Fraternities see increase in pledge numbers

With rush over and pledging in process, the number of new members projected to join fraternities is slowly taking shape.

Fraternities that make up the Inter-Fraternity Council (IFC) reported to have received a total of 173 pledges. Last year 159 pledges were ultimately inducted into a fraternity.

Considering the fact that most, if not all, pledges officially go on to become full-fledged members, this year’s pledge class of 173 is a big increase from the 159 new members last year.

Robert Turning, the Greek Life Coordinator at Hopkins, did not have the official number of new fraternity pledges by the time of press, and thus could not comment on the reason for the increase.

Alpha Delta Phi, or more commonly known as WaWa, reported 29 pledges, Alpha Epsilon Pi reported 14, Beta Theta Pi 24, Lambda Phi Epsilon 7, Phi Delta Theta 10, Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) 14, Phi Kappa Alpha 23, Sigma Alpha Epsilon 16, Sigma Chi 4 and Sigma Phi Epsilon 17.

Overall, the fraternities that received the new pledges conveyed satisfaction in how the rush events have gone and how the pledge events are going.

“We have seen great turnout at our rush events, and I’m looking forward to see how the fraternity [Alpha Epsilon Pi] will progress with the new pledge class,” John Maccabee, Rush Chair of Alpha Epsilon Pi, said.

“Rush was a big success for us,” Rush Chair of Fiji Charlie Buffa said. “We had a lot of kids coming out to the events, a lot of kids expressing interests.” He was also optimistic about the pledge class.

“Pledging is still going on, so I can’t tell [whether it’s a success or not] yet, but we are definitely excited about it,” he said. Buffa’s counterpart in Phi Kappa Psi, Ethan Doyle, showed even more satisfaction. “[This year’s pledge class] is probably the best we’ve had,” Doyle said.

Even the fraternities that saw small pledge classes, some explicitly smaller than last year’s, reported that they were satisfied with the results.

Amit Thakrar, Rush Chair of Phi Delta Theta, still considered his fraternity’s pledge class of 10, which is a decrease from last year’s 22, a success.

“A lot of frats are different in recruiting. We’re small, and we like to keep it that way,” he said. “[This year’s rush and pledging] are definitely a success,” he added.

Erik Kanter, Rush Chair of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, which also saw a decrease from 18 to 16 this year, emphasized that it was the people that mattered, not the numbers. “In terms of quality, I’m satisfied [with our pledge class],” he said.

“There are a lot of good guys. It’s about quality, not quantity. How well do each of these kids fit in, how good of a person they are, that’s what’s important.”

Indeed, even Rocky Barilla, Rush Chair of Sigma Chi, which only got seven pledges, said he was somewhat content. “We didn’t have a frat house. Under those circumstances, I think we did a good job [in recruiting pledges],” he said. He did, however, say it would have been nice to have more.

On the other hand, 163 girls have enrolled in the sorority pledging process.

That is a decrease from last year’s 183. Turning attributed the decrease to the fact that last year’s freshman class was unusually large. Indeed, 201 started the sorority rushing process last year, while only 195 did this year.

However, that does not explain the drastic drop from 195 to 163, which is much larger decrease than from 201 to 183. Turning suspected that this year’s abnormal number of girls dropping out during rush is due to a possible concentration of interest in particular sororities, not due to less interest in rushing in general.

“The chapters that are most preferred, the ones that do the best in recruitment, they have to release women earlier in the process,” Turning said. “That’s because they know they’re going to get more women that they can end up asking in the end.”

The number of women that each sorority “releases,” or in other words the number of women it will not invite back to the next rush event, is determined by its national headquarters.

Thus, if there are particular sororities that are unusually popular, then more girls rushing will get rejected from rush events, and thus will decide to drop.

However, as Turning pointed out, the number of girls dropping is hard to predict let alone reduce, because it is very much determined by the rushing girls’ interests and the internal dynamics that each sorority has with its headquarters.

But Turning did explain that the effect of such a rushing system could be beneficial.

“[It] evens out the playing field for all four sororities,” he said, “because those who aren’t going to be matched to one sorority can look for other sororities earlier on.”

It is for that reason that Turning said that there were immediate plans to change the rush or pledging processes in the future. However, he did say that he wants to establish more sorority chapters on campus.

“We want to keep adding chapters, so we could reduce each sorority’s pledge class enough so that everyone can get to know each other better,” he said. “The ultimate goal is to have as many sororities as there are fraternities.”