The method by which a
fraternity or
sorority meets new prospective members and decides whether to extend offers of membership (or
bids) to those prospective members, also called rushes.
The rush process can be very
informal, very
formal, or anywhere in between, depending on the
university and the house. At the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for example, the fraternities have a very informal rush. Rushes are free to visit any houses they wish at their leisure, and any fraternity can bid them at any time they desire. The
Interfraternity Council provides some official guidance and information for rushes, but it's trivial at best.
The
sororities on the
Illinois campus, however, are much the opposite.
Sorority girls are forbidden to speak to rushes about rush (known as
dirty rush) at all. No non-sisters are allowed into a sorority house at all during the rush period. Rushes are led on tours of the different sorority houses by guides appointed by the
Pan-Hellenic Council, where the sisters in each house put on skits and sing songs. At the end of each "round" of touring, the houses come up with a list of girls they wish to "
call back", and the rushes make a list of the top houses they're interested in. Eventually, the list gets narrowed down to three, and finally to
one.
On most campuses, though, the process lies somewhere between the two
extremes described above.