Sorry, I messed up the quote again! I still haven't totally figured quoting/posting out! :D

Okay, I went to a school with NINETEEN chapters, and to be honest, I was relieved that I got twelve invites back, because I had fewer decisions to make. IMO, at such a large school, you could not let the PNM's make all their own choices.

Also, can someone explain to me what changed at Michigan?

A speaker we had emphasized that you don't have to stop focusing on sisterhood, academics, social, whatever while you're COB. Too many chapters think that COB requires tons of extra effort -- throwing special parties just for them, more events, more stress. But it doesn't have to. When we COB, we just invite girls to the events we're already having -- bringing them to formal dinner at the house, taking them out for ice cream with our new girls, we even invite them to bid day celebrations. It's hardly any extra effort for us, and the girls get to see what we're really about. Instead of formal rush, where we're telling girls, "Oh, this is what we're like, this is what we do," they get to be out there with us seeing what it would be like to be in our sorority. IMO we lose too many intelligent girls to the formal rush process. They can see that it IS shallow and that they can't always get an accurate feel for what a house is really like. COB allows them to do that.

The problem is not that COB takes up too much time or effort, it's that many chapters don't know how to COB effectively.

Personally, we get so many great girls through COB that I'd prefer to skip formal rush altogether (super stressful and emotional time for all involved) and just COB year-round. :p


P.S.: Someone please elaborate on the differences between the "old system" and "new system" at Michigan!

Exactly....this is how it was at my university. We were one of the "weaker" sorroities at formal recruitment, but we knew how to COR women very effectively....for example, we've had a Alpha class of 0 women through formal recruitment (after what we thought was a darned good FR, too!) and picked up 10 women through COR which was the exact same number as quota from FR. The pressure is off, and like S&S said, these women can come to activities that we've already planned and see how we REALLY act when we're not in "recruitment mode".

Personally, we get so many great girls through COB that I'd prefer to skip formal rush altogether

sugar and spice -- I don't think your National would agree with you! LOL

In all honesty the only difference between the new and the old system seems to be that they lowered quota. Trying to make it fair for all houses to reach it instead of the same ones always making it.

But it seems like people are making it out to be a lot more.

That'd be the day! :p

Actually, I'm still holding out for the day when NPC sororities can choose whether or not they want to participate in formal recruitment . . . but I think that day will come long, long after I'm out of college.

UMgirl -- how is quota decided now? I was under the impression that the only acceptable ways to decide quota were

(1) the girls finishing second rounds divided by the number of sororities
or
(2) the number of girls placed in houses at the end of last year's rush, divided by the number of sororities.

It's not like the school can just make a number up.

Is it that the school enforced release figures for earlier rounds of rush, thus quota is lower because sororities are forced to cut more girls earlier?

There are a lot of ways to change recruitment, and there are schools where it is done differently even now (my school, we went to all houses for the first two parties, and it was interesting how your opinion could change just those two nights - and this was after a full semester of seeing Greeks on campus!). But one problem is that, regardless of the merits of any proposal, some schools simply have too much invested in the current system.

At some schools, for example, rush is before school even starts. If you were to slow down rush or eliminate formal, suddenly you'd have to find more dorm space for those girls instead of having them move in immediately. And most campuses already have housing crunches. I'm sure there are more examples, but this one comes to mind.

I was reading this doctoral thesis today. It was published about 10 years ago but dealt with the formation of the sorority system through 1930. She quoted some sorority leaders of the time. They didn't like the rush system back in their day and age either, but they concluded that until a more efficient system could replace it, they were stuck with it. Some things don't change!

Careful...don't throw the baby out with the bath water. It's not a bad system. On MANY campuses it works. Maybe not yours -- but many. Listen to those of us who have a broader experience. Work on making your chapter better within the system that is in place now. The only thing which you have full contol of is yourself.

Regardless of how rush is set up, I think one thought PNMs should always keep in mind is to BE CAREFUL what you post here! The Internet is simply not as anonymous as one might think!

No matter how wonderful a PNM thinks she is or how convinced she is that she is a perfect fit for Big, Popular Sorority, she should still be careful about making rude comments about the houses she isn't interested in. It could hurt the feelings of the sisters in the houses she "wouldn't fit into", plus the sisters from Big, Popular Sorority could read the comments and think, "Whoa, what a b**ch! We don't want anyone like that in our house!" Because, frankly, being popular doesn't necessarily equate with being b**chy.

Where I come from it's called CYA (Covering your A$$)

(being a dork and quoting myself :p )

One thing I forgot to mention when describing open houses, is that PNMs had to sign in and out of each sorority's rush room. These lists were compiled and sent to all the sororities, so you could see exactly who had gone where and for how long! Same thing for the "informal rush" round of FR. So if a PNM spent 5 hours with XYZ and 15 minutes with each of the other sororities, the "message" was that she only wanted XYZ, and the other chapters would cut her... OTOH, if she spent roughly the same amount of time with each sorority, you'd know she was really trying to keep her options open.

There was also nothing forcing a PNM to visit all 5 sororities during open houses. So a PNM could make some snap decisions early on in rush, and shoot herself in the foot. I didn't like the open house idea, for this very reason. (A lot of PNMs didn't even give AEPhi a chance, because they'd see that we were small. :( )

I did like the "informal rush" round, though - it had a bit of the "flavor" of COB without actually being COB. PNMs would go over to the house for a couple of hours, or go to lunch, etc. Maybe this would be a good thing to incorporate into the standard FR practices...

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>>>In all honesty the only difference between the new and the old system seems to be that they lowered quota.<<<

I thought that quota was figured the same way pretty much across the board. Quota might vary from year to year at a particular school, but isn't there a formula for setting it that doesn't change?

Sugar and Spice....as far as I know the way that panhellenic (at least here at the UA) figures out quota is they divide the number of girls invited back for pref night (which for us is the fourth round) by the number of chapters on campus. So it's a little uneven cause probably anywhere from zero to 20 girls drop out on pref, upon receiving their invites. My thoughts on all of this is that sorority life as far as recruitment goes is much like Darwin's theory of life, it's survival of the fittest. And there is only so much we can do for those struggling chapters. This may sound bitchy but remember I come from one of those chapters who struggle with numbers.

I do not think that recruiting year round is a bad thing. My chapter does this. We may not do well in formal recruitment, but you know what the other advisors & chapters on campus admit this to us... We have the best retention rate! I also beleive that we have one of the strongest sisterhoods. We stick to each other in all times and we have never been hurt by year round COB!

There are two ways I know of to figure out what quota will be. The first is your simple number of PNMs divided by the number of sororities.

The second way is a little more complicated. But here it goes...

You need the following numbers:
Average % of women pledged
Number of potential new members
and the number of sororities.

Now, the formula is:
Quota = #PNMs (Avg. $ of women pledged)/ the number of sororities

An example:

Campus A has 100 women going through recruitment and five sororities participating. To figure quota with method one, you divide 100 by 5 and get 20. Simple.

Same campus, using quota method two (using 67% as the average number pledged):

100 (.67)/5 = Quota
Quota = 13.4

The reason that folks use the second method of figuring quota is that you factor in the idea that some women will drop out either before the end or after signing a bid, AND, there can be quota additions, snap bids, etc. after bid matching to help alleviate any women who go bidless.

Does ANY of this make sense, and is this the difference of how Michigan figured quota?