Rush period officially came to an end Tuesday with Super Deadline Day, the last day for students to declare that they will be living in a Greek or program house next year. The 20 Greek and program houses, which have been recruiting new members since the beginning of the semester, reported mixed results as rush ended, with some houses experiencing increased numbers and others seeing a significant drop in applicants.
Cooking House, in its first year of existence, is facing severe problems meeting the number of required program house members. Greek and program houses are required to have at least 22 in-house members. Failure to do so can adversely affect a house in the semiannual program house review conducted by Residential Council.
"We had 20 applicants, and maybe half of them committed to the house, so I'm not sure what the results of that will be as yet," said Cooking House President Jason Leung '09. The house also had trouble meeting the required number of returning members. "You need five returning members, and we don't have enough of those either," Leung said.
The fate of Cooking House is not yet clear. "We talked with ResCouncil at their meeting today, but that was before we had heard back from some of our applicants," Leung said. "We are going to talk about it in the future."
ResCouncil Chair Justin Glavis-Bloom '07 confirmed that he had spoken with Leung at the meeting and that Leung "anticipated that his numbers were going to be low for next year," but Glavis-Bloom said nothing was definite.
Rush is a particularly important time for houses with low membership numbers. Delta Phi and Kappa Alpha Theta both failed ResCouncil's fall program house review because they did not have the required number of residents.
Last year Delta Tau, long associated with the wrestling team and facing dwindling membership, was taken over by a group of members of the class of 2009 and re-invented itself. Their first rush since then "went as well as we had hoped," said house president Matthew Dennis '09.
"We had aimed for about five, and that's actually exactly what we had," he said, noting that DTau's new identity has led to an image as "a laid-back frat."
"We all joined this frat on the sort of self-awareness that none of us were the typical frat guys last year," he said. "We didn't have a place in the other fraternities. We sort of conveyed that notion this year in our rush process."
The Alpha Delta Phi Society gave out 42 bids to potential members this year, and 30 pledges confirmed by Tuesday night. ADPhi rush chair Dan Heller '07 wrote in an e-mail to The Herald, "We had a great rush this year. A lot of great people became involved with the house, and we couldn't be more excited to get to know them better through the pledging process." The tentative numbers for ADPhi represent a significant increase from last year, when only seven people pledged the fraternity.
Alpha Epsilon Pi, extended bids to 18 of the approximately 40 people who rushed the fraternity this year and expect about 16 to join, according to AEPi rush chair Devin Cohen'09.
Though fraternities reported an increase in applicants, many who pledged Greek houses this year said the process didn't feel very cutthroat.
"It wasn't competitive at all, probably because there's not much interest in frats at Brown," said David Notis '10, who is joining Delta Tau. "I'm very excited," he added. "I think it's going to be a totally new way of living."
Other applicants disagreed about the level of competition during rush. Elizabeth Janopaul-Naylor '10 applied to Buxton International House and said, "I got in, but definitely the process was very intimidating. Even their parties were somewhat overwhelming in the number of people we were surrounded by who were also applying." She said the process was hard because applicants were judged "socially."
"If you don't get in, it's like, 'Wow, am I a loser?'" Janopaul-Naylor said.
Buxton is one of the more competitive program houses this year - 102 people applied, and 37 were admitted. However, Buxton President Hui Ling Poon '08 said numbers had "dropped a fair amount" from the 160 applicants they had last year and 120 the year before. She attributed the drop to "a change in sentiment, or maybe people are less interested in program houses."
Si-Han Hai '08, the president of Spanish House in Machado House said 30 students applied this year - an increase of 10 over last year. Spanish House accepted all the applicants, and about 25 are expected to choose to join.
"We will have more people than we did have this year and definitely an increase in freshmen," she said. According to Hai, the popularity could be "because of the housing lottery, and a lot of freshmen are afraid of entering the lottery."
Janopaul-Naylor agreed about the influence of the housing lottery. "There's the immediate relief of not having to do the housing lottery," she said. "There's less unease about housing - not just the housing lottery but also knowing who I'll be living with."
Olivia Olsen '08, president of French House in Machado, said though French House had 30 applicants this year, it was a "very significant" decrease compared to the 50 applicants they had the year before. Olsen said that the decrease might result from the lottery being held later this year, since many students may not be thinking of housing just yet.
Students who choose to join program or Greek houses will start living there next semester.
"I'm really, really excited. I think it will be a new and social environment," Janopaul-Naylor said.
Super Deadline Day was also the last day for students to request special-interest housing. Options for special-interest housing include same-sex, substance free, over-21, transgender and quiet accommodation.
