While gaggles of female sophomores will continue to rush sororities in a process that began Tuesday, this year's relatively quick fraternity rush season will begin Saturday and run a total of six hours. Events will be three nights, with two-hour sessions during each.
Any male student who has at least sophomore standing is eligible to participate, explained Interfraternity Council President Dave Lindenbaum '08.
Prospective fraternity members can visit as many or as few houses as they choose during the rush period to meet members. They are not required to spend any set amount of time at any of the houses.
Immediately after the houses close on Saturday and Sunday nights, the fraternity members will deliberate about the potential new members who visited their house that night and decide which students will receive bids to join that house. By the end of the night, students will receive one of three notifications: They can receive a bid to join the house, be declined a bid to join the house or be given a call back.
"A call back is literally, 'Please come back tomorrow, so we can get to know you better,'" Lindenbaum said.
While a student may receive bids from multiple houses, he can accept only one.
If a student feels an especially strong connection with a particular house, he can "shake out" at that house at the end of the night. During shakeout, potential fraternity members line up outside of a house and shake hands with the members of that fraternity to signal their interest.
"Shaking out is a kind of informal agreement showing that the house you're shaking out at is your first choice house and that if given a bid you would go to that house," Lindenbaum said.
Shaking out at a house does not guarantee that a student will receive a bid, nor does it obligate him to accept a bid should he be offered one.
While there is no technical rule prohibiting students from shaking out at multiple houses, most houses hold shake out at the same time, immediately before the houses close for deliberations, effectively preventing them from doing so.
Students who do not receive bids on Saturday or Sunday night but who are still interested in joining a fraternity may have the option of attending rush on Monday night. While all houses are required to stay open on the first two nights, however, each house decides individually whether to remain open on Monday.
Lindenbaum said that no major changes were made to rush this year from previous years. Lindenbaum also said that he expects comparable numbers of students to rush this year to last year, although the lack of a rush registration process makes it impossible to predict exactly how many people will rush.
General information sessions are held to recruit students for rush and to inform them about how the process works. Each house also holds its own rush events, such as barbecues, to recruit potential new members. Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, for example, held rush events as early as Spring term, according to current rush chair Charlie Stoebe '08.
