yes, just plan your first semester schedule accommodatingly.
Young people seem to do it all the time, must be doable.
I am not sure I understand the question. Are you a non-gender-binary student who wants to try to rush for both? (The rush processes are very different, so I don’t think that would be possible.) Or are you just asking is it possible to rush when you are a college student doing a bunch of other stuff? (Of course it is; thousands of students do it every year.)
NPC sorority (most sororities on most campuses) rush often occurs at the very beginning of the semester or year, often before a lot of the classes and such start, so sometimes that’s easier to manage alongside your school work. The time-intensive part of meeting all of the houses and deciding which one you want to join is usually completed before classes begin. The new member period (after you choose and are chosen by a house, but before you are initiated) can be a bit time-intensive as you learn more about the sorority and engage in activities, and of course being in a sorority takes a lot of time too. But you have to plan accordingly and essentially make it a priority, just like you would anything else important to you.
I don’t know a whole lot about IFC fraternity recruitment. Most IFC fraternities (which encompass most fraternities on most campuses) do their rush informally and separately, not together like the sororities do. You meet the brothers by attending events they’ve set up for potential new members to meet them, decide which house you want to pursue, and they decide who they want to pick. This happens year-round, although each individual house might have specific times of year they ramp up their recruitment because they know they want to initiate new brothers then.
Most of the multicultural orgs (NPHC - the historically black; NAFLO - the historically Latin@, Asian interest, etc.) have their own specific procedures that are also handled separately, but there are some similarities. One big difference is that whereas NPC and IFC groups often encourage joining as a freshman, some of these multicultural orgs (especially NPHC) require that you be at least a sophomore before joining. Joining junior or senior year is really common, as many of them are more active on the alumni/ae level. Another difference is that for some orgs - especially NPHC and NAFLO orgs - knowing which group you want to join BEFORE you attend events and pursue membership is really important, and you are encouraged to do research and learn as much as you can to make a decision before you start pursuing a group.
It looks like URI (your top choice) only has IFC and NPC groups right now, although you could think about chartering a line if you really wanted to join another org.
Thank you to @Mandalorian and @NorthernMom61 !
@juillet , I apologize for not being clearer! Yes, I’m agender and I would love to experience both the fraternity and sorority “rushing” process, but am worried that I would not be able both to fit it into my future schedule or be able to rush for fraternities, since I “look female”. Thank you so much!!!
Oh! Well that’s going to be very dependent on where you feel you fit in most, as well as the members of the fraternity that you are interested in. Some of them may be very welcoming even given that you code feminine to them, and others may not be. You’d have to observe, attend events, maybe chat with some fraternity members to see where you fit in and assess their openness.
If you go to a college where NPC (sorority) Rush happens before the school year begins, unless you are sure you’d rather be in a sorority than a fraternity, you may want to wait until your sophomore year to Rush so you can suss out the Greek life at the college and figure out where you fit in.
Also, there are some fraternities that are co-ed - accept people of all genders. You may consider joining or starting one if your college has one. One of the biggest is Alpha Phi Omega, a service fraternity. Another is the Alpha Delta Phi Society, a Greek org that started as a literary society - they’re small but are actively looking to expand to other campuses. (Right now they are at Binghamton, Brown, Columbia, Wesleyan, and Stanford, with affiliates at George Washington, Penn, SUNY Plattsburgh, Rennselaer and Ursinus College.)
Thank you so much, @juillet !!