Within the next month, thousands of you wide-eyed freshmen will be arriving on campuses all across the country. Some of you have no intention of rushing a fraternity, while others knew they wanted to be in a certain house since they were a pre-teen.

Well, if you do decide to rush in the fall, here are a few tips from someone who’s been through the process and wound up where he belonged.

Be yourself- 

I know it sounds obvious, but I also understand that you might want to put on a different persona to impress brothers from one of the top houses on campus. Let’s say that you pretend to be a big shot, and they buy the act and decide to give you a bid. Sooner or later they’re going to discover that “rush you” is different than “actual you.” If they sense that they incorrectly gave you a bid, but still decide to let you initiate, it could be an awkward four years for you. My guess is that you’ll choose to deactivate at some point.  At its core, being in a fraternity is about developing long-lasting relationships, and that might be tough to do with guys you have almost nothing in common with. Here’s the moral of the story: Fraternities are places where you should feel comfortable being yourself, so don’t try to be something you’re not just to fit in.  

There is a house for you if you look hard enough-  

To explain what I mean I have to first tell a story that I’ve heard from a lot freshman who decided to rush. It goes something like this: “When I first showed up to House X, I felt right at home. The brothers were awesome and they kept asking me a bunch of questions about my background and what I was studying. For some reason though, they didn’t invite me to their rush events and started giving me the cold shoulder whenever I showed up at their house. I have no idea what I did wrong, but since they were the only fraternity I paid any attention to, I went there during rush week, but they denied me a bid … God, I hate Greek life.”

While these people had good intentions, they all made one huge mistake: They thought that just because they loved the fraternity that the feeling would be reciprocated. Essentially, they put all their eggs in one basket and didn’t realize that the chapter wasn’t really interested in them. With all that in mind here’s some advice for you freshman, so you don’t end up pissed off at the Greek system: Each fraternity accepts a unique group of guys, and one of them is suited for you. The hard part is discovering which one that is. The only way to find out, is to bounce from house to house early on, and find which group of guys are genuinely interested in maintaining a conversation with you. If they continue asking for you back night after night, then I think you’ve found the right house.  

Try to gauge how much hazing (if any) goes before you decide to commit-  

If you’re skeptical about Greek life because you don’t want to get excessively hazed during pledging, then it’s best to find out what your getting yourself into before you get too excited about a certain house. While you probably won’t feel comfortable enough to just go up to a random brother and ask, “How much do you guys haze?” there are more subtle ways to find out whether or not a house is known for its hazing. No matter how much a fraternity tries to hide its secrets, word will get out if they were caught in some kind of hazing scandal in the past, which could be a huge red flag depending on the type of guy you are. Or, you might overhear conversations between brothers and other PNMs (potential new members) regarding the subject. (Just so you know, not every fraternity hazes its pledges. This might be impossible to believe, but it’s true.)