Recently there have been several sensational reports of serious consequences of freshmen initiation rites at Thai universities. The purpose of this study was to investigate Thai freshmen students' perceptions of the faculty initiation process. For this study, roughly 1,000 freshmen students took a pre-test during the first week of their initiation and a post-test after the initiations were complete. These tests were administered at 18 universities around Thailand during the first term of the 2007 academic year. The results of the survey suggest that initiations seem to have little effect on student perceptions of themselves, the activities, and their institutions. In conclusion, the university initiation process should be reviewed so that it can better focus on helping students get accustomed to life at the university.