This is pretty much the same argument that went around when there were nationwide attempts by NPC to "defrill" rush. We all know how that worked. No one wants to be the first to get rid of the balloons and skits. This was almost 20 years ago, and there are still plenty of frills out there.

The only way IU will change is if the school's administration forces it. Students do not want something other than what they know, alumnae don't want it to change, and no NPC will tell its group to be first to say "hey, screw this silly bed rush crap." The school's administration is not going to force it, because from what everyone's said, they think the Greek system is too big as it is. The last thing they want is for it to double in size. Although if the elitism is eliminated to some degree, it might actually make the Greek system less powerful (if that makes sense).

When we visited the IU chapter, I had the following conversation with another woman in my chapter:

Her: Man, their house is SO gorgeous. I wish our house was this nice.
Me: Do you want to live in the house senior year?
Her: Good point.

In this respect, UIUC is a world apart from IU. In fact, as I've mentioned elsewhere, many chapters use "only one year live-in requirement" as a selling point.

Loved her criteria! :-) IU definitely doesn't have number 1! You're so right, I work with 17 year olds and what they look for at 17 is even very different than what they want at 21.

I don't believe many if any of the NPC chapters at Indiana would allow a 5th year senior to live in. Even in my chapter when the house wasn't full, we still didn't have 5th year seniors live in. They were alumnae and that's that.

But as always, IndianaSigKap brings up a great compromise. If you increase your quota by just 5 you have virtually the same chapter size (and only have to allow for a few live-outs), but the system as a whole can accommodate WAY more girls. And that's a way for some chapters who do want to increase their size but don't want to completely throw out tradition to add 5 or 10 girls and not stick out as having done so.

Of course I understand that. What I'm really wondering is if Greek life would have as much appeal if there weren't so many going bidless. Seems like there's a certain cachet to having survived the process and although we know there are women who don't get bids at other schools, it's certainly a much much lower percentage.

Just throwing my 2 cents out there regarding the bed quota tradition at IU... Our chapter has expanded in size so much these past couple of years that we are now at about 200 members and I believe we are the largest sorority at IU. Of course, this means that many of us are going to be living out next year, myself included... about 50 of the 70 girls in my pledge class won't be living in the chapter house next year, nor will basically any of our seniors sans the ones on exec board.

I personally am a little bit frustrated because we are the only housed chapter on campus with such a high amount of live-outs; it kind of makes me feel like we're the "odd one out" while my friends in every other sorority get to live in as juniors. I know that other schools, particularly in the South, do differ in their traditions and thrive with larger chapters. But I really do like the close-knit bonds that are forged by being a smaller chapter and I think these bonds are something that most IU sororities take very seriously.

I don't know if this is going to inspire a trend and encourage other chapters to take bigger numbers, but I know for a fact that many girls in my chapter are hoping our quota is going to be set lower within the next several years so we can return to a "normal" chapter size for IU.

It doesn't look like things are going to be changing anytime soon. Many people are proud of the fact that recruitment is so competitive and that nothing is guaranteed. I think that at this point the unhoused chapters are a temporary fix for a longterm problem, I don't forsee them really being able to thrive as much as they can if bed quota continues the way it does.

Wait, what? Your fifth-year seniors are no longer considered collegians? I can say with certainty that is not the case for all groups.

Does it have less cache at Alabama, Georgia, Auburn, Arkansas? They all follow traditional rush placement policies and they're doing just fine. More than just fine. All 4 systems are growing. While I agree that may be the fear, I don't think it's valid.

In my case, being able to continue to ride horses at the school that I was attending was #1. So I went to the University of Kentucky. I did not know anything about the basketball program; and had to learn about that while I was there.

So how did this happen? Did your chapter deliberately decide to offer more bids than they had beds for? How is your size and live-out situation looked upon by others in the community? Are sororities there able to offer as many bids as they want but chose to follow the bed rush formula?

It's a different type of cachet and for some at those campuses there's still the tightly held belief by many that it's better to not be Greek than to be a member of certain chapters. While that's true of many schools and I am sure it happens at IU, we don't hear the same kinds of dropping out meltdown stories that we hear from those other competitive schools.

To answer your questions... The reason why we experienced such a sudden spike in members in such a short period of time was because our chapter struggled heavily during the 2000's, particularly around 2005-2009. It was to the point where our nationals was threatening to pull our charter if we didn't get it together. Winter 2010 recruitment was our most successful in years and it kept on going upward from there; we have made quota the past 2 years (not sure what quota was in 2010 but the amount of girls who accepted bids was around 50, which was substantially larger than the 14-girl '09 PC) and have had the biggest pledge class on campus each time, which is a huge accomplishment for a chapter that was literally on the brink of being shut down only several years ago.

We do not set our quota, our nationals does... they are completely in charge of it but they take various chapter trends into consideration (namely retention rates and quota met) when setting it. I guess the reason why our quota is so much higher than other chapters is because a) nationals wants to ensure that we continue to make quota/have enough members to sustain our chapter so they set it extra high to have some cushion for new members that might drop/not accept bids b) we have one of the largest chapter houses on campus, with room for about 100 members to live in, and c) they want us to continue expanding.

A lot of people respect the progress we have made over the past few years and understand that it's natural to have some growing pains, but people occasionally do get curious when I tell them I'm living out of the house as a junior because that's pretty much unheard of with all the other IU sororities. If anything I think that will be our biggest struggle; a lot of PNMs who want to live in the house want to be able to do so sophomore AND junior year. So, if they find out they can only live in our house 1 year they might set their sights on joining a chapter with a 2 or 3 year live-in policy instead. I think the best solution for our chapter and what we ultimately want is to be able to have a 2 year live in policy with all seniors living out... several other IU chapters follow this right now and I think it's completely fair. It also helps chapters with bed quota take slightly larger pledge classes due to the absence of seniors, which will help ease the competitiveness of recruitment even if only a little bit.

I'm not sure whether or not other IU chapters go by a quota set by their nationals or by the chapters themselves, but I do know that our nationals doesn't really take "bed quota" into account at all due to our unique circumstances as a chapter. I am pretty sure that we are the only housed chapter at IU to operate this way, however.

I wonder if the possible eventual addition of the rest of the NPC groups to the IU campus is going to help alleviate the problem at all, given that the PNM pool will continue to grow year by year. While I admit it feels strange to think my own sorority is unhoused on a campus where there others have housing, I still feel the school has the room for the continued addition of new chapters given our overwhelming success this past year. As far as the exclusivity of "being greek" at IU is concerned, I don't think that will be changed anytime soon. Even with the addition of ASA, the placement rate of PNMs will still reflect an exclusive system

As I type this from Bloomington, I do
not foresee all26 chapters ever being at IU for two reasons. I am fairly sure that both Sigma Kappa and Tau chapter alumnae agree that recolonization is not a viable option without a house. If housing becomes available,the situation may change. My number 2 reason being that a friend of mine is a Phi Sigma Sigma and they have no desire to put the much effort into such a high risk situation. She has benn a national volunteer for years and has always contended that IU was not a campus on which they wanted to be.