Recruits Are Flooding Greek Societies : College life: Despite criticism and charges of alcohol abuse and date rape, thousands of freshmen are joining fraternities and sororities.

Every 15 minutes, members of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority threw open the doors of their elegant sorority house to welcome another nervous group of freshmen. The newcomers already had submitted their high school grades in writing to Alpha Chi and 18 other houses; today, they would be rated on looks and personality.

“It’s very nerve-racking,” said Stefanie Blinderman, 17, an Ohio State University freshman from Long Island, N.Y., and one of thousands of college students “rushing” fraternities and sororities nationally this fall in a century-old ritual that, despite its critics, continues to thrive.

“I know a lot of it’s superficial,” said Blinderman, who planned to wear her gold, strapless prom dress for the final round of a selection process that has upset some candidates so much that they drop out of school. But, she added, she also saw advantages in joining a house where a few dozen women live, study and party in devoted “sisterhood.”

“This campus is massive, and you can get lost in it,” she said. “But if you belong to a sorority, it really breaks the school down almost into a family.”

The American tradition of fraternities and sororities, which dates to 1776 at the College of William and Mary, is booming at many colleges in 1992, particularly in the tradition-bound South and at the large public universities of the Midwest.

Despite years of criticism about elitism, racism and sexism and well-publicized problems of alcohol abuse, date rape and hazing, fraternities and sororities are being deluged by thousands of eager freshmen vying for coveted invitations to become a “Greek.”

“There has been a steady increase or maintenance of interest (in fraternities and sororities) over the last 10 years,” said Richard A. Hollingsworth, dean of students at Ohio State. “The need to belong hasn’t changed.”

About 4,400 of the 45,000 undergraduates at Ohio State form one of the nation’s largest Greek systems. While some colleges forbid fraternities and sororities, Greek groups are dominant forces on many campuses, including Purdue, Penn State, the University of Illinois and Indiana University, which have particularly large Greek systems.

After being driven virtually underground in the counterculture days of the Vietnam War, the popularity of these hierarchal associations with secret handshakes and humbling initiation rites rose with the youth conservatism of Ronald Reagan’s 1980s.

Membership in the National Interfraternity Conference, the largest confederation of men’s college fraternities, soared to 400,000 from its nadir of 150,000 in 1972, when the U.S. troop withdrawal from Vietnam was well under way.

Preliminary estimates of the first-ever count of college membership in the National Panhellenic Conference of women are about 250,000, far higher than many of its officers expected. Thousands of other students belong to Greek associations not affiliated with the two national councils, including virtually all members of the predominantly black Greek groups. Ohio State alone has nine black sororities and fraternities.

In the last two years, the recession has discouraged some freshmen from joining fraternities and sororities, many of which charge several hundred dollars a semester. But officials at many campuses nationwide cite a thriving desire among students to belong to a tightknit group, especially at large schools and for those from broken families.

“We are growing by leaps and bounds,” said Harriet Macht, president of the National Panhellenic Assn. and chairwoman of the National Panhellenic Conference, who said the “support system and camaraderie” of sororities is a big selling point.

Hazing, the most notorious Greek tradition, is illegal in most states, including Ohio. Nonetheless, secret initiation rites blamed for several deaths continue, though college administrators said they generally have become less violent.