A lot of colleges across the country choose to have their formal freshman recruitment start right at the beginning of the first semester. It seems a fewer amount of schools force their freshman to wait until the second semester to go Greek. I come from a school that holds a spring rush. Here are several reasons why I’d rather have a spring rather than a fall recruitment
Stop making High School Children Make Decisions
Graduating seniors from high school AND first-semester freshman are children who still shouldn’t be making important decisions. Come on, we all know that there is a vast difference between the campus-life intelligence of a first semester freshman when compared to that of a second semester freshman. The former has no idea what they’re doing.
Better To Have a Semester to Get To Know the Choices
Kind of piggybacking on the first point about the lanyard wearing children, it just makes sense for first semester freshman to get a better understanding of which chapter will be best for them. The first semester is a great time to “sample the goods” and find out where they fit best. Alternatively, this also gives the actives more time to get to know the candidates. This lowers the risk of giving a bid to a complete dud who tricked you into thinking they were a good fit for a couple weeks at the beginning of the school year.
Better to Establish Grades
If done correctly, the recruitment and pledging process should be a substantial time commitment for a PNM. How many of us know students who absolutely bombed academically their first semester of freshman year and had to watch them try to work themselves out of a hole over the next four years? It makes sense to give them one semester to focus on getting the highest GPA possible before they choose to go Greek.
Let Them Make Friends Before They Go Greek
Let first semester freshman make friends in their dorms before they go Greek. I’m sure everyone has heard the stories about how tiger kittens can successfully be raised in a litter of puppies. You can see videos of these kittens and the puppies as adults and how they act like they’re siblings even after the tiger is introduced to other tigers. If that tiger was raised by tigers those dogs would be dinner. This is an extreme example to get my point across…but I believe that by allowing freshman to make friends prior to everybody joining separate chapters we could better support interfrateralism among all Greeks. Maybe it would even bring more GDI’s into the fold. No one has ever left a campus after graduation regretting the fact that they had tons of friends from all different groups.
Dealing with the Weather
There’s just one last reason that I’d like to mention and it pertains to the weather during fall versus that of the spring. This is just a personal preference and I understand that people will side with the opposite viewpoint, but as an active I’d rather not have to deal with recruitment and the pledge process during what I consider the best months of the year. I have the most fun during the warm summer and early autumn months of the first semester. Everyone is excited to be back on campus, they hopefully have some money in their pockets, and it’s football season. I’d rather save recruitment and pledging for the gloomy months at the beginning of the second semester.
What are your thoughts? I’d be glad to hear the opposing viewpoints in the comment section below.
