Home / Guides / Professional fraternities at SMU

Guide

Professional fraternities at SMU: a fair guide

Professional fraternities are a different animal from the houses on the Boulevard. This is what they are, how to tell them apart, and where Phi Chi Theta fits.

Professional versus social

Social fraternities and sororities at SMU are organized around housing, community and tradition, and they recruit through a formal rush managed by the university. Professional fraternities are organized around a field of work. They are almost always coeducational, they usually do not have houses, and they recruit on their own schedules through Info Sessions and applications.

The two are not exclusive. Plenty of Phi Chi Theta brothers are also in a social chapter, and plenty are not. Neither path is a prerequisite for the other.

The main types you will see

• Business. Chapters focused on finance, accounting, marketing, real estate, consulting and management. Nationally the most common names are Phi Chi Theta, Delta Sigma Pi and Alpha Kappa Psi. Phi Chi Theta's Alpha Gamma Chapter is SMU's professional business fraternity. Whether other national business fraternities have active SMU chapters changes over time, so check with the SMU student organization directory for the current list.
• Law and government. Aimed at students headed to law school or public service.
• Health. Pre med, pre dental and pre pharmacy groups that pair mentoring with volunteer hours.
• Engineering and technology. Often tied to Lyle and to specific disciplines.
• Music, arts and service. Band fraternities, arts groups and service based chapters that sit between social and professional.

What a business chapter does week to week

Using Phi Chi Theta as the example: chapter meetings are typically at the Cox School of Business. Some meetings are internal, covering committee work, upcoming events and chapter business. Others bring in a guest speaker from a Dallas firm; Holiner Holdings is one that has visited. Around those meetings sit interview prep, resume reviews with upperclassmen, a philanthropy event called Pie Chi Theta that raises money for the SPCA, a spring formal and socials.

The output is visible on the internships page. Brothers have taken roles at Morgan Stanley, JLL, Visa, Texas Capital Bank, Hilltop Securities, Lockton, Jackson Walker and a long list of other firms.

How recruitment differs from Greek rush

There is no university run rush week for professional fraternities. Each chapter runs its own recruitment, usually in the first few weeks of a semester. For Phi Chi Theta, fall recruitment usually runs in the first weeks of September with Info Sessions, a Meet the Brothers social night and an application deadline about a week later. Spring recruitment follows the same shape in late January or February. Dates change; Instagram has the current ones.

The application is the whole ballgame. There are no bids, no preference cards and no ranking. You tell the chapter what you want out of it, officers read that, and they follow up. The recruitment guide walks through it.

How to choose

Three questions cover most of it. Where do the members end up, and is that where you want to go? Can you get in with your major, and will the room have more than one type of student in it? And would you go to the meetings if attendance were not taken? The what to look for page expands each one. Whatever chapter you choose, choose it by going to the Info Session, not by reading about it. Including this page.