Over 70 students joined one of GW’s eight fraternities last month, marking the highest number of accepted bids during fall recruitment since fall 2021 after the Interfraternity Council allowed first-year students to rush this semester.
Out of the 92 students who rushed for one of GW’s eight social fraternities, 75 accepted bids — an 80 percent increase in the number of students vying to join a fraternity compared to last fall’s recruitment process, according to a University spokesperson. The increase comes after the IFC announced in August they would open up the fall recruitment process to all students, removing a policy requiring potential new members to complete at least 12 credit hours at GW before rushing.
A University spokesperson said in an email about 37 percent of the 92 students rushing this fall were first-year students. The spokesperson said on average each fraternity accepted nine bids but declined to disclose the exact number of students each fraternity accepted.
This fall recruitment had the highest number of accepted bids since fall 2021, when 121 students joined an IFC fraternity after officials briefly paused the 12-credit requirement to allow the incoming first-year class to better connect with the campus following pandemic-related restrictions hindering social life at GW. Following the reimplementation of the 12-credit policy in fall 2022, recruitment plummeted, with only 22 students joining fraternities.
The uptick in fall rush participation marks a departure from a trend in IFC recruitment where more students rushed in the spring than fall since the reinstatement of the policy starting with the fall 2022 rush cycle.
IFC Vice President of Public Relations Constantinos Pavlou said this fall rush was “pretty successful” after the removal of the 12-credit policy.
“We are hoping to see the number grow with spring rush,” Pavlou said in a text message. “But it is too early to tell.”
IFC President Trex Jones said in August the council decided to nix the credit minimum in order to offer more rush opportunities to first-year students to fit their schedules and expand interest in Greek life on campus.
Fifty-three students accepted bids in fall 2023, but the nine IFC fraternities saw a decrease to 26 students accepting bids in the fall of 2024, which some IFC members attributed to delayed programming schedules with events for potential new members. In its most recent recruitment cycle in spring 2025, the nine IFC fraternities had 91 students accepting a bid.
Since spring 2025, one of the IFC’s nine fraternities, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, voluntarily went inactive, a University spokesperson confirmed in an email last month.
Ben Rush, the recruitment chair of Phi Gamma Delta, said the organization altered a few aspects of its recruitment plans, including establishing an unofficial “FIJI apartment” at the home of two of its members since the organization lacks official on-campus housing, allowing the fraternity to have a central location for rush events and connecting with potential new members. He added that this year’s fall formal recruitment process was a “good start” for the fraternity’s 2025-26 academic year.
Rush said the fraternity is now looking toward the informal recruitment process that takes place throughout October. He said the informal recruitment process is a “simpler” process for fraternities, consisting of current fraternity members meeting individually with students potentially interested in joining a fraternity that did not participate in the “stressful” weeklong formal recruitment process.
“We’ve always been better through informal than formal,” Rush said. “That’s just kind of how our fraternity works. It’s how we operate, and that’s what we always thrive on.”
Michael Cipolla, a first-year student studying political science, who rushed and accepted a bid to Delta Tau Delta, said he did not look into joining a fraternity before arriving on campus this semester because his friends who were rushing for fraternities at other schools described a more “intense” rush process than at GW, dissuading him from vying to join a fraternity.
Cipolla said he felt motivated to rush only after seeing fraternity advertisements, recognizing the ability to make new friends during his first fall semester through the fraternity and believing the rush process at GW would not be as vigorous as other schools with stringent criteria and a competitive environment, because fraternity life is not as prolific on GW’s campus.
“I saw it getting promoted, and I know a good amount of people, but I want to meet more people,” Cipolla said. “So I was like, ‘Why not?'”
