Hundreds go Greek during Rush week

The beginning of the week saw the conclusion of Rush week for Tech's fraternities and sororities, an event where freshmen and other prospective Greeks get a chance to acquaint themselves with the fraternities and sororities on campus and ideally join the one that is his or her best match.

Last year's Rush made noise because of the increase in the number of participants and near record number of bids. Participation this year was consistent with last year's as the overall numbers were about the same.

Rush week began during the first week of the fall semester. The six national sororities of the National Panhellenic Council (NPC) held the process of Formal Recruitment for the new women coming to campus. For men interested in seeing what Tech Greeks have to offer, the campus fraternities held their own events all week.

"There is no commitment when you go to Rush, but you get a great opportunity to go and meet with the other people on campus," said Jon Skypek, vice president of recruitment for the Interfraternity Council (IFC).

"I am so excited that [Formal Recruitment] went so well. Our numbers were up [this year], and we were so successful," said Molly McKenzie, Vice President of Recruitment for the National Panhellenic Council (NPC).

McKenzie said that Formal Recruitment is a process of mutual recruitment. After the first day's activities, the women list their preferred chapters. With this feedback, the sororities can see who is interested and decide who they want to attend the next day's activities. Eventually, this process works its way down until only one sorority is left.

The 361 participants in Formal Recruitment this year was consistent with the 363 that participated last year.

Of these 361 "potential new members" as they are called, 280 joined one of the six NPC sororities, very close to last year's number of 290. The average number of women joining each sorority was approximately 47.

The three other sororities on campus who did not participate in Formal Recruitment will be having their open recruitment this week. These will not be sponsored by the NPC.

As for the men, there were 514 pledges for the 30 IFC fraternities, close in number to last year's total of 551 pledges.

"A challenge of my job is to get people to rush. We try to dispel some of the myths about fraternities [as well as] trying to communicate the benefits of joining a fraternity... There are many fraternities out there and we want to show that there is one [for any kind of person]," Skypek said.

Skypek said these past couple of years have been different than the previous ones. Up until Sunday, the IFC had been seeing some of the worst numbers as far as pledges per fraternity.

"We didn't want the freshmen to go out that first night and accept a bid [without] visiting any of the other fraternities... This year, [we saw] a lot of the fraternities sitting on their bids [for the whole week]," Skypek said.

Tied for the most number of pledges, at 29, were the fraternities Sigma Chi and Lambda Chi Alpha. The average number of pledges per fraternity came in at approximately 17, one less than last year's average of 18.

"An interesting thing this year is that, although some of the larger chapters saw [lower pledge classes], some of the smaller chapters have done very well. This continues the trend [of growth] from last year," Skypek said.

Another trend carrying over from last year are the fraternity tours hosted by the IFC. Despite the heat during the day, 120 freshmen and 20 parents participated in tours that visited 10 different fraternities said Skypek.

"The fraternities tours went very well [this year]. Overall, I'm happy with the numbers that we got," Skypek said.