Heh, I refuse to add more hypotheticals to an already silly hypothetical.

They have to make some cuts, even if all the sororities cut the same number each day

They're not always rare. It depends on a lot of things. Sometimes they could be nonexistant. Sometimes they could be more common. I don't have an opinion on which is preferable.

Preferences exist in sorority recruitment. Just because you don't get your first choice doesn't mean it's not preferred. You seem to be saying preferences don't matter since they can be happy anyway.


Yes I am commenting on a particular part of this discussion, the PNMs who lose out. I really haven't said much at all about the whole community and that doesn't mean I'm not looking at it. I don't see how it matters whether the PNMs know or not, unless you're saying "they don't know so it doesn't matter if one of them gets screwed over". This maximizes many PNMs options but in some circustances which I have mentioned it takes an option away.

I doubt the sorority hates her. I understand what you're saying but a large part of recruitment is to level the playing field. Sororities can make lists prior to recruitment all they like just as PNMs have preferences, but the sororities should be open to the possibility that a PNM could change their mind about what they initially thought.

To clarify, I think there are shortcomings no matter what system is employed. I am simply mentioning one of these shortcomings (PNMs getting a bid to a chapter they would have been cut from early on due to RFM). It is not justified just because the worst case scenario of many PNMs going bidless is worse. It might be the reason that they decide to use RFM instead of not using them but Susie not getting her top choice when she would have still isn't good.

You are correct, Splash, that it really isn't "mutual" selection. But it's as close as it can get without having free-for-alls. Neither method is perfect. And both end up with women having hurt feelings. But the bottom line with RFM is it corrects two things that were the main problems with the previous method: 1) groups holding on to women they knew they didn't want just to inflate numbers and 2) too many women being left with no bid. If you used the old method and allowed all women who maximized their options at pref to be placed, the bigger groups would get massive and the smaller ones would fold. This method prevents that and allows everyone who maximizes her options to get a bid. Isn't that better for all?

As far as I know, groups generally drop grade risks, those without recs (where they are required), rep problems, "no" recs, etc the first round. Then, if they need to release more women, they generally work from the bottom of the pack up. Most groups have some sort of ranking system - esp those that require recs. So, they release from there. These women would probably be released by the group at some point anyway. It's really the second round on where you make your impressions. The first round drops are perfunctory...necessitated normally by the rules of the individual organization and the numbers they can invite back. So if Suzie or whoemever doesn't masure up to standards to begin with, she isn't going to after one or two rounds of parties.

Women who meet the standards of any of the other groups will continue to be invited back...and will, if they maximize their options, get placed on most campuses....even Ole Miss and Auburn!

Splash, in this case, you have to choose the lesser of two "evils". Although the system isn't perfect...

I'd rather see a few PNMs who MIGHT have had a chance in a "top" chapter get bids to a different chapter (and most likely be happy with that), than have a bunch of PNMs with no bids who could have easily been running to an amazing group of sisters on bid day.

Exactly...unfortunately, she's unable to see that in the real world, we can't just worry about Suzie Q, and where her top preference might be even though she isn't the top preference of her favorite chapter. The greater interest of the entire system is more important in the long run. Even if Suzie "won" them over, she probably just skated in, and everyone wondered who she was on bid day.:rolleyes:

Well that and it's not that Suzie's going bidless, she's just not getting her OMG first choice.

And let's not forget - it's in every pnm's best interest to have as many CHOICES as possible - which means the more strong chapters on a campus, the better, and the more likely the largest number of pnms will find a home.

Thank you. Yes. Exactly.

You can either get real, or you can stay in fantasy-land and lose out on being Greek at all. And as you said - even if the girl squeaks in, she'll probably spend 2/3 of her time as an active worrying about every move she makes and whether she is "measuring up."

As a side note, the old movie "Inside Daisy Clover" was on last night. It's the story of a tomboy who gets discovered by a movie studio who proceeds to change everything about her. Of course, then she's miserable. That just seemed rather pertinent to this discussion.

Splash is most certainly our hypothetical Suzie that got cut from a chapter she wanted after round 1 as evidenced by:

1. Knowing nothing about recruitment on the campus/chapter level
2. Her fixation on "Suzie"
and
3. The fact that her recruitment stories do not add up to a real chapter/campus.

I responded to Splash's posts explaining why her suggestions do more harm than good. I find it interesting that all she can come up with is, "but Suzie could have gotten another chance," and she doesn't even respond to what I've said to her.

I am in favor of RFM and I am in favor of deferred recruitment. :D

I hope I'm not lane swerving, but correct me if I'm wrong...I would assume that even for the most competitive sororities, somebody who is cut the first round is clearly not going to fit in. I knew girls in some very competitive sororities at a very competitive school who said there were PNMs even a couple rounds in that they were questioning. It seems to me that round one cuts (even though Panhellenic does dictate a certain number) are essentially, "this girl is very nice, but there is no way in Hades she would fit into our chapter." Not an agonizing decision, and not one that people really regret.

Therefore the problem with this "Suzie" hypothetical is that this is not the PNM that necessarily could have snuck by with another round (like the PNM who gets to Round 3 and gets cut before prefs)...this is a PNM that just did not even come close to fitting the bill. If she got "another chance" and was invited to another round, she STILL would not have a real shot at the chapter, but would have cut chapters that actually wanted her to make room for this fantasy chapter that was never going to happen anyways.

Please correct me if this is wrong, but this situation seems so clearly absurd that even a fraternity member can see why release figures are necessary.

Because the stronger chapters have to cut more than other chapters they're trying to cut into those who could have maybe made it to pref. But it's unlikely that hypothetical PNM would actually have gotten the bid. So you're close, these chapters just have to cut more because they always meet quota/total/etc.

Even a chapter that is recommended to cut no PNMs due to their size/numbers/whatever can cut those PNMs who are just an absolute No on the first round. I think someone on the first page of this thead provided an example.

Amen, DTD!

Indeed.

I have a question about invites to rounds prior to RFM being put into place. From what I understand, it was a badge of honor for chapters to have huge numbers of pnms return with each round and really big cuts at the "popular chapters" were done toward the very end. The popular chaters ended up with almost all of the "best" pnms to chose from. The other chapters had a considerably smaller pool by preference because many pnms had previously dropped them while being strung along by the popular chapters. Before RFM, were there no rules or guidelines about how many pnms you had to cut each round?

What I remember is a sort of self-imposed release for the last two parties:

-Invite no one to the (second to the last) party unless you think you may invite her to Pref, then

-Invite no one to Pref who wouldn't appear somewhere on your Bid List - unless a very, very major mistake is made (like the PNM showing up nude & drunk).

The biggest problem was with those GLOs who didn't use these guidelines, and invite at least 4 times quota to Pref. Then they would always pull some aside for SIP/Suicide. There were no guidelines, so they were in their rights to do this, but to me, it left much too many PNMs hung out to dry. It was just plain rude!

So, color me very much in favor of the Release Figures!

That was a second reason for Release Figures. PNMs would be so completely psyched out that they had already bought XYZ t-shirts (I know, super silly!), then not even get an invitation to Pref. Still dirty rush in my book.

They did have guidelines based on the return percentages over the prior 3 years. However, unless you had a Greek Adviser who was strong enough to hold to that, everyone pretty much fudged the numbers somewhat. I worked with a lot of chapters in the south (SEC and non-SEC) in the 80's and 90's and that was my experience.

I don't see much of a relationship here. There's a bigger underground scene for fraternities than sororities, yet the fraternities do a better job of upperclass retention (IMHO, because they are smaller and because of the housing they offer). Most NPC rushees/members aren't focused on what's going on underground. They leave because sororities are uncool for juniors/seniors, not because they are joining underground groups that are perceived as more cool.
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ScarletFlower4u

Originally, I was a skeptic about the RFM, but I have personally witnessed that RFM works if you follow the numbers. Invite the correct number back and you are usually on track to achieve quota.

Some College Panhellenics will try to persuade lower return chapters to take women they do not want in order for them to achieve their number. However, chapters can insist upon their right to not invite back any PNM who is not a fit for their chapter (be sure to loop in your regional/national team if you do this). Because in the end, the chapter has the ultimate right to decide who to invite back. But, they need to understand that if they significantly under-invite, they risk not making quota that year.

Bottom Line: RFM works and makes all chapters stronger.

Or they risk the PNMs they DO want getting turned off by the freakazoids they were forced to invite back...and the PNMs put them at the bottom of their lists...and the chapter doesn't make quota anyway.

RFM is fabulous to keep the most popular chapters from "hogging" PNMs and to help the rushees themselves take a look beyond Top Tier. It is not, however, a good idea when it's used as a way to "force" struggling chapters to take anyone with an ovary just so the school can crow about their 100% placement rate.

I don't think you were advocating any of that though. :) Not to mention that kind of BS has been around since before RFM.

Yes, this was the case on our campus
 

They gave you numbers to release and it was "suggested" you followed them, but not enforced. We did follow them pretty closely, but the releases after round one were less then half of what they are with RFM. In fact, the first year we did RFM we started releasing prior to them giving us our figures (grades mostly) and almost had a heart attack when the number came to us. We couldn't believe that it would actually work. I always worry about a Chapter having a misstep and then getting messed up, but I haven't seen that happen only a chapter mixing up their invite and their regret list:(

We used to have a strong Chapter on campus who would not drop any girls except grades during round one and do all their cuts before preference! Their round 3 parties were HUGE!

-hence my story about the orange and purple girl in the Weird Rush Stories thread, lol-

How did things work before RFM?

The "conventional wisdom" was that each round should have projected quota multiplied by the number of events in the round. Example: if the campus expected quota to be 50 and PNMs could attend 8 events in that round, each chapter should have 400 PNMs attending their events that round. However, these numbers were not enforced and it was accepted regardless of the chapter's usual return rate. So, if the next round had up to 5 events (which conventional wisdom would indicate 250 total PNMs attending events), a chapter that had a 95% average return (we'll call ABC) for that round would need to release about 130 PNMs and a chapter that had 50% average returns (DEF) for the round would need to release no PNMs and would likely still not have the requisite 250 PNMs attending their events. Then, preference rolls around and ABC (with, let's say, a 90% return for that round and let us assume a 2 event preference) needs to release 125 PNMs to get down to 100 PNMs for preference. Potentially, there are 125 PNMs who have regretted DEF (or other chapters) and now don't have the option of ABC or DEF.

I know this is confusing and I probably could be clearer. I'm happy to answer any questions, I feel that I'm fairly well versed in "recruitment math." I'm thinking about posting a recruitment story from the "inside" this year, so I'm keeping my posts intentionally vague. I'd like to be able to include actual numbers, but I don't know how wise that would be.

And how was quota determined?

At some schools, quota was set either at the beginning or after the first or second round, instead of after preference, quota being the number of PNMs divided by the number of chapters. The problem with this is that it doesn't account for any PNMs dropping out of recruitment. So if you have 500 PNMs signed up and 10 chapters, quota would have been 50, and it still would have been 50 if the pool of PNMs shrinks to 400, when it should be 40.

The result: a large number of PNMs did drop out when the bigger chapters finally made their cuts. As I've mentioned before, it resulted in huge quotas but only the bigger groups took quota and the smaller groups struggled and had to COB all year.

As I've also mentioned, the old system allowed more people to get their perceived first choice but seems to have also resulted in the glut of legacies we face now.

With the old system, you were generally expected to put everyone who you invited to pref on your bid list. It usually was OK because with quota additions being limited to 5% of quota, you probably weren't going to get all the way thru the lisdt before you closed out.

Now with RFM, if she's on your bid list anywhere, you could get her because there are no limitations where they allow them to maximize their options. So the onus is on the chapter in these situations to be sure and release the "orange and purple girl" or you might end up with her!

:eek::eek:What she said!:eek::eek:

I skimmed through some of the discussion in this thread, so forgive me if my point was already addressed:

I like RFM. I think it does make a lot of sense to have PNMs take honestly assess chapters earlier in their process rather than later. Where I see some points of concern are:

1) For chapters that are doing even moderately well on their campus, they may have to face really steep cuts in Round 1, and I think this makes a case for some kind of longer Round 1 (maybe two sets of visits, etc.) process on campuses that can swing it. The difference between someone who's invited back and who is released can be pretty random.

2) When I was a collegiate, "double-rushing" was always an issue for my chapter: we would frequently have a few PNMs each round who had to be doubled up with another PNM because we didn't have enough sisters for conversation. With RFM suggesting that smaller chapters invite back even higher percentages of PNMs, I think Greek Advisors NEED to include break parties (for PNMs, not for chapters) to ensure that the smaller chapters can actually handle their PNMs effectively.

My two cents.... for now

I agree with #3 and think the round one parties are probably too short. 20 minutes for this all important cut seems crazy and I think that's about what we're talking about, especially if you're the last one in line at a party with 50 girls. At the really big campuses (15+ chapters) it should probably go to 3 days instead of 2. I know all the negatives on that and wouldn't fight to the death over it, but I'd sure hate to be the most popular chapter on campus right now, having to cut more than half of the girls going through, based on 3 members meeting a girl for 5 minutes each. Either that, or the rush application form needs to include an essay portion or video submittal!

But that being said, I think RFM is doing just what was intended. It seems the schools had some growing pains with it and had MORE girls dropping out of rush earlier, but after time passes and girls understand there are 15 (or whatever) good chapters there, they are learning to give more chapters a shot. At least it seems that way based on numbers.

Now we just need an RFM for member retention which seems to stink lately.

/edit Ooops, it appears there was an edit above me. I think my comment can stand alone, however.

I am thinking that at the really big campuses, the largest sororities with the best recruiting strength probably already know who they're going to cut after first parties; therefore, a third day of open house parties would be frustrating and pointless.

And you may be right on that. I've never been involved with that kind of a rush process, or any RFM based rush for that matter. I hope to see it in action soon. Maybe even this fall!