Good Morning America ran a piece recently about how to survive sorority recruitment. Tips on what to wear, how to talk, how to present yourself. The kind of stuff that gets packaged as advice but really just teaches women to perform for a week and hope the right house picks them. I read it as an IFC guy who has watched rush from the other side of the fence, and honestly, something about the framing bothered me in a way I couldn't shake.
...
Read more
Continuous open bidding gets sold as this flexible, low-pressure alternative to formal recruitment. Chapters that didn't hit their quota during fall rush, PNMs who missed the official process, everyone gets another shot. Sounds reasonable on paper. But after sitting through more Panhellenic council meetings than I can count, I can tell you that COB is one of the most mismanaged tools in the Greek governance playbook - and almost nobody talks about why.
...
Read more
Ohio State just disbanded a fraternity over hazing and alcohol violations, and if your first reaction was a shrug, I get it. This kind of headline has a rhythm to it by now. School investigates chapter. Chapter gets suspended or shut down. University releases a statement about values and community standards. Everyone moves on until the next one. But I think there's something worth sitting with here before we scroll past it.
...
Read more
I joined my sorority as a freshman who wanted friends and left four years later with a lot more than that - and also a lot more complicated feelings than I expected. The graduation cap comes off and suddenly you're supposed to have this tidy narrative about how Greek life shaped you. I don't have that. What I have is a perspective that shifted pretty dramatically once I wasn't living inside it anymore.
...
Read more
Every chapter has one. He sits somewhere in the middle of chapter meetings, maybe gives a two-minute update about GPA requirements, and then everybody moves on to argue about the date party theme. The academic chair. Probably the most overlooked elected position in any fraternity, and honestly, one of the most important ones a chapter can have - if the guy in the seat actually takes it seriously.
...
Read more
SMU just announced it's adding two fraternities in 2026 and a third in 2028, and the reaction I keep seeing online is basically just excitement. New chapters, more options, growing Greek life - great, right? But anyone who's actually sat in a Panhellenic or IFC governance meeting knows that expansion announcements are the easy part. What comes after is where things get genuinely hard.
...
Read more
I went to my first Greek event as a guest, not a member. A friend dragged me along sophomore fall - before I'd pledged anything - and I spent most of the night noticing the logistics more than the actual party. There were sign-in sheets. There were people at the door with clipboards. The music cut off at a specific time and everyone kind of just accepted it. I remember thinking: this is way more organized than I expected, and not entirely in a fun way.
...
Read more
There's a moment near the end of senior year where Greek life stops being a backdrop and starts being the whole point. You've spent four years complaining about dues, skipping chapter meetings, and swearing you'd transfer to a school with better weather. And then suddenly you're crying in a circle of guys you've known since you were eighteen years old, wearing a shirt that doesn't fit anymore, and wondering how it went this fast. Senior sendoff traditions are the thing nobody warns you about. They hit completely different than you expect.
...
Read more
