first year guy rushing

Top tier is kinda hard unless you're foreign, extremely rich and make it known, or you have some sort of hometown connection out of state

Yeah top tier is gonna be hard, you had to meet the brothers throughout the course of the semester and get familiarized with the fraternity, as it is very competitive to get bids.

If you still don't know any fraternities nor have connections, I wouldn't flat out say that you should solely look at mid/lower tier. You should try to go to as many frats at rush as you can and see which frats you like, and notice which ones you think like you back too.

For starters, stay off this site, especially if you don't even have your own formulated opinion on any frats. Don't really worry about rankings cause people post a lot of bs on here. As far of what's always true about the rankings is that DKE, Elmo, and Hall are pretty much always top and it's going to be harder to get a bid there if you haven't met any guys throughout the semester.

First off, of course don't rule anyone out. There's dirty rushing moreso in the top tier houses, but they don't have their entire pledge class picked out before rush. The higher the tier, the better sorority you mix with. That's about as far as the tier takes you.

If you're looking for non-top tier houses, that's everyone on the North side of Beta bridge. Hit as many houses on that side as you can during open house. For the last day of open house when all houses are open, spend your time hitting houses North of Beta bridge first until you knock them all out. If you do this, you should be looking at 8 - 10 first-round invites back.

The lower the tier, the better the brotherhood. All of them throw parties. Don't fret about having a worse experience because you're in a lower tier. Greek life is 30% of the school, so even being in the worst fraternity possible, you're still a part of something that 70% isn't.