As Ohio State students get back in the swing of winter quarter, the focus of the greek community is rush. Recruitment is at its height amongst Buckeye fraternities and sororities as members and potential members interact through rush week activities.By now, students wishing to join greek life have visited the Greek Councils Office, the headquarters for men of the Interfraternity Council, and women of the Pan-Hellenic Council and Women’s Panhellenic Association.The formats of fraternity and sorority rush are quite different. Formal fraternity rush begins Monday and extends through Friday. Sorority rush is Jan. 16-22.For the engineering fraternity Theta Tau, recruitment is extremely important. “We want to get our name out on campus,” said Peter Shempp, Theta Tau president. “We send out fliers, go to dorms, have events and open houses. Only about 3 percent of Ohio State students are involved (in fraternities or sororities). It’s 10 percent at a lot of other schools.”Rush is especially big this year for sororities. “We have close to 1,000 girls this year,” said Laura Ericksen, Alpha Xi Delta President. Round one of WPA recruitment entails theme parties as well as becoming familiar with the structure of greek life. “During rounds, girls pick houses and they spend about an hour at each one,” Ericksen said. “That’s where you learn about the philanthropies of the houses.”According to Ericksen, getting involved in sorority life is not necessarily difficult. “There is no cost to rush,” she said. “They just sign up through the Women’s Panhellenic Association.”Jan. 22 is Bid Day for sororities. This is when rushees receive written or verbal invitations to particular houses. The stringent WPA ensures that no sorority has recruitment advantages throughout all stages of the rush period. “During rush we can’t talk to rushees,” Ericksen said. “If you got caught, you’d definitely get fined.” Sororities, which are limited to 100 members, can attempt to meet their capacity through continuous open bidding beyond the official rush period provided they do not reach their expected number of bids. “We would like to take on 25 (pledges), and that shouldn’t be a problem,” Ericksen said.Formal recruitment restrictions established by the IFC appear under the council’s recruitment guidelines that control the activities of rush week for fraternities. These rules include eliminating alcohol from social events during rush and the prohibition of illegal substances. In addition, sorority women may not attend fraternity recruitment events and the degradation of women is prohibited.Phi Kappa Psi Rush Chairman Martin Lastrina views fraternity rush as an important part of the greek calendar. “Fraternities discuss what their house is about and try to get the guys to join the fraternity,” Lastrina said. “You meet guys going house to house.”Sarah Sopko, a member of Alpha Xi Delta is enthusiastic about rush week. “Working with philanthropies is exciting,” she said. “This is all about making new friends and sisters that we’ll spend the next four years with.”