Both the Interfraternity Council and the Panhellenic Council have made changes to their fall rush policies in order to respond to changing conditions on campus, namely the Trustee's Initiative.
Panhell does not expect 100 percent of rushees to be matched with a house, as in past years, while the IFC is exploring the purported exclusive nature of the rush system.
So far, 250 women have registered for rush, according to Panhell Rush Chair Ashley Wendus '00, who expects an additional 15 to 50 women to sign up in the Fall term. Panhell Summer President Chiara Grabill '01 called this "one of the biggest rushes" in recent years.
According to Grabill, all rushees are not likely to be given bids this year due to the large volume of women who are interested in joining a house.
"The number of girls rushing has been unprecedented and we do not have room to accommodate" them, Grabill said. "We would like to be able to guarantee bids."
Wendus stressed that there has never been an official Panhell policy to guarantee bids, but that in the past two years, all women who have completed the rush process have been matched with a sorority.
Wendus said the rush chairs will not decide the feasibility of guaranteeing bids until during rush when final numbers become available.
Grabill said that the large demand for spaces in sorority houses contributed to the interest in creating a seventh Panhell sorority house last year.
Further plans to form the sorority have been put on hold until the announcement of the Initiative plans in the Fall term, Wendus said.
According to Wendus, there was "a great deal of interest expressed in the formation of a new sorority."
"The majority of women who expressed interest have registered to participate in fall rush," she added.
The number of invites a house issues is determined by a national formula calculated from such factors as the number of women currently in the house and the average percent return rate for each house for the past two years.
Since last year, the first round of rush has been modified to include a philanthropy project, where each rushee will make a simple project at each house, completing a care package by the end of the first round to be delivered to various local care organizations.
For the Panhellenic Council, rush begins on September 23rd and ends on October 4th. There will be four main rounds with days off between each round.
The IFC sent out a mailing about the rush process to the 517 male members of the Class of 2002 last week. IFC Rush Chair Alex Waters '01 expects 60 to 70 percent to rush.
He said that traditionally a large portion of the second year male class rushes, although there have not been any actual statistics recorded in the past.
The IFC hopes to change that this year, using a webpage to keep track of such figures as how many men decide to rush and how many men receive bids at the end of the rush process.
"We're testing out new ideas to get a handle on the numbers," Waters said.
According to Waters, part of the reason the IFC is exploring such numbers is the Trustee's Initiative and in particular, the allegation that the fraternity system is exclusive.
The IFC has made two changes to the rush process. The first is their recommendation to the second year class that men consider four top choices for fraternity houses, more than rushees usually have in mind going into the process.
"We want to try to get people to think about other houses they might want," Waters said.
The second change is the introduction of a voluntary policy for houses to accept at least 30 percent of the size of the house if the number of rushes is greater or equal to 40 percent of the house size.
"Anyone who really wants to be in a Greek house will be in one after rush," IFC Summer President Ed Bialas '01 said.
"Our principle is that every one who wants to get into houses will get into houses.
"If there are a couple of guys who don't, we'll talk to the houses [and try to persuade them to extend an invite]. We don't want to guarantee bids because if there's a house that has a real problem with somebody, we don't want to force this guy to get in," Waters added.
For fraternity houses, fall rush begins on October 4th and ends on October 6th. The 4th and 5th is "open rush", where any sophomore male is invited to rush any fraternity house.
The 6th is reserved for individual rush invitations. All bids will be given out by October 8th.
