The point is that it is set at whatever number allows the most PNMs to be placed thru quota and quota additions. I know that may seem odd. However, RFM is totally charged with placing most PNMs in their highest preference. If a higher quota was used, some may not be placed that way. And since RFM guarantees a bid to all who maximize their options and tries to give them their highest option, they have to set it wherever that happens.

I explained in another thread how the lower quota actually HELPS the smaller chapters, as well as placing the most PNM's.

Because they traditionally have lower return rates to their parties, they are allowed to invite more women to their parties, including prefs, than the more "popular" chapters who have higher return rates. This is meant to assure that they meet quota, but often times, this number is either overshot or leads to a situation where they also have a list filled with PNMs who only have them left as an option. When it comes to bid matching, quota additions are added to place as many women as possible. If you have a longer bid list than another chapter with a situation such as I described, you end up with a very large class. The chapters with higher return rates are usually running on a razor sharp margin and competing against the other highly competitive groups for the same girls. It makes it more difficult to go way over total when RFM is done correctly.

I guess what I mean is that wasn't the original purpose of quota to make sure chapters stayed all close to the same size? I.e., that certain chapters didn't keep getting bigger? Maybe the answer is that the previous rationale is no longer the purpose of quota and that is fine.

I suppose one way to compensate is to have a higher total and allow the chapters taking near quota to get to the average chapter size through COB... Or, we all agree that chapters being the same size doesn't signify chapter strength!

P.S. DeltaBetaBaby -- I am going to check that out, but off to work now. Being a finance/accounting person, I LOVE numerical examples :)

Just saw this :) will send out an email to see what I can learn. Not going to get to it until later in the week, have ongoing stuff ongoing. And going. And going.

Quota was originally intended to help keep chapters close to the same size. And to set a time and place for recruitment so that people weren't running around snagging women from other groups during the year. (similar to how football was back before they had recruiting rules when people would go to another campus and literally grab a top player and convince him to come to the other school..and took him right then!)

Eventually it came to be seen that struggling chapters would just simply end up with fewer pledges and there would be large numbers left out when bid matching was done. Enter Quota Additions as at least a partial solution. But it was limited to 5% of quota so that still women were being left out at the end.

So now we have RFM which at least can find a place for all of them if there are no suicides who don't match. No limits on the number of QAs. Quota set where the most women are placed instead of being predicated on the number of women signing bid cards divided by the number of chapters.

Is it perfect? No, but it beats any system we've had before. And I'm sure as time goes on, NPC will continue to refine it and look for even better ways.

I know everybody hates tiers here, and I'm not going to talk specifically about chapter reps, but unless tiers have changed drastically in the last two years, and unless tiers have no impact on return rates, DG with 60, Tri-Delt with 50, ADPi with 64 and Gamma Phi with 68 doesn't make a ton of sense if it was all based on return rates.

1) GA's have a lot of leeway in placing QA's, and to some degree, they should take parity into mind. So, QA's may have gone to GHI and XYZ, even if they had listed those chapters behind ABC and DEF on their bid cards.

2) If a chapter has historically done very well, they get few invites for pref. Let's say that quota is estimated at 50, and for the last three years, every girl attending prefs at ABC put them first on their bid card. ABC may only get to invite just over 50 girls to pref. This is one of the big changes that RFM made: looking at how chapters were ultimately ranked on bid cards to help determine pref invites. ABC just barely taking quota doesn't mean that they didn't recruit as well as other chapters, it could just mean that they didn't recruit as well as in previous years.

Couldn't that mean that ABC did extremely well at recruiting over the past few years, and that they only got to invite (let's say) 55 women for prefs? Even if all 55 of those women put them first and are matched/quota added to their chapter, they still won't end up with more than 55 from quota additions because they aren't on anyone else's bid card, because they were only allowed to invite back those 55 for prefs. Other chapters who were permitted more pref invites because their return rates weren't quite as high might end up with more QAs because there is a bigger pool of women who attended their pref party and then ranked them on their bid cards, and therefore those chapters would have larger pledge classes overall.

Crazy run-on sentences, but I can't figure out a way to phrase it better. Best return rates -> limited # of pref invites -> limited opportunity for quota additions -> smaller (but still quota or quota +) pledge class?


ETA: Which could also explain why quota seems to be low. If they are limiting pref invites for the chapters with the best return rates, Panhellenic/the RFM software must be 'forecasting' quota to some degree. If ABC is only permitted to invite 55 women for prefs, with the expectation that quota will be around 50, and then it turns out that more women sign bid cards than they anticipated (say no one drops out after prefs), they would be penalizing ABC by making quota 60, since ABC was only permitted to invite back 55 women for prefs. ABC will automatically not be able to make quota, even though their # of prefs invites was limited in the first place because their return rates were so strong.

Exactly, SKS. The groups who have the best return rates get to invite fewer women back to each round. That requires that they release women they would have carried to the bitter end in the past, allowing those women to be more realistic in their expectations. Keep in mind though that groups can list women on their bid lists who did not attend their prefs...and a woman could put a group whose pref she did not attend on her bid card.

You have to get the idea that numbers = popularity of the house out of your head. It no longer means anything. Getting a big class may be due to having large numbers returning each day due to traditionally being a weak recruiting chapter, it may mean that you are this year's IT chapter and every girl that you issued an invitation to decided to come back to you but cut the other big chapter. Strong chapters have been known to not make quota because they miscalculated and only invited back girls that were interested in their biggest competitor. RFM can be very tricky. Quota additions can go to strong and weak chapters. Trying to read too much into it will make you crazy.

OK, let's take two chapters. Total at this school is 200.

ABC is super popular, has 99% retention and never has a problem making quota. They are over total now, with 225 members.

XYZ is the opposite - bad party retention and don't make quota often. They only have 150 members.

Quota that before, might have been 40 is set at 20. ABC takes it, they now have 245 members. They're done, they can't take any more. XYZ takes it and also can bid up to chapter total. They now have 200 members.

Whereas before XYZ was 75 members behind ABC, they are now only 45 members behind. If quota keeps being set in this manner, eventually XYZ will be able to catch up. When quotas are huge (like when they used to be set after the first day) that's next to impossible.

Quota additions are another whole deal. They are to help the PNMs, not the sororities.

The big problem is the transition between the old and new systems. When sororities have to make WAY bigger cuts after the first round than they ever did before, it really freaks out the rushees who then quit because they no longer have the "good" houses left. It seems to take a few years and girls figure out that it's a lot more competitive than it used to be, and start to accept chapters they wouldn't have before, and then the rising tide in fact raises all ships. But not right away. And of course, it's not really more competitive. It's just more competitive earlier so it feels like more of a blow. Back in my day it was pretty unusual to not have a full schedule all or most of the way through. Now I think it's the other way around.

But it does seem to me that there is a certain amount of forecasting of quota that happens, and maybe someone can address that. If chapter A is really strong and has to make big cuts after each round, I'm confused about how that is determined. Let me give a scenario and maybe someone can jump in.

Chapter A has 90% return rates after each round. There are 1000 girls going through recruitment. Let's say parties go from 12 to 9 to 5 to 3. How is it determined what percentage of girls they have to cut? I mean it seems there has to be a presumption of a final quota for them to work for. So if the quota at the end is forecasted to be 50, they'd want 150 at pref (a pledge class at each party is what I was always told), 250 the 3rd round, and 450 at round two, with a buffer of 10% for the girls who will cut them. That would answer the whopper cut after round one and a steady drop from there. But is this anywhere near what really happens? And how would they forecast the final number? Or is that based on return rates as well? 1000 girls go through rush. Historically 70% get placed, or 700 girls. Divided by 12 chapters, that puts a forecasted quota at 58. That would allow for a fairly sizeable discrepancy when it came to real life. Maybe this year the girls figure it out and DON'T drop out after round one, or the chapters are all fighting over the same small pool of girls and too many girls get inadvertently cut completely. But in general this seems to make sense to me. Am I right or completely off target?

The chapters who have higher return rates usually don't get 3x quota for prefs.

I kind of understand what DS is saying though - it seems like RFM and changes in QAs all came at the same time. They should have worked the kinks out of one before moving on and changing the other.