Obviously I am a little late but I wanted to share a story about struggling chapters. One of my best friends from high school attended the same college as me and was cut severely after the first day of recruitment. She ended up joining one of the two sororities that was considered the least popular. When I went through rush both houses seemed very defeated and almost like they were trying to fake being bubbly and perky and "Legally Blonde."

Anyways, my friend's pledge class got so into their sorority and they adopted a "we're going to do what we want to do and not fake being a top chapter" attitude. My junior year their return rates were higher than everyone except the traditionally top chapters. They even had to add an extra party last minute. The girls in our pledge class said they were the most "real" sorority during recruitment and they all felt comfortable there.

What is interesting is that the other "low" sorority adopted a different attitude...they tried even harder to be "sorority"...dying their hair blonde, wearing Lacoste polos during rush, talking about subjects they were unfamiliar with, etc...as a result all of the "non-sorority" girls that were still great PNMs chose my friend's sorority over theirs. Their return rate was by far the lowest and they did not even come close to filling quota (my friend's house was tied for the biggest pledge class with my chapter, incidentally).

If you made it through this novel, the moral of the story is that I think you should really consider what makes your house special and sell it, sell it, sell it! If you can't compete with the other chapters don't fake their attitude...even if you do it well, they'll do it better because it's really their personality. Find a niche market that is wide enough to get a full quota every year and focus on selling that.