For many UCLA students and their parents, fraternities can be very confusing. Throughout the years we've received lots of questions about all aspects of fraternity life. Here are answers to the most common ones:
A fraternity is an organization of men that are connected by a common goal. Historically, this goal involves upholding integrity in response to injustice, showing courage in response to adversity, or showing honor in response to corruption. Delta Tau Delta was founded at the dawn of the American Civil War on these principles, and more; specifically, Truth, Courage, Faith, and Power. Today, life at UCLA is much calmer than 1858, so these principles translate to community service, philanthropy, social events, friendship, and brotherhood. In many ways, a fraternity is like any other club that provides for the local community, however, its foundation is much, much deeper.
Joining a fraternity is similar to joining any other club at UCLA. Typically, a student visits each chapter's headquarters at the start of the quarter to see if they would be a good fit for any fraternity. If the student shows leadership in their life, whether through other organizations or in daily interactions with others; if the student is outgoing and social; if the student is creative and ambitious; and if the student has something great to offer through their own personal gifts, then the student may very well be a great fit for our organization. As such, if the active brothers can see potential in this student, they will extend the student an invitation. Upon acceptance, the student will participate in an 8-week long trial period with the fraternity where they learn more about Delta Tau Delta's mission, values, and how they fit in to our organization. After this period, the student is initiated into our fraternity and becomes an active member, ready to extend this opportunity towards other young leaders at UCLA.
Hazing is defined as anything that a pledging member does that an active member does not. This definition is very broad for a reason, as other fraternities have used the pledge quarter as an excuse to demean and embarrass pledges wishing to join their organization. Hazing is an illegal offense and punishable by law. Delta Tau Delta does NOT haze her pledges. Period.
Dues are monthly fees that help the fraternity sustain itself, just like any other club. Our dues are used to pay for all of our community service, philanthropy, and social events, both internal and external. Portions of our dues are also paid to the national Delt chapter and to IFC; for example, we pay collectively pay $4,000 for national dues and $8,000 for insurance. Very little is kept as a profit, and any profit is simply rolled over to the next year for the same purpose as dues. A fraternity is never paying for friends; it's simply pooling money to be able to facilitate contributing to the community and ourselves.
Our dues are as follows:
| Payment | Number of Payments |
Insurance (once-per-year) |
Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $200 | 9 | $180 | $1950 |
| Quarterly | $575 | 3 | $1875 | |
| Yearly | $1700 | 1 | $1850 |
| Payment | Number of Payments |
Insurance (once-per-year) |
Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $125 | 9 | $180 | $1275 |
| Quarterly | $350 | 3 | $1200 | |
| Yearly | $1025 | 1 | $1175 |
In addition to our dues being 10-20% cheaper than other chapters, we offer $300 scholarships to three members each quarter that go above and beyond to embody our principles of truth, courage, faith, power, integrity, community service, personal growth, and brotherhood more than any other Delt. We offer a similar scholarship to each new member every quarter. Further, every quarter, our Financial Advisor David W. Graham will pay the quarter's dues of the student who achieves the highest quarterly GPA in our chapter.
Pledging members pay out-of-house dues for the quarter they are pledging. These funds help pay for the increased amount of attendees for our events along with mandatory fees to Nationals, such as the pledge manual, pledge pin, insurance, and registration fees. To assist with these funds, we offer a scholarship to the pledging member who most embodies our principles, as well.
Our rent is $870 per month for the school year and includes all utilities, heat, air conditioning, business-class Internet, and 9 healthy meals per week prepared by our on-site chef. For the months of September and June, rent is prorated at $29/day, since brothers do not live-in for the entire month. Our shelter has 2 singles, 1 triple, 1 quad, and 14 doubles to choose from; rent is the same no matter how many roommates you have.
Although an apartment can be anywhere from $600-$700 to share a room, living at our UCLA headquarters is much cheaper than the dorms, and also much cheaper than living in an apartment while paying for utilities, food, and out-of-house dues. Further, 94% of our rent goes directly back to the house to ensure it remains the nicest and cleanest on the Row. When factoring in the price of a chef ($10,000/month), common repairs such as roof-replacement ($30,000), and yearly replacement of carpets and repainting of walls, our rent is a reasonable amount to pay to ensure a clean, spacious, and safe place to live. To find out more about our living arrangements, please read about our shelter and its amenities here.
Any individual wishing to live-in over the summer should apply online here. Currently, summer rent is $400/month ($13/day) to share a room and $600/month ($20/day) for a single room. The lease is a continuous span from mid-June to mid-September, with a one week buffer between the days that UCLA starts and ends for the regular school year. Rent does not include our chef, however, the kitchen and multiple refrigerators are available for use.
For any questions, please use our contact page.
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