I know U.Washington has three prefs, which has been the case for many years. I thought there was some sort of formula or recommendation to be followed regarding how many pref parties a campus should have, based on how the schedule from the rest of the week is - maybe from the MOI? Does anyone know more (or have any clue what I'm thinking of)?

I think Washington State went to 3 a couple of years back - could be wrong on that.

NPC does have recommended formats for use with RFM:

http://www.npcwomen.org/resources/pd...20-%202009.pdf

Either 2 or 3 prefs is okay for any system with more than 4 groups.

I got the PDF link from here:
http://www.npcwomen.org/college-panh...urces/rfm.aspx

I noticed from that doc that it only lists up to 21 groups and 3 invitational rounds. Is 21 groups the max any one campus has? Seems rough to squeeze that into 3 invitational rounds, why not extend it to 4?

Makes sense, if you're guaranteeing placement.

For those at larger 3 party pref schools, do you find that PNMs feel okay with getting a bid to any of their 3? Or is it an "I like these 2, but I for SURE don't want #3" kind of thing? Do a lot of women who receive bids to their #3 stick it out? Or do they drop out?

I'm not sure, but I don't think there is a campus with 21 NPC groups. Penn State has 20 (I think?), Indiana has 18 or 19, Illinois has 20 (I think?), and Georgia has 18. Those are the biggest campuses I can think of.

Anyone with better knowledge?

When I went through back in the dark ages, we had 15 chapters on campus. We had 3 pref parties. From my personal experience, I would have happily accepted a bid from either of the chapters that I ranked first and second. I didn't list the third chapter. I think three is sufficient, even for big schools.

Illinois has 18 right now, and 3 pref parties. They post stats (which I am too lazy to go get right now) on how many women get their first, second, and third choices, and the number getting their third choice is very, very low.

When daughter went through her recruitments you could only have 2 pref parties at both schools (WSU and UO. It may have been 3 at WSU even then but she dropped out before pref and had 2 chapter left at the time, so I'm not sure). Waiting to see which 2 she had for pref at UO really stressed her out due to a misunderstanding she had about the rules, but due to that misunderstanding I think 3 would have stressed her out even more.

She did have a younger HS friend go through at WSU with 3 pref parties and she did get her 3rd choice (daughter happened to love that group). She texted daughter to say she didn't think she would accept the bid. Daughter wrote a lot of texts/facebook messages and I think a phone call or two convincing friend to go and give it some time. Friend ended up loving her chapter - wrote daughter to tell her thanks for convincing her to stay with it, but a year later she transferred back to a school in our hometown that had no Greek life. If daughter hadn't talked her into it - I do think she would have dropped even though she had 3 groups on her card most girls at that school would have been thrilled with - just because it was her 3rd choice if that makes sense.

From what I've seen over the past several years, it really depends on the PNM. Some are happy with all three they have, some are loathe to go back to one (or two) out of their three pref parties. I have seen people who get their 3rd choice stick it out and love it, and others drop out. I don't think any of this would necessarily change if PNMs only went to two parties.

Interesting - I didn't realize the 2 or 3 pref option was available in so many cases. Thanks for the links.

Here you go:

http://www.odos.uiuc.edu/greek/membe...lenicStats.asp

It also lists the total number of women who withdrew and the total number released by all chapters and when they withdrew in the schedule.

I think that's a fair assessment of what I have observed too.

The other thing we need to remember is that just because a PNM can have three pref parties, many of them have fewer than that. Fewer than three seems to be fairly common at the schools where I've advised (which have all been large and moderately to extremely competitive by GC standards.)

Indiana has 20 chapters and will be adding a 21st chapter in the fall. From the Panhellenic minutes, one of their goals is to have 26 chapters in the future.

I think that Penn State still had 21 when RFM was being conceived. They probably just went with those figures.