| Firehouse |
01-18-2008 11:19 AM |
Yes. I ran into the same thing once when I was rush chairman a long time ago. Rush moved very fast that fall and we pledged in the mid-40s which was the largest on campus at that time. There was some whining about the pledge class being too big. I had kept records of who had accepted their bids and on what night. I could tell you in order who had pledged and when during rush week. When someone complianed about too many pledges, I turned the compliant on its head. I said, "OK, here's the list. How many do you think we should have - 40? 35? 25? - if we had stopped pledging guys on Thursday night, here are the ones we would not have now. Do you like these guys? Do you think they are impressive?"
You'll never go wrong framing rush to the chapter in terms of "quality" vs. numbers. There's always room for another good man. Especially at the University of Florida where you are, it's dangerous for a fraternity that wants to be competitive to start thinking in terms of being too big. Especially with your beautiful new house, you need to have at least - at the very minimum - twice the number of men in the chapter that you need to fill the house.
And the "percentage of bid acceptance" business is - if you'll pardon me, I mean no disrespect - a loser's game. Trust me. We used to frustrate one rival in rush so badly, we beat them every time, so they created the "bid percentage" thing to make themselves feel better. Every good fraternity says they get everybody they wanted. It's not true. In a rough & tumble rush no one gets everyone they want. When you start playing the "percentage of bid acceptance" game what happens in reality is that the memebrs begin to concentrate on that number. They won't give a man a bid unless they're sure he'll accept becasue they don't want to dilute the number. That's a good way to get beat, and soundly.
Don't talk about a "top 20" rushees; instead talk about quality and leave the goal number of the pledge class vague. Brothers will respond to talk of quality. And when you get a big class they'll be happy. If you get a small class or a disappointing class, the members will tend to rationalize (bid acceptance percentage) instead of making the changes necessary to make the chapter competitive again.
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