With Saturday marking the close of formal fraternity recruitment, a record number of students accepted bids to join fraternities. The Interfraternity Council expects the numbers to increase over the next two days as outstanding bids are signed.

As of Sunday evening, the IFC had not released official numbers of accepted bids, but the number was higher than last year’s preliminary class of 332.

IFC Communications Director Lee Ettleman, a former Daily staffer, confirmed that by the end of formal recruitment, more freshmen had accepted bids than in any other year. IFC Vice President of Recruitment Joey Fink expects to publicize the statistics within the next two days, he said.

“Joining a fraternity is a pretty big decision with social and financial considerations, so a lot of houses have kids waiting and deciding past the end of the official recruitment week,” the Communication senior said. “We want to wait a few more days because kids are still (accepting) bids.”

An increase in IFC marketing was a factor in the success of this year’s recruitment, but the fraternities themselves deserve most of the credit, Ettleman said.

“I really think it was the efforts made by the fraternities that really made the guys that joined houses think, ‘this is the right decision for me’,” the Medill senior said. “PR increases awareness but it’s the friendships that people make during the recruitment process that make people want to join.”

This was true for Josh Brower, who accepted a bid from Zeta Beta Tau on Tuesday night. The Weinberg freshman formed friendships with members after the end of Freshman Freeze and attended the ZBT recruitment events last week with a group of friends.

“There were great events that brought people together and as more and more people were added to the pledge class, you could really feel it coming together,” Brower said.

Alpha Epsilon Pi President Dan Heiferman said that this winter’s pledge class is the largest in the chapter’s 11-year history on campus. With 27 bids signed during formal recruitment, Heiferman is excited for the future.

“Obviously, it’s a great bunch of guys,” the Weinberg junior said. “It’s going to be great for our chapter to have a class size this big.”

As a pledge, Brower reflected on the highlights of recruitment and said he is very excited to get to know his new brothers.

“(Recruitment) is so casual and relaxed and you can enjoy the process,” Brower said. “It’s much more in your hands compared to sorority recruitment. I’m glad to be a guy.”

Reach Sara Fay at [email protected].