It’s a cold rule, and it boils down to this: The “Freshman Freeze” is a policy that prevents freshmen from entering on-campus Greek houses for the first month of school. The official purpose is to allow freshmen to adjust academically before being exposed to Greek life, but it’s really more about keeping fraternities from throwing out-of-control parties for recruitment.

If you have a working set of eyes, you also know that no one takes the Freeze seriously: Practically the only people in fraternities Fall Quarter are freshmen. McCormick freshman Scott Kellert called it a “futile effort to stop freshmen from drinking.” Fraternities throw off-campus events during the Freeze that are well-attended by freshmen, which are made all the more enticing by being against the rules.

Granted, the university’s intentions (at least the whole let-them-adjust-first shtick) are solid, and I do believe that the Freeze theoretically makes sense: Who better to recruit than impressionable, homesick freshmen looking for a family away from home? But with the Freeze, instead of having freshmen sucked into the Greek system too soon, the fraternities and sororities would hypothetically wait a few months and welcome in more well-rounded, secure candidates with a broader view of the campus.

But keeping freshmen out of frats doesn’t work, and both the freshmen and the fraternities are the cause. “Greek life is too major an element of campus life to be hidden away for a month,” said Mike Haas, chapter president of Northwestern’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon. “Social freshmen looking for a place to go out at night will naturally gravitate towards the fraternity quads.”

Plus, fraternity recruitment is a competition: if one chapter defects from the Freeze and recruits heavily during the fall, and the rest play by the rules, that one chapter will get a major advantage during recruitment — and the rest will be screwed. “It’s essentially a prisoner’s dilemma situation,” said Peter Koelsch, president of the Interfraternity Council. “Chapters have to trust one another not to violate the policy or else they are [tempted] to violate it in order to keep up in what becomes something of a recruitment arms race.” So everyone defects, and no one plays by the rules.

Even if Freeze prevents a handful of students that would normally seek fraternity life from doing so, freshmen have no trouble finding alternative places to get boozy. “The dorm parties I’ve been to so far have been crazier [than frat parties],” Kellert says. And while he doesn’t have a fake ID himself, Kellert’s friends frequent bars like The 1800 Club and The Keg.

No matter where students party, it goes without saying that the risks of alcohol extend far beyond the Greek world. Matthew Sunshine, the SESP freshman who died in June from alcohol poisoning after attending a party in Foster House, continues to serve as a reminder of how easy it is to get in trouble with alcohol, regardless of where you are and how heavily the area is supervised.

So the Freeze is ineffective, and needs to be changed. But there are good reasons not to abolish it altogether.

“The Freshman Freeze at least provides an incentive for Greek organizations to be extremely careful if they are going to invite freshmen to their houses, for fear of being caught,” said Haas. “The significant drop in hospitalizations during [Wildcat Welcome] this year . . . is evidence that Greeks have taken the administration’s crackdown on violations of Freshman Freeze seriously, and freshmen are safer because of that.”

Instead of revoking the policy altogether — which is too lofty a goal, let’s admit it — the administration should consider revising it. For example, if fraternities could invite an entire dorm to take part in an event, it would take some of the edge off underground recruitment tactics, and allow the freshmen to bond with each other as well as get to know the organization.

Drinking is so integral to college culture that a single rule like the Freeze probably isn’t going to have a huge impact on it, regardless of how it tries to create change. The administration should not view the Freeze as a tool to curb drinking, but instead as a way to keep freshmen from being prematurely influenced — as it claims to, but really doesn’t.

Kellert, who plans on rushing, said, “I think [the administration has] the right idea, trying to get the freshmen adjusted to college life before starting at fraternities. I just don’t think they’re going about it the right way.”