All Three Fraternities Accept New Pledge Classes

Following this month’s spring rush season, Harvard’s three fraternities have accepted a handful of new pledges from a competitive pool of would-be brothers.

Sigma Chi accepted 11 new pledges—just over 10 percent of the 107 men who rushed this month—according to president Daniel J. Zangri ’14. Alpha Epsilon Pi has taken on less than 20 percent of its rushes, accepting six new pledges from a pool of between 30 to 35 men, according to president Evan A. Ribot ’14. The president, vice president, and treasurer of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, which has also completed its spring rush process, did not return repeated requests for comment about the number of new pledges they accepted this season.

Unlike the campus sororities, which typically hold a unified rush process each spring governed by the Cambridge-Area Panhellenic Council, each of Harvard’s fraternities holds its own separate rush process each semester.

This past month, each fraternity held an open rush process featuring a series of social events designed to give members and rushes a chance to mingle. Sigma Chi, for example, held four total events—including a three events open to all interested men and a final invitation-only dinner—over the span of several weeks. The accepted rushes will go through a pledge process before being accepted as official members later this semester.

Greek organizations on campus, which are not officially recognized by the University, have seen significant growth in recent years. The presidents of Sigma Chi and AEPi both said they have seen increasingly large rush classes in the past few years.

AEPi—which now has 61 official members, likely the most in the campus fraternity’s history, according to Ribot—tried to limit the size of this season’s rush class in response to the fraternity’s growth.

“We just kind of scaled the events down a little bit and kind of changed the tone of events because we were just looking to bring out a smaller class,” Ribot said. “The events were a little bit less outwardly social and a little bit more geared towards getting to know the brothers, getting to chill in a pretty relaxed setting and meet a lot of guys.”

Jack C. Smith ’15, vice president of Sigma Chi, said his fraternity must limit the size of its pledge class due to logistics.

“We can’t take everyone who shows up,” Smith said. “The process is open until the end, but we do have to make cuts.”

Smith said that Sigma Chi is pleased with its new pledges.

“The new class coming in, they’re all terrific guys,” he said.

—Brian C. Zhang contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Laya Anasu can be reached at layaanasu@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @layaanasu.