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Notes -
Pledging is bascially the application/trial period to join a fraternity at the beginning of a man's first year of university. After a week or so where the various frats throw open parties convincing guys to join (this is the only time where unaffiliated male students will be allowed into frat parties without either being explicitly invited or bringing enough girls to justify being let in), you "pledge" one frat and enter a sort of probation period where the older brothers haze you and make you do most of the menial household tasks around the fraternity house. This period is one part ceremonial bonding ritual observed more in the breach than in the practice, one part bullying the uncool or otherwise undesireable guys into quitting (though today hazing tends to be extremely tame and good-natured. Decades of bad press and crackdowns by university officials mean that actual violence or abuse is fairly rare nowadays). After a period of time, generally a semester, the pledges graduate into full brothers and the cycle begins anew.
Rushing is the sorority equivalent to pledging. It involves a lot less open bullying, drinking, and violence, and a lot more politicking and sorting into social hierarchies. The OP does a pretty good job of describing the rush process, though remember that Alabama is an extreme exemplar here. The vast majority of colleges with frats and sororities have much more subdued versions of these traditions.
Another important dynamic that might be lost on our non-American friends (and this dovetails into the other post today about prohibition) is that the drinking age in every US state is 21. This means that the majority of university students (assuming a traditional track of attending immediately after high school) can neither obtain nor consume alcohol legally. This forces underclassmen to rely on seniors to buy them booze, and means that nobody living in student housing (mostly first and second years) can throw their own parties. This gives fraternities a great deal of social cache. Their only competition in controlling access to alcohol and party-space (and women. Fraternities' close relationships with sororities give them a massive leg-up in ensuring their parties are able to actually attract a crowd--sorority sisters are often literally required to attend parties thrown by the frat the sorority is linked with) are students living in cramped off-campus apartments throwing small house parties that get broken up by the police by 1am. Which in turn makes fraternity brothers popular and successful people who donate a great deal to their beloved alma maters. Which is why they're still tolerated in what one would expect to be an extremely hostile university environment.
(Laughs in party school)
Greek life is the classic way to be a party school.
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