Well, here it is, the long awaited 2008 rewrite of “The List.” Last year’s created quite the unanticipated uproar on campus, with over 60K views and 350 comments, and started Michigan OTR on the path to win it's first "Best Alternative Media" award from US News and World Report. This year marks the second annual edition of the infamous list, and I'm guessing it'll probably cause a similar amount of controversy as the last one.

For those of you immediately asking, “How did you write a new list? Aren’t you in New York now?” the answer is simple enough. I wrote last year’s list at the beginning of the year, so I had a whole year on campus to observe (and write about if you recall) about Greek life on campus. Combining that with field reports on rush prospects for this year from my vast network of spies still on campus, I’ve been able to compile a new list that reflects changes in house reputation over the past year. So without further ado:

If you don’t remember or understand what makes a house “cool,” it generally means it has the hottest, most fun collection of members who throw (or attend) the best parties. It also helps you a great deal not to be boring. Alpha Phi may have a bunch of girls sitting around looking pretty, but I’ll be damned if I heard one interesting thing about them all last year. Same goes for Theta Chi, who besides yelling racial slurs at cops, failed to do much of anything to hold on to deserve their top three spot (and being on SoPro 24/7 doesn't help). Phi Psi continues to be proclaimed as God’s gift to frat life by everyone I talk to (but seriously, fix your ****ing window already) and Tri Delt now rests firmly atop the pile as both generally hot and genuinely interesting to write about (although it is a shame they couldn’t land us Terrelle Pryor). And yes, Pike went up. I even surprise myself sometimes.

I’m sure there are a few upset houses right now, but also a few that hate me slightly less. Either way, let me hear it, and remember, even if things didn’t go your way, you’ve got a whole year to turn it around.

Until next time,

JQ