We have a preliminary quota that we call "soft quota" and then actual quota is set during rush.

Wow, these are such interesting responses. I just wanted to add that we don't have houses, we have dorm like housing, and each chapter gets room for 30 girls to live there, I think. So, that has no affect on our quota. And yes, smaller chapters have had lots of problems. Sigma Kappa actually withdrew from campus and last year we lost Tri Sigma. There is another chapter that has low numbers but we are trying to work together as a community to help them out. It seems that the houses that weren't doing so well left campus. Somehow, things always work themselves out in the end and most chapters reach quota or are few away from it. We are just really pumped up for rush and to keep Greek life growing here at ASU!!!

When I was in college, we had 7 sororities with quota of about 32 and total of 85. About 225 women finished rush and submitted bid cards or whatever they are called.

Check with your Greek Advisor!
 

SunDevil2000,
You really should have this checked out... what it means, like greekwendy pointed out, is that your Panhellenic is not following NPC guidelines.

I have to say, I am really glad to hear that your greek community is helping out those chapters that are struggling. That is so important to the strength of the entire system. Keep up the great work!

I also wanted to through something in about XP2K's email and who ever posted after, yes, your school IU does not follow NPC guidelines in regards to recruitment. They do their own thing but I know NPC is working to try and change that.

:D

Maybe I'm totally off. Its possible that it was sort of like a "soft quota" as was mentioned before and that it is accurately determined during rush. I'm not really involved with Panhellenic, but our President informed us that we should be expecting 60 girls in Fall. I was unaware that it was breaking any rules. We are getting new advisors this year so things may change but I feel that things are running fine already. The chapters we have left are strong.

Sundevil--
ASU sororities do not set quota until after Pref Night because quota is based on the number of women who attend Pref. So, we are not breaking any rules.

Unless you went to my school 33 :) Then they'd say, ah, let's just bag quota and have a free for all! And then out of 10 sororities, 2 would get 0, 7 would get between 5 and 10 and 1 would get 23. But that's ok, right? :rolleyes:

For those who were confused and thought quota had to do with house space: Are you aware that a sorority or fraternity doesn't have to have a physical building? Lots of groups don't have a greek house, greek floor, nada. Just FYI ;)

Quota, by NPC guidelines, should be # of women attending pref/# of NPC groups. Quota is usually estimated earlier in the process, based on total registration and drop-out rates in previous years. This is done so that the chapters can plan for new members on Bid Day. IU does not follow the quota/total system due to their housing situation.

stupid question
 

What's the purpose of a quota?
Is the purpose to have every sorority the same size? Why?


I dont think quota works. You still end up with different size orgs. I'm not exactly sure how quota works, but can't some orgs make quota plus 1, some make quota and some might not even make quota? If you dont enforce quota then whats the point?

What happens when one org gets all freshman and another gets all juniors that are going to graduate in a year? You wont stay the same size.

Don't some PNMs end up getting screwed because of quotas? Example. The pnm wants ABC and ABC wants her but they are already at quota so she is left out in the cold. That su**s.

IFC fraternities dont have quotas so why do sororities need it?

Quotas make no sense
 

In stead of discussing what the quota is, you women should be discussing how to end that disgusting practice.

I don't know what misguided person started "quotas", but they certainly didn't have the best interests of all sororities in mind.

At it's basic level, rush is selling memberships - anything which restricts sales is bad.

Can you name any other place sales are restricted?

Actually qouta is great.

All the women's groups have a cetain number that they cannot go above...chapter total/ceiling, ours was 65.

Quota is the amount you can take during formal recruitment, ours has ranged from when I was a new member (32) to last year's (17ish...cannot remember).
Anyhow, it keeps all the groups at or around the same size.

Size is important for many reasons.
#1 we have houses and we need members to pay rent to keep the houses up and parlor fees, paid by every member, to maintain the houses.
#2 It keeps us on an even playing field. We are all capable of doing the same things b/c of money, # members for intramural games, greek week, philanthropy projects, panhellenic.....and so on.
#3 Quota is the amount going through that have made it to Pref divided by the number of groups...that isn't limiting at all. Limiting would be not using the number of girls coming through...100 girls would be divided by the number of groups...not 50 girls, the entire group should be placed!

A great example on my campus was all the fraternities. Some had 50 members and some as low as 10. Groups cannot do as much with 10 members as they can with 50 and it is unfortunate b/c some of the smaller groups are great, but rarely get seen b/c of numbers. We also didn't have an orgnized Fraternity recruitment either, so that made it a little difficult. Some fraternities were housed and some were not...that has alot to do with the amount of members you have to have.

Quota has its flaws, but I do agree with Lexi that it is important. Let's say a certain fraternity tells a group of incoming freshman that if they want to be cool, they have to join XYZ sorority. We've seen it before, especially on GC...girls will go into recruitment totally focused on a certain sorority and not even realize that XYZ might not be for them or that they could find a really good match with ABC sorority instead. Quota tries to equalize all of the chapters instead of letting one sorority have 100 members and another only, say 20.

Re: Quotas make no sense
 

If that's going to be your argument, then yes. It's called college. Using your logic, I can say that colleges are selling educations. I have to pay tuition, don't I? No standard 4-year college has a 100 percent acceptance rate, there are a limited number of spaces, plus I have to have the grades and activities from high school to be selected. I can be cut from some schools and invited back to others for a campus visit or orientation. Colleges, then, restrict their sales. They can't take everyone who applies, or even everyone they want.

My guess is that you've never been through Rush on either side, and have truly no idea how quota works. You are trolling, as usual.

Theoretically, quota sounds great, and I'm not trying to argue against it. I just never saw it work on my campus; chapters ranged in size from 15 to 55.