Totally agree with you. I know that was the main reason why AOII at Ole Miss did not add more rooms when they added on a chapter room and extension to their dining room. Plus, even strong chapters can struggle keeping their house full. Why put that added stress on your members?

Of course I wouldn't trade my 3 years of living in the AOII house at Ole Miss for any apartment, condo, etc!

When I moved to Austin in 97 I was in sticker shock, I could not believe how much more real estate cost. Yes, there was money to be made if you had enough for a down payment. I bought a condo 10 minutes from downtown and within 5 years it almost doubled in price.

Lodges are problematic. You really need to cover the mortgage 100% from rent. Otherwise you're even more prone to problems when that business cycle circulates to the lower side.

You need A size chapter room, dining room, common areas, etc to support B range of chapter size. That determines everything.

You have to pay for it with X rooms at Y per month. You can warehouse people in there to keep rates low, but then you have trouble filling it when times are tough. Or, what's going on a lot more lately is, you can put in fewer rooms in a suite or even apartment style setup at a higher rate. That makes for a lot less to fill & easier to get people in there, which better weathers the tough times.

There's kind of a formula to it. There's no reason you can't have a big house that you can keep full without all those problems. It's just a matter of designing what's going to work best economically for the situation, location, and chapter. There's a couple really good companies out there that are good at figuring out that calculus. I don't think a lodge model is great answer in most cases, but I guess it could work under certain circumstances.

This might not be a popular idea but maybe PNMs should be allowed to "cut" chapters before pref. If you think about it as much as we say it is a mutual selection process it really isn't for the PNMs, unless they get invited back to more chapters than they can attend.

As far as maximizing options goes...

It's one thing when you have to go to one pref party you don't want and two that you do like. You are lucky enough that you should be able to suck it up for an hour and be nice to the sorority you want no part of.

If you are going into pref with only one group (who you detest) left, I hate to break it to you, but unless your dream group REALLY effed up their RFM and cut too many people, you're probably not going to be a QA for them. You might as well drop out of rush if you're dead set you don't want to be in this group and you don't believe anything will happen at pref to change your mind. You might be wrong, but it's up to you.

I have advised at chapters with a big house, with a floor arrangement, and with a lodge arrangement. There are big problems with the lodge or floor arrangement that the house does not have. It is harder for the girls to see where their money goes. It is hard to get the girls to take ownership (pick up after themselves). They have to pay a lot for real estate that Could be used for study hours mini meetings, etc., but often sits empty when they aren't having chapter. You have to balance access who can use the room, when, what are they responsible for - with security. T-shirts, food, etc. go missing. A few live-in officers end up doing 90% of the work both cleanin and adminstrative.

The other big problem is that there is an increase in the drama queen quotient. "If you don't do what I say - I quit." "I don't have to follow these rules - I quit." It seems to be a lot easier for someone to walk away, to not feel bad about relinquishing their membership if they can just walk away. If they have a disagreement and then have to go back to their room and thin about it - I think they are more inclined to constructive problem solving.

you bring up some good points, hqwest.

Boy, have I seen this lately and not just in the college sorority arena either. People of all ages are dramatically quitting various things and I have to wonder if they're seeing this on TV or in the movies.

I don't give into the blackmail; I prefer to say, "Okay," and leave.

I guess I have a different concept of what a "lodge" or "floor" is than other people are talking about.

As far as a floor...you're still paying as you would pay for any other dorm room and (I'm assuming/hoping) having the cleaning crew to come in on a regular basis as they would in any other dorm room. That includes the suite which I was guessing was at the end of the hall.

And I was reading "lodge" as just set up more like a ski-lodge type place (yinzers, if you've ever been to UPJ you know what I'm talking about) with bigger bedrooms and less common space as opposed to a large house with a big chapter room and teeny bedrooms. I don't get where this type of arrangement would engender less ownership feelings. Unless, of course, we're all talking about different things.

Having experience with a group (not mine) who had a partial floor & a suite at the end, the suite had a TV and was basically their private TV room...this was respected by the other girls on the hall...it wasn't as though no one could go in the suite except during meetings. That would have defeated the purpose.

I was thinking about my alma mater, and why even the top groups took sophomores, without any type of sophomore quota, and my working theory is that there are so many retention problems that having a sophomore for three years is about the same as having a freshman who will quit her senior year anyway.

When I first advised a small chapter, this was the norm. Members would storm in and say they were quitting. I would simply hold out my hand. They looked at me oddly, and I would tell them that if their sorority didn't mean that much to them they were welcome to put their badge in my hand and I would start the paper work. I only had to do that about three or four times until the overly dramatic overtures stopped.

^^^ Like

Getting back to the original thread, isn't this something the big panhellenic groups could work on? Those women are seeing a large number of PNMs prior to recruitment, and it seems they could achieve a lot for their chapters by explaining QAs, the benefits to accepting (happily/grudgingly) that smaller chapter, and what exactly to do with your pref card.

I would hope that as more PNMs are doing more internet research prior to recruitment, they will start to pick this up and maybe not be so shocked and dismayed by ending up with their last choice. Even a change in a few girls on these super competitive campuses who are willing to stick it out could make such a beneficial impact on that bottom tier chapter. Maybe not quota in a year, but improvement nonetheless.

And yes, I live in fairyland.

Like.

I think this is exactly the problem on my campus. Misinformation in general has resulted in a lot of issues. When ranking the bottom two, one Rho Chi explained that ranking a chapter second to last meant we wouldn't mind seeing them again, but ranking them last meant we didn't want to see them again, with an implication that we wouldn't have to. I feel like the surprise of seeing a chapter they thought they dropped in place of a chapter they wanted made girls grumble a lot more in line at some parties - which made girls who actually liked that chapter feel nervous that this was a "bad" chapter and not want to rank it highly.

This happens with the whole suiciding/not suiciding/girls not showing up to bid day at small chapters issue, too. One of our Rho Chis was told by Panhel that they couldn't allow girls to suicide no matter what. So they were telling us the typical story that ranking a small chapter instead of leaving it off would result in someone having a better chance at super chapter, or "the computer will count you twice so you have twice the chances at the chapter you like" or something similar. When a girl is disappointed but prepared for the reality, she might go to bid day to give a chapter a chance. When she is shocked and dismayed, she is more likely to flee in tears and not show up - she hasn't had time to think through what she would do in the situation because she didn't expect it.

I know that having everyone not suicide results in more girls with bids and more chapters seeming to get total, so panhel can pat itself on the back, so I get why panhel does this - I just think it results in a lot of unnecessary resentment by girls who end up in chapters that they won't even show up to on Bid Day.

With SORUSH, you could get an invitation from a chapter you hadn't been to in the previous round. Can that happen with PRUSH? And is anyone using SORUSH anymore?

In theory, you could get a pref invite from a chapter you hadn't seen since open houses. Would you be required to go there/list them on a bid card in order to be eligible for QA?

You have to "maximize your options" in order to be eligible for QA...this means that:

1) if you have an invite and you have an available time slot, you have to attend. So if there are 3 prefs and you receive 2 or 3 invites only, then you have to accept all of them. If there are 2 prefs and you received 3 invites, you can decline 1.

and

2) you have to list all available groups on your bid card. So if you attended 3 prefs and you can list up to 3 on your card, you have to list all 3. If you only had 2 invites, attended both but can list 3 on your bid card, listing those 2 only is acceptable. You could always list another group that you attended earlier in the week and liked but were released from and that would be OK.

I am all for parity, but I think it would be absurd to have to list a group who you haven't visited every round. Maybe the situation doesn't come up that often now that most campuses use RFM, though.

I read this three times and I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "big panhellenic groups." At some schools (random examples) AST is the hugest chapter and ZTA is the smallest, at some schools it's the opposite. No NPC is the biggest chapter at every campus they're on.

Unless you just mean, umm, national headquarters.

I think she means the alumnae panhellenics, as she says "prior" to rush. If so, I think it makes sense, that they'd be uniquely positioned to set PNM expectations very early on in the process and to push the "sisterhood is more than just four years" angle.

Of course, it will still go in one ear and out the other, because we are still talking about 18-year-olds.

Well, it might be absurd but it is allowed and we are, after all, talking about 18 year olds! Just saying it can be done, not that it should be.

I agree with heavier cuts needing to be made before prefs. By cutting more befor pref will have less disappointed pnms and chapters on there bid day.

Exactly, on my campus there were 4 chapters who notoriously invited 4-5 times the number of girls in relation to the number of bids they had available. At that time we could only attend two pref parties. One year it was really awful, my grand little was a Rho Chi (as they were called then) and several of the girls in her group attend preference at different combinations of these 4 chapters. None of them received a bid, she had to console over 10 women that night. After that year, the campus made a policy that chapters could not invite more than a certain percentage over their quota to preference. The following year was much better as far as the number of women who didn't match. Individual campus panhellenics need to watch the numbers and the trends to adjust accordingly each year.

No, no, no, individual panhellenics should be using the Release Figures Method agreed upon by the NPC.

They may be using them now, but back in my day, our panhellenic did not. Thankfully, they are moving with the times. But as is pretty common knowledge, my campus is a little set in its ways.

Side question: Does RFM account for schools who use bed quota and therefore each chapter has its own quota? It's been over 8 years since I looked at a Green Book.

Thanks for the answer to my question. Doesn't surprise me that special accommodations have to be made.

This is a great thread! Does anyone have any new insights?

I just reread this thread (can't I find ANYONE to buy a vacation from me in the travel dead zone between Thanksgiving and New Year's to keep me busier?), and I got a chuckle out of how things have changed in just a year and a half. First, the addition of 2 chapters at Arkansas and Indiana was a huge thing. Of course, we have yet to know if they will be successful, but I'm confident that they will be, and that there will be more expansions at both schools. And it turns out land WAS available at Arkansas. Who knew?

Second, all the discussions about lower recruiting strength chapters and relative success in rush has me thinking
1-alumnae chapters and alumnae panhellenics should be doing a better job at educating rushees (I am sticking with my boycott of PNM and new member) about RFM, Quota additions and SIP. They can do a lot to help the members and the rushees understand the process.
2-I think the highly competitive schools HAVE gotten more parity, as seen through the continued wild expansion happening nationwide. At Iowa, for instance, RFM made everything worse in the short term, but as the rushees have discovered that they are actually in a competitive rush, they are more accepting of the lower tier chapters, and parity is happening there, just like at so many other schools. Also, the tiers seem to be changing, which is an unexpected consequence of girls a couple years ago sucking it up and accepting the bid they got. They aren't expanding at Iowa yet, but as I've mentioned, I think they are a year or 2 from ready.
3-I think RFM is great, but I do really like the idea of allowing a girl to cut A chapter, and maybe that's at each round of rush. I don't think it's a wise thing to do from the rushee's perspective, but if she feels like she has more say in the process, maybe she'll be happier with what she's left with at the end. I don't think that should change the QA rules, however. Cut a chapter if you want, but it kills your chance to be a QA. I am picturing the ranking form saying list your top 10 chapters and rank the final 4. Then at the 4th slot the girl can choose to actually CUT this chapter, and she has to sign a MRABA-type statement that she understands that by cutting a chapter, she surrenders her ability to be a Quota Addition at bid matching and that she severely limits her chances of finding a sorority match. But hey, if you hate em that much, go for it.
4-I still say a rushee should be more calculating in her rankings, keeping a lower tier chapter in the hunt and dropping a top tier chapter that she's assuming she'll like better later because everyone else does. While cuts hurt at every round of the game, playing it with the big picture in mind could keep the middle-prestige rushee in a better position through the process.

This would require much more uniform regimentation of alumnae panhellenics and alumnae chapters. I doubt that is going to happen.

I know several women who would probably now be in a "middle" chapter rather than a "bottom" chapter (which many dropped out of within days or weeks) had they played the game like that. Unfortunately, those of us who could see it coming had no way we could bring it up to the women or their moms! ("Sarah Jo, we perceive you as a middle level rushee and here's how you should play recruitment."):eek:

Many of them think they're at the top of the game because they were that in their high school or their town. That does not = top of the pile in a large school's recruitment. A couple of exciting days of parties with hardly any cuts reinforces this. Then BAM! The "top" groups have disappeared from their list.

OK-I'll bite.

Back pre-RFM - there was a tendency for the new members and panhellenics to be negative or gossipy about a chapter if a chapter missed quota, even if a typically VSRC missed it by one or two girls which could happen because someone dropped out of rush or a legacy listed them as second choice.

Now with RFM - I think this has helped encourage women who aren't sure about the Greek system or are not legacies to consider the advantages of going Greek because of what they see as a greatly improved chance of getting a bid (~that is the likelihood of going bidless or being cried on pref night is much much smaller.) All and all - it is a very good thing for CPCs. (And may have helped save several struggling chapters if we had instituted it earlier.)

But in the way that RFM works - based on the historical strength of a recruiting chapter, CPCs are often setting quota such that everyone makes quota - leading to many (or many many) quota additions for some chapters. This has now led to the gossipy types to talk about chapters that got quota additions in the same way as WRC or chapters that previously did not make quota. This even though those QAs often come about either because that chapter had to have done better as compared to the previous year, or because one or more of the typically SRCs may have had an off year. We see PNMs worried about being a QA or having a pledge class with many QAs as meaning that chapter was "less selective" or less desirable in some way. A similar phenomenon of tent talk occurs when there appear to be many more women at one group's pref parties than another.

The other thing (which I did not think statistically likely) but does pan out is that with more QAs more women get their first choice on Bid Day.

Having more QAs also does not seem to affect retention numbers - those seem to stay about the same but I do not have the statistics to verify this.

thoughts?

I think a better option is for CPHs to stop lying to women. I never want to see "mutual selection" or "no recs needed" again.

Exactly. I know one well-known Alabama university (not mine) where this was the practice for many years. LOTS of excellent rushees (to use the old term) dropped out at that point and never tried again. An alum of a top group told me her group routinely cut no one until third round and she saw nothing wrong with it.:rolleyes:

On the PNM side, I had no idea what was actually a liability, too. For example, we've talked here about pledging a 16-year-old, which I thought made me stand out in a good way, and was probably just the opposite.

I think there are a lot of things that fall into this category, like "oh, I'm in band; that shows I'm involved and have school spirit" translates to "oh, she's in marching band, that means she'll always have conflicts with recruitment" or "my brother is an XYZ, that shows my family supports Greek life" translates to "her brother is an XYZ, that means she probably has her heart set on ABC".

Maybe I was just the most clueless rushee on earth, but I think that, if this is the stuff you are supposed to tell your rec-writers, it's normal to think these are all positives.

Any new insights on this thread? I sure learned a lot from it!

^^^This times one million. Every single conversation I had during the first round of recruitment went something like this:

Rusher: Where are you from?
Me: Rhode Island!
Rusher: Wow, that's so far away! What made you want to come down to Clemson?
Me: Well, I've always loved the warm weather, and I'd always wanted to try marching band because it's something we don't have much of back home BUT I'M NOT IN THE BAND NOW BECAUSE IT WAS A HUGE TIME COMMITMENT AND I WANTED TO BRANCH OUT.

I had to emphasize that I wasn't doing marching band so that the girls didn't hear "band" and immediately assume that I was going to be too busy with band to show up to anything in the fall semester, including recruitment. A girl went through recruitment last year which falls smack in the middle of nightly band practice leading up to the huge season-opening performance and I will never forget her running across the field during the middle of practice in a nice dress with beautiful blonde curls in her hair to then put her clarinet together and march with the rest of us. Clemson's feature twirler is one of my favorite pledge sisters and a girl that by all appearances every chapter should have been fighting over, but she said she could only pref two chapters because of her busy band schedule (as someone who only preffed two chapters simply because she was cut by the other ten for whatever reason, I didn't feel quite so bad:p). Campus involvement like that can be awesome, but if a chapter feels that it needs more chapter-focused sisters or is already involved enough on campus any PNM with a conflict like that probably isn't going to be kept around.

Someone was asking about this on the IU thread, but the thing is, as much as I'm a numbers person, I think the bottom line is not to hang on to a chapter you don't like as much to improve your chances, I think it's to be really honest about which chapters might be the best fits for you. I'd be willing to bet that virtually everyone who goes through a large rush will have good experiences with at least one of the WRC's, and if you are happy there, put them on the top of your list.