How do I join a fraternity?
Rush is a week long process where potential new members visit the houses taking part, meet the brothers, and work out where they fit, while each house works out the same thing about them. Rush happens in Fall and again in Winter. Most people visit a lot of houses on the first day and narrow it down as the week goes on. A bid is an invitation to join. Bids can be given on any day, usually starting the second, and accepting one begins a new member process before initiation.
What does it cost?
Joining costs $400 one time. Due when you start the pledge process, not before. Nothing is owed for turning up to rush, and nothing is owed if you decide this is not for you. Dues are $950 per quarter. This is the chapter bill. Rent, if you live in the house, is separate. Living in the house is $690 per month, utilities included. Power, water and internet are inside that figure, not a separate bill arriving on top of it. What that does not cover is food. The chapter has not published a meal plan figure for Fall 2026, so budget meals separately and ask one of the rush chairs what the house currently runs. We would rather say that than let you find out in September. Living in comes with house jobs. They are assigned for the term and done weekly: kitchen, bathrooms, trash, common rooms, the work that keeps thirty-odd people in one building. That work is where house points come from, and house points are how rooms get assigned. It is the difference between a fraternity house and an apartment with your friends in it. Rooms are doubles through quads. Rooms are assigned on house points, not on seniority and not on what you can pay. House points are what you put into the chapter: showing up, taking a job and doing it, and the work nobody volunteers for. If the number is the thing standing in your way, say so early and say so to us. It is a normal conversation and it is not held against you.
Theta Chi's national Foundation Chapter awards scholarships to brothers on academic performance, service, leadership, financial need and career goals. The two endowed programs are the Blue Memorial Scholarships, open to undergraduates and graduates, and the Simon Memorial Scholarships, for engineering majors. Awards have historically ranged from a few hundred dollars to several thousand per recipient; the Foundation publishes the current figures and deadlines with the application. Theta Chi Foundation scholarships. Figures are as of Fall 2026; the rush page
carries the same numbers.
Will I be hazed?
No, and we would rather answer this one before you have to ask. Hazing is prohibited. Theta Chi will never ask any brother or pledge to do something that they are not willing to do. New members and pledges have the same rights as brothers and we will not tolerate any brother trying to assert power over them. The Pledge Marshal is the only brother with the authority to determine what is expected of the new members, and he takes an oath to prevent “any action taken which produces bodily harm or danger, mental or physical discomfort, embarrassment, harassment, fright, or ridicule.” If anything you meet here falls short of that, tell any brother, or write to the chapter directly, or report it to UCLA outside the chapter entirely. All three routes, with the actual addresses and phone number, are listed below this answer.
What should I expect at rush?
Food, a lot of people, and a week that is less formal than it sounds. Our events are casual and open to everyone. You do not need an invitation and you do not need to know anybody here. There is real food: Texas BBQ, a roast pig, taco nights, Steak and Shrimp. You will meet brothers who are busy with other things on campus, from club sports and student government to research and pre-professional societies. You are welcome to come back on as many nights as you like, and to visit as many other houses as you like. Picking a fraternity is like picking friends. Go where you are comfortable, not where you feel you ought to be.
Is there drinking?
The house is not dry, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What is true is how events run. Rush is dry, every recruitment event, with no exceptions, so the part you will see first has no alcohol at it. Beyond rush: no hard alcohol, beer and wine only; sober brothers are on duty at any event where there is alcohol, named before the night starts and responsible for it; and events are registered in advance and run on a guest list rather than an open door. If any of that stops being true, this answer should change.
What is the pledging process like?
New members go through an educational program before initiation. You learn the chapter's history, its traditions, and what is expected of a member. A Pledge Marshal oversees it and is the brother accountable for it. Class, work and family come first. If something clashes, say so and it is arranged around. During the process the brotherhood treats new members as members, not as candidates.
What does it take to be initiated?
First you meet the brothers during rush. If that goes well on both sides you receive a bid to become a new member, and then you complete the new member program. Finish it and you are initiated as a brother for life. During this process you can always drop if you decide you do not fit into the fraternity, and likewise the fraternity can ask you to leave if they do not see you fit. Nobody is required to explain themselves for walking away.
Why Theta Chi?
Some numbers rather than adjectives. Seventy-seven brothers are active right now, and the chapter's recorded big-and-little lineage runs to 468 men across six family lines, which you can read on our family tree page. At UCLA Relay For Life in 2023 our team finished first in fundraising with $15,546, took best Greek life team, and won the spirit award for the eleventh year running. The house is at 663 Gayley Avenue, a few doors from campus, and what it costs to live in it is on the rush page, in full, with what that figure does and does not include. Those are checkable. Whether you like the people is the part you have to come and find out.
Why join a fraternity at all?
The honest version: it gives you a fixed group of people at a university large enough to be lonely in, somewhere affordable to live, and a set of responsibilities that will make you better at things you are currently bad at: running a meeting, handling money, apologising properly. It is also a real commitment of time and money, and it is not for everybody. Plenty of people at UCLA have an excellent four years without it. We would rather you joined knowing that than found it out in November.
What is expected of a brother?
That you turn up, do the job you took on, and pay your dues on time. That you keep your grades where they need to be, and ask for help before that becomes a problem rather than after. That you take how you behave in public seriously, because it lands on everybody who lives here. And that you are involved in something outside this house as well. The chapter is more interesting when its members are.
