John Mark DiGrazia, Recruitment Chair 2012
Spring Rush was enormously successful for Beta this year. Aided by another year of growing our reputation at UVA, as well as our move back to 180 Rugby Road, we saw over 300 men come through our doors for rush this year, which was more than we have ever had previously. Perhaps more significantly, we saw very high yield rates as most men invited back for each round continued to rush our chapter. At every event that we held this year, we had more rushees attend than we had in previous years, and it became a difficult task to whittle down the group as we considered our final pledge class.
Throughout the process, many of the men rushing commented on the impressiveness of our fraternity house and mentioned that they too wished they could have such an iconic place to live and hang out. The house became a major selling point throughout rush, and we were able to host three successful events at the house during rush – an NFC Championship and chili night, a casino night, and a buffalo burgers cookout. It was great to see the house largely filled during these events, and we certainly benefited from the extra room compared to last year.
In the end, we received a pledge class of 23 men, and many members of our chapter consider this class to be our best class yet. Combined with our current 57 active brothers, our chapter has now reached a total of 80 members. I look forward to seeing the chapter continue to grow in years to come.