How many women do most of the houses hold? Do entire pledge classes live in sophomore year?

Most of the sororities have a floor in a dorm located between the two rows of houses. Most sophomores live there and move into the houses as juniors. Unless they are officers, the women usually move to apartments as seniors.

I didn't mean women wouldn't rush, I meant they would be more amenable to new groups. If it gets to the point where there are so many women in a sorority that only a tiny fraction of them get to live in the house, hold a position or - most importantly - even be recognized as XYZ sisters, I can't imagine anyone would find that worthwhile. With the Echo Boomers, numbers will likely keep going up. I mean what's the limit? 400? 500? 800?

Quota was different this year.
Freshmen Quota 84
Upperclassmen Quota 9

About 950 PNMs started recruitment last week. (There were some drop outs before recruitment even started). ALL chapters made quota this year from what I have heard.
AOII-96
Phi Mu-94
Theta-95
DG-95
Not sure on numbers for the rest but from seeing pics on FB, it looks like all made quota.

Most of the houses sleep anywhere from 48-75 members. I think they all require their sophomores and officers to live in the house. (Although I want to say 1 or 2 chapters require seniors and officers, can't remember which ones.) However, obviously each new member class can't live in the house. So most of the chapters have floors in one of the dorms (Crosby Hall) for their sophomores. Living in Crosby is actually one of the best things I think the sororities every "required." It allows members to meet freshmen who live on campus and I think it creates healthy competition to sorority life. For example, two different sororities might share a floor in Crosby so that can make things interesting! Plus, it keeps your younger members on campus. As an adviser I have found that when a member moves off campus early in college they usually lose interest in Greek Life and I have even seen some who suffer academically. For most sororities, I think as long as their beds are full that is fine with most sororities on campus

I see what you're saying 33girl, but you'd be surprised. We are talking about 18 year old girls, after all. Most really just want to be able to wear letters of a top house and have mixers with the top fraternities. It's often times not really about the kind of "sisterhood" you might find at smaller or less greek oriented schools.

But there are big schools out there with competitive recruitment that are able to successfully add a new chapter. I think the trick is doing it right and somehow blending in ASAP. But if all chapters made quota, which is fantastic news, they DO have parity and thus the bottom chapter isn't being disregarded even if it means no sorority life. The time it's a killer is when you have that competitive of a rush AND there are chapters that aren't making quota. The 18 year old girls at Ole Miss might be a little more open minded than people are giving them credit for.

That doesn't answer the housing issue, however...

Making quota is in no way an indicator of chapter parity, especially under RFM. You have to retain those members plus worry about COBing to and then maintaining total/average size. At a campus with sororities that have hundreds of members each, this isn't an easy task, even when one of the struggling chapters makes or exceeds quota.

According to the Ole Miss Panhellenic web site, one chapter is much smaller than the rest despite taking quota (and despite being, by national standards, a gigantic chapter).
________

Yeah, for some reason the Theta chapter there struggles (if you can call a chapter that size "struggling," but compared to the rest on campus, they are).

BUT! Making quote with RFM is an improvement over the state of affairs previously. Things can change over time.

There are reasons. Look to history, IrishLake; there are the answers. And I owe you an email, btw :p

And (my opinion) it will take a very long time for things to change, AOII Angel, assuming that the system desires change or requires change. I have read enough about the Ole Miss Greek culture to gain a healthy respect for a system that in reality I know NOTHING about, since I don't live in that world.

I offer my congratulations to every chapter who achieved or exceeded quota, as it is the sign of a healthy system. WOOHOO to all the new members at Old Miss.

I think Theta will be fine. In my honest opinion, I really think more and more PNMs are open minded. With out-of-state enrollment increasing, more PNMs come to campus not knowing who the "top tier" sororities are. Yes, there are websites out there we don't talk about on here that love to bash all of the sororities at Ole Miss. However, I think we need to give more credit to the PNMs at Ole Miss. They have come a long way from when I went through in 1996. I also think credit is deserved to the current members in each sorority. I think all 9 groups have realized you cannot just have a chapter of "Mississippi girls." It just won't work in 2010 and does not reflect the current diversity of our current student body. I think with RFM and strong retention all of our chapters on campus will continue to grow.

I do think we need 1 more sorority, heck maybe even 2. But as we have talked about many times before there is more to it on a competitive campus like Ole Miss.

I will add that RFM and better retention has helped my own chapter. They are thriving and it really took about 4 years to get where they are today. Over the last 10 years since ZTA left all of the chapters have had to adjust to huge new member classes. Some adjusted faster than others. Some are just now finding their stride and figuring out how to manage 200+ members. Ole Miss Sororities are complicated but at the same time full of sisterhoods, philanthropies, socials, and traditions just like any other chapter on any other campus.

What's the story with upperclassman quota? It is as simple as it sounds?...upperclassmen are in another quota pool from the freshmen? I just never remember very many non-freshmen going through sorority rush at Ole Miss.

This is the first year they had upperclassmen quota. It is just that a quota that is separate. Ole Miss has many more upperclassmen who go through recruitment. I would say there were about 100 upperclassmen based on what the upperclassmen quota was set to this year. There are also more students transferring in from junior colleges and even other 4 year institutions.

So are chapters close to 400 women, or do they lose a lot of them during pledgeship?