Haha...so true DeltaBetaBaby....

But she if house 2 left her off their bid list I suspect she would be somewhere on her #1s.

I don't disagree that it would be rare that a PNM was left off of a bid list altogether, but in today's world of social media, it doesn't take much for word of bad behavior to spread and spread quickly. 10 years ago it probalby would have never been an issue. Today...it does not take much for PNMs to shoot themselves in the foot. With frats throwing parties left and right, PNMs just don't listen to the warnings to not go. An instagram and 20 minutes later and word gets out.

This was my understanding, yes. (Of UT, just to double clarify)

OK, so I haven’t been on Greekchat since I was a freshman, but I have a question and didn’t know where to get the answer. I tried looking through RFM threads, but didn’t really find an answer.

I thought about changing my username, but given the details it’s not too hard to figure out my university. Trust me--everyone on my campus that cares about the situation is already well aware of it. It’s even all over the “other board”, if you know which one I mean. Still, I’d appreciate it if GC posters would just use the generic tags that I am going to use. I don’t want to aggravate those that already have been hurt by this, and it could happen to any of our organizations.

I attend “University X” and we have a fairly big, fairly competitive recruitment. I've never been on the recruitment committee, but I do know we use the RFM system—I guess about everyone has to anymore. Anyway, when the dust settled after recruitment, one of the best recruiting chapters (A) ended up a dozen under quota! Another fairly popular chapter (B) also was several under quota, but 2 houses (C and D) that have traditionally had more challenges in recruiting/retaining ended up bidding more than a dozen over quota!!

To jack things up even further, rumor has it that “A” can’t COB this year because they are already over chapter total!

How does this happen, and how often does it happen? It seems really unfair that a popular chapter is penalized by the system.

Per The Greenbook.......A and B are allowed to extend further bids /COB to Quota.

Carnation.......I am remembering correctly, yes?

Yes, every chapter is entitled to take up to quota, even if it puts them above total. For example, total is 100. XYZ goes into FR with 80, and takes 30, but quota is 40. They now have 110 members, and they are allowed to COB another 10.

I can promise that the rumor about "A" is not true. All chapters may COB to quota, even if they are over campus total.

And it is not unusual for historically top recruiting chapters to miss quota. If they are competing with 3 other very strong recruiting chapters for the same 100 highly desired PNMs and quota is 40, someone is going to come up short.

RFM allows such a chapter smaller numbers to invite to each round because historically they have made quota using similar numbers. Something as basic as being a little "off" with pref conversation or having another group having a really great recruitment can give you results similar to those you described.

It may be that A and B, assuming they had a lock on certain PNMs, elected to under invite to pref and it backfired on them. That has happened as well. But yes, ANY chapter that does not make quota can COB to quota. It is one of the Unanimous Agreements to which ALL NPC groups and CPHs must adhere. See the MOI (Green Book) for this quote:

"Each NPC fraternity chapter has the right to COB to reach quota or its total allowable chapter size during the regular school year as defined by the school calendar."

ksu4me and DeltaBetaBaby, ladybug12, and Titchou

I saw this spread of results numbers (mainly via irishpipes' list) and I was dumbfounded / curious, too. However, I can be fairly content with probably never knowing for sure what happened and why..

With all of the wackiness related to RFM, could it be possible that chapters A and B actually took quota but no quota additions which all went to chapters C and D?

The other situation could be the RFM specialist set the numbers of the 2 top "producers" at continually tighter rates, and with each other as competitors on their girls' pref lists, that prime group of girls was split between 2 chapters. Or in other words, they couldn't pick up the other chapter's leftovers because there were none. The lower producing chapter would have a much longer flex list and would as a result have a much better chance at QAs.

I have been wondering if the chapters are being made to make too large of cuts through the process. Of course, if they made it a little looser, quotas could go up even further which is a scary thought at some schools.

But you'll probably never know what really happened, so I'd try to just get over it and move on.

I think this is what has happened at Arkansas. Big cuts early then nominal ones made the rest of the week which result in those big pledge classes. I have been pushing for bigger cuts to also occur later in the week but not meeting quota would be disastrous!

The formula is based on past performance. It isn't arbitrarily set. However, the poster stated what quota was. It may be that the two chapters limited their bids lists and the other two didn't. Since RFM tries to place everyone, it isn't surprising that the numbers range over so much. The ones left after A and B culled their lists were all given to C and D. Thus they set actual quota lower and placed all the extras. Makes perfect sense to me.

Thanks for the responses. I understand more now, and I am especially glad to be corrected on the COB misinformation.

I am figuring out this system is a whole lot more involved/complicated than I ever imagined. Like, do these "RFM specialists" travel around, or does each campus have its own? Do they control for chapters inviting back totally overlapping girls (ie ladybug's scenario of 3 chapters, same 100 pnms and quota of 40) or is it just based on total numbers? Is the formula based on last years' numbers, a few years' data, or just pnm rankings from the current parties that you just finished? I'm not really asking for answers--and they're probably buried in another thread somewhere--but the more I find out, the more questions I have. It's amazing how little most of us actives know about how the process actually works. (And I'm a senior and don't ever have to worry about it again!) You really have to trust the people running the show, and it's sometimes hard when you see stuff like this happen.

BTW, all the new member numbers I have heard are dead-on with what irishpipes has posted. The quota number she lists is what we were told. Also, A and B have new member pictures or lists on their blogs/websites that verify the size of their incoming classes.

Again, I am not in the know, but it sounds like A really cut too heavily early on and ended up with way too few girls at pref (like less than 2x where x=quota). I don't know if that was voluntary, but we have so many good girls go through that I can't imagine even an historically strong recruiting chapter making bigger cuts than they have to. If it was because of the RFM "formula", hopefully they'll make some adjustments in the future.

One of the topics I teach to college students is forecasting, and I always tell them that the first rule of forecasting is that forecasts are always wrong. RFM specialists are making their best guesses about return rates based on past years' data. If they were 100% correct all of the time, they wouldn't be RFM specialists, they'd be day traders.

"[T]hey'd be day traders," Mbwahahahahahah! (wiping away laugh tears)

Basically the RFM specialists are kind of like your mom and dad giving you $1000 to spend for the year's school clothes and telling you that's it for the year - you won't get a penny more. They will, however, not influence your choices at all. If you want to blow the whole wad at the Jimmy Choo store and be wearing last year's shirts, that's your business.

Girls who have parents that do this learn to budget wisely and assess what will last the longest and give the most wear. They may make some really bad steps along the way, but that's part of what their parents are trying to teach them - a lesson that they would have never learned if the parents kept giving them money all the time.

There are too many chapters out there who I dare say overvalue their own popularity because for years and years they've had nothing but full parties. Finding out that not everyone rates you #1 is a good thing, in the long run. Many of those girls at your full parties may have only been there to give you the once-over and knew dang well they would not fit in at all.

Isn't it the case that when quota additions come into play, they, QAs, would go first to chapters with lower memberships?

I think from what people have said on here, that is recommended, but not required.

Love it. I'll bet your students love you.

I really don't understand quota additions (adding things to my list. . . ) other than to know that it's how many over quota that you take. All of us lose members between semesters to internships, transfers, deactivation etc, but several chapters were under chapter total last spring, including chapter B. http://www.k-state.edu/greek/resourc...0-%20Final.pdf It really doesn't make sense that they not only didn't get QAs, but were under quota as well. ???

[Someone tell me if I should delete that link. Anyone can google it, but still. . . ]

Yes. The GA is supposed to place women to the best of her ability balancing chapter parity and PNM preference. We've talked through a lot of examples in various threads, but often the end result is that the chapters who have had the weakest recruitment or retention numbers end up with the biggest NM classes.

It's a shame that occasionally a traditionally strong recruiting chapter misses quota (the same thing happened at my alma mater last year), but I come from the school of thought that COB can be a way to grab some outstanding women who otherwise wouldn't participate in Greek life.

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Okay, so if the prediction is that more than half the women will rank this group as their #1, they absolutely SHOULD have less than 2x quota at their pref parties. The question is why it would happen that the prediction should be off several times in a short time frame.

The problem, of course, is that formulas are not humans, and while they can make good predictions, they sometimes miss the obvious. Let me give an example:

Let's say there are 10 groups on campus, and return rates for the first invitational round at XYZ are 85% in 2009, 90% in 2010, and 95% in 2011. A basic trend projection would obviously predict a 100% return rate in 2012. But you and I, who are human beings with real thoughts, know that no chapter is ever going to achieve a 100% return rate. In fact, it's very possible that the chapter will top out at 95%.

Further, the RFM models are all based on past years' data, i.e. they are strictly time series models, not associative models. They don't know that XYZ's main competition just built a gorgeous new house or there is a rumor going around that XYZ is on social probation, or any number of other things that can cause a chapter to over- or under-perform in a given year.

So, in short, forecasting is very, very difficult, and the outcomes are not perfect, but RFM is miles ahead of its predecessor and has done much to level the playing field.

RFM specialists do not travel to the campuses. they are assigned a number of campuses, usually 6-10 depending on size, and communicate via phone and email with the GAs as recruitment moves forward. not only does each chapter have an invite list, they have a flex list of women to add if circumstances warrant. One of the issues is that chapters sometimes tend to rely on the formula to get them the needed number of attendees at a party when they need to be targeting those invites. Reducing the numbers the better recruiting chapters can bring back challenges them to do this.

I completely agree. I was just providing another example for the poster who was talking about certain "strong" chapters not making quota.

And another piece that I'm assuming is not considered is who is their primary competition. If ABC gets 95% return rates and DEF gets 95% return rates and they are head to head for preference, and they both are only inviting 2X quota (and quota is estimated low, which has been mentioned here), there is a strong possibility of a quota miss, especially if there is a 3rd chapter involved that has 85% return rates and gets to invite maybe 2 1/2X quota.

That's why I think they should be a little looser with the invitations to preference. HOWEVER, that will increase the chances of a rushee getting her 3rd choice, which we all know can be problematic. So I don't see any magic bullet. I think increasing the number of chapters should help alleviate some of this, but I can't quantify how. It just seems like spreading the wealth would diminish the intensity for 1 or 2 chapters.

I want to see if I got this right... PNM's who make it to prefs, even if for only one group, are guaranteed a bid to that group?

If so, recruitment has changed in the last 8 years.

Only one campus "guarantees" a bid. But she should get one...unless something unusual happens...like they find out about the drug arrest and 2 out of wedlock babies right after pref and before the bid list goes in.

I'm confused.

While I will be the very first to admit that I do not understand all the ins-and-outs of NPC recruitment, bids, etc., can anyone clarify this situation?

Tarleton State University
Quota: 63

Alpha Gamma Delta: 75
Delta Zeta: 80
Phi Mu: 79

This I understand: quota at Tarleton was 63. I also am under the impression (I don't want to say I understand) that quota is usually the number of pnms who are still in the process at preference round, divided by the number of sororities. I also am under the impression that some campuses will do a little bit of "leeway" with that number (example: 100 pnms are still in the process at pref round. 4 sororities on campus. Quota could be 25, but the campus Panhellenic makes the quota 23) to account for qota additions and to help place as many pnms as possible.

Tarleton made quota at 63, but the groups made quota with +12, +17, and +16. Now, I do understand quota additions, but it really appears like Tarleton set their quota extremely low.

Or, am I just a clueless IFC guy? Which, I will willingly admit.

Quota is set at whatever number will place the most eligible women(those who have maximized their options) and secondarily have the most chapters at quota. So, it may have been that setting it higher would have resulted in placing fewer women overall - based on how they listed their preferences - and may have had fewer chapters at quota.

We used to compute quota by dividing the number of chapters into the number of PNMs signing bid cards. But that left some chapters not making quota as the preferences do not always fall out evenly and quota additions were capped at 5% of quota for any given chapter. Thus we went to this method which allows the computer to move quota around to see what number is most advantageous for all.

Hope this helps.

Yeah, it's getting more and more weird, but the RFM specialist adjusts the numbers to place the most women. Those QAs may be women who wouldn't have gotten their first choice or may have displaced other women and started a cascade of events if you raised total. Who knows? They massage the numbers until the most women are given bids.

You're not clueless. Doing it this way punishes the girls who SIP. This way means the girls who SIP have a way slighter chance of getting a bid, since they can't be used as a QA. And while I'm not a fan of SIP, that still seems unnecessarily harsh, compared to making quota 70 or 75.

This low a quota relative to pledge class size would only seem to make sense at a campus with many more chapters where it will allow more chapters to achieve quota, or restrict the strongest chapters from continuing to grow relative to the other chapters. As has been discussed before, the strongest chapters have the fewest girls at pref, and therefore the fewest opportunities for QA. But based on the numbers, neither argument seems to make sense here.

A little of both :-) Quota is chosen both to place the most women possible AND to maintain some sort of parity among chapters.

I am gonna go generic here, so nobody thinks I am ranking chapters, and obviously I am being super-extreme in the example:

We are trying to place 234 women. Let's say that ABC is the weakest of the three. Say, 189 women attend prefs at ABC, but nobody lists them first on their bid card. If quota is 63, even if NOBODY lists ABC first, the first two chapters can only hold 123 women, and ABC is left with 63 for themselves. If quota were instead 75, the first two chapters can hold 150, and ABC is left with only 49.

QA's can then be placed as the GA pleases (he or she has a LOT of discretion in placing QA's; we've discussed this elsewhere).

This is a hugely imperfect example, but you get the idea: there needs to be a cap on the strongest recruiting chapters so that some women get their second choices.

Keep in mind that some of these women may have had just one pref to attend and therefore only one to put on their bid card. Not having an even distribution of choices among the bid cards also skews quota.

What is Tarleton's total?

Also, the total may have been raised before the colonizing NPC group (Tarleton is open for expansion) was chosen. This is kind of bassackwards, but whatever.

The fact that there is relative parity among the numbers the groups took is the most important thing. If those numbers were 80, 80, and 60, then there would be issues.

Is it possible that all the +12, +17, +16 could be free upperclass? And that quota of 63 was just for freshmen?