when

The answer: It depends, and different organizations have different approaches. I've spoken with other fraternity leaders about it, and had some pretty interesting discussions on the topic.

Generally, you'll see people pledging earlier in college rather than later. Some fraternities are extremely hesitant to take upperclassmen, primarily due to a fear that it's "not worth it"- that they'll be around for a short period of time and then disappear.

In terms of our approach, we make a point to never let it be a factor, and focus solely on judging a man by the content of his character and his scholarly drive. We've had outstanding brothers that joined their senior year, and continued to support the chapter after graduation.

The philosophy of "I was in a frat in college" has a logical progression to focusing on younger recruitment- if you treat fraternity involvement as 4 years of fun instead of lifelong, it makes sense to focus on freshmen. We treat brotherhood as a lifelong commitment to the kind of man you'll be, so we'll take a senior if he makes the cut.

Different approaches work for different organizations, and a lot of it comes down to your priorities as an organization.

Ideally, if you click enough with the brothers, it doesn't matter when exactly you rush. However, to get the most out of your time there you want to rush as early as you can.

As it is, you will see that pledges consist mainly of freshmen, with a few sophomores, in rare cases juniors, and almost never seniors.

Fraternities at NYU have both Spring and Fall rush. I think the majority of people rush Fall of freshman year or Spring of sophomore year. Enough time to get used to college, but still early enough to get a lot out of their undergraduate experience. There's no right or wrong way to go about it, though.