In general I think the rating overall in the social ladder has potential for disaster, but rating in a bunch of categories is a great idea. It also would be a wonder thing to know as you planned events and programming throughout the year.

Only sort of related: does every chapter have a group of members who seemed to forget how strong other chapters are during rush? They sort of decide that your group can afford to cut a bunch of people that you probably really shouldn't be cutting? (Or if you use release figures, they want to keep a different group than maybe seems wise, like maybe they only want to keep the legacies of the group with 100% returns?) That group might need to see the where-do-we-stand-on-campus survey results.

It might be a wonderful recruitment tool to ask brand new members what there impressions of recruitment were right after recruitment. Maybe not even let the actives see the results, but alums could compile them, so that the following year, you could honestly know what worked and what didn't and what aspects to play up and what to play down.

I totally agree with all of this... it's important for chapters to think about where they are and where they want to be and make cuts based upon BOTH. Of course, though, there is the worry that the legacy at that 100% returns chapter will get cut by everyone else and find herself with only the legacy chapter as an option... I've seen it happen.

I think we did something like this- we had a post-rush survey that was anon/confidential, where we asked the NM what they thought of our parties, how we compared to other chapters parties and if they felt comfortable for them to name those chapters, what they did at parties that the NM's liked etc.

Sometimes it's good to know what your competition is doing...

Exactly.

Also at a campus w/ more than a dozen chapters it was also always good to learn who your competition was...

But I think you also know who your competition is, just ask yourself, which chapters did you like during recruitment? I know my chapter could easily answer this question.

Did anyone else's chapter track who you tended to cross preference with? (Probably only an issue on campuses with a lot of chapters - we had 16 chapters total in my day, but for the most part primarily cross-preferenced with about 7 of them.) The University gave us a bid list showing where every PNM ended up going - the statistic wasn't too hard to compile, by looking at what chapters girls you preffed ended up in, finding out from the pledges where else they preffed besides us, etc.

I think we give our new members a survey asking who they preffed. At least we did when I pledged in Spring 2004.

We unofficially tracked this- and it was amazing. I remember that out of the 50 women in my pledge class, 40 of them had preffed the same other chapter.

I know with my chapter it wasn't that easy- we had girls preffing a variety of chapters. At the time my chapter was diverse and had almost a 50/50 split in terms of religion, it was cool, something we were proud of and would speak about in rush- as opposed to "other" chapters that would ask thinly veiled questions.
My pledge sister & one of my best friends to this day went thru rush together (she lived across the hall from me freshman yr) and our chapter seemed to be the only chapter we had in common through out rush.

As far as the chapter already knowing who they are competing with based on who they liked during rush - the chapter might have difficulty being honest - especially if you are in a middle or lower-tier chapter. I mean, there are the chapters that you wish you were competing with - the top tier on whatever campus, and then there are the ones that you are really competing with for the same PNMs. I guess that is why polling the new members is a good idea. Did that make any sense?

Well you are competing with any top tier chapters that get girls that your chapter wanted, the only difference is that you come out on the losing side rather than the winning side in that situation.

Side bar - the PNM involved in the "incident" ended up joining the chapter! :)

That's love.:)

Wow! That was our biggest problem - our pledges preffed almost every other house. We said that was because we had "broad appeal".

I'd say most of our NMs pref 2 of 5 other chapters.

I am really happy for you!
 

I am so glad you went through recruitment and found a wonderful home. I looooove all of the diversity and acceptance. My school isn't that willing to do that, sad, bad. I liked this and like Sigma Kappa and amso pleased you love it so much. Great thread. Great ending. I hope lots of PMNs that don't fit the sterotype but who are great girls and would be great sisters read this one. Congrats and thanks alot! LOL

WOW that sounds like a pretty disorganized recruitment! I graduated from UMD in Spring '02 so 2 years before you got there? I was a Rho Chi my Jr yr and I had my list of girls by New Years and had sent them all letters well before school started again. I think I would have cried if I was in the same situation. I totally went back to help that year too! I missed the second day of I guess what would have been tours then because I wrecked my car on the way to College Park..........awesome LOL!!!!!!!!! And I can guess which chapter was mine but I wont say. A lot of things you said really made sense. I think things are probably a little different now, but yeah :)

I did cry! That's one of the reasons I wanted to be a Rho Gamma, to make sure at least 10 girls going through recruitment knew what was going on!

i was pretty sure of it when you said the cello, and i was doubly sure when you said cheesecake!

(the cello player graduated in 2006.)