I may not understand how much the release requirements drop off.

You're basically saying that say at a campus where one goes to six groups for third and three for prefs that virtually no one would make the cut to be invited to the most selective chapter for third round but also be too low to be invited to prefs by the sixth?

I was imagining there could be scenarios for a girl ranked around 200 by multiple groups. She might easily make it to third but not make it to prefs at all.

I would think the total drop is rare, but probably there are a handful in ever big FR. Illinois publishes its stats, and I think it's like 5/year, on average, that go to second invitational and rank, then don't get an invitation to pref. I was thinking the GA should take a second look at these girls and offer to let them be addition invites, just because it seems that it means so much the PNM's, and so little to each chapter (assuming they are awesome girls who just got bitten by the numbers).

That's exactly what I was wondering. I thought if RFM was working the way it's supposed to, by the time you get to pref, the most popular chapters are down to as bare bones in terms of numbers of PNMs as it's possible to be.

But she could go to prefs and figure that out for herself, right? If she didn't like the one option, she could not list it on her bid card and still leave herself eligible for COB. On the other hand, she might have liked that one chapter.

There was one PNM I was corresponding with here who was apparently dropped from about five chapters at UGA for third round to no one for prefs.

It could have been the case that none of the five really wanted her, but having looked at her list of chapters, some would have seemed selective enough to me that they would have released her before third if that was the case.

I also think that this would have to be true in the number of PNMs released. If it's a larger recruitment and the GA (or whatever) had to double check for numerous women wouldn't that be very taxing on the GA and the chapter? Some chapters have membership selection late into the night especially right before pref. If the PNM isn't already on the flex list, would you really want to convene your chapter after already having a late night membership selection and a long recruitment week to yet again go through membership selection? I'm pretty sure my undergrad chapter would have some mutinous members.

I thought so too which made it plausible that if you somehow made it to the top six for third round, you might have to worry if you weren't in the top 100 that you'd get dropped.

It sort of goes along with the hard cuts early help you more than hard cuts late thinking, IMO. Not only are you more realist about chapters, but you're going back to the chapters who will be able to invite back the highest number of girls and will go further down their bid list to make quota.

The impression that I had from DBB's original post was that we were talking about girls who were on the flex lists but who ended up on the wrong side of the RFM cut for all her chapters.

I think she was just asking if anyone looked at girls who got completely dropped before pref to see if they were in that situation and tried to address it to get her to pref.

I'm not sure I would add her. You are basically guaranteeing her to be in your pledge class unless another chapter also had her on the flex list and also opted to allow her back to pref.

It's one thing to bring her back and give her another chance, but I would rather do that earlier in recruitment, not on the day when she will end up somewhere on my bid list and probably on no one else's!

We're not talking about a PNM that they ranked as low as possible - we're talking about someone who was, oh, #205 when they could only invite back 200. And if the GA is asking you to do this, I would also assume that she's giving you a "freebie" - i.e. adding this girl is not going to mean she bumps PNM #34 (or PNM #199) off the bid list.

At huge rushes I think it's more a question of keeping who you like the most, rather than cutting who you like the least, if that makes sense.

But if she's already on the flex list for pref, hasn't the chapter pretty much already said that it's okay to give her a bid?

I do feel somewhat uncomfortable with it because it seems to basically guarantee her as a QA and that just feels weird because you're basically signing up to take someone you know was near the bottom of your list. On the other hand, she was on the flex list/bid list and she's not displacing anyone you ranked higher, so what's the harm?

How do chapters view the flex list for pref? Does the average chapter member have any idea who is on it rather than the regular list? I would doubt it, but I have no idea.

I suppose you could just put her dead last on your pref list and then there wouldn't be any concern that she might have taken the place of another QA...

Right, this is indeed what I meant. Especially because the difference between #200 and #201 on a list can be totally arbitrary.

The other thing that makes me feel weird about it is that we often have to use the flex minus list at the chapter I work with. So, she may have been ranked somewhat lower on the list than everyone else that comes back. Still, you all are right that we shouldn't put anyone on the flex plus list for pref that we wouldn't want to offer a bid to.

What is a flex minus list?

It's the same thing as flex plus, also ranked PNMs, but the first 10 or 15 or whatever that we would drop if our return is higher than they thought.

Do other schools not use a flex minus list?