It's my cousin's university. Every girl who maximizes their options gets a bid including single parties, and they started that last year. However, the group with the most apparently only had five single party girls (knowing them, not surprising), and one was a legacy anyways. Before that at baylor, I knew a lot of girls who didn't get matched from our high school.
They way she described quota additions was that they placed women like normal, and then every girl who was left over was then given their first choice, which generally gives the stronger chapters the most girls.
Because of the new release figures, it seems like some groups did invite nearly 100% every day. The stronger groups are still getting stronger actually, but it's allowed most of the groups that had problems in the past to become strong in recruitment. Seven of the nine were within 15 members of each other before pledging, and now eight of the nine are within 25 of each other. Most groups are well over total even before recruitment.
One sorority has always struggled and no longer participates in formal recruitment.
The ones that posted those big numbers are strongest at that school, and my cousin said their minus lists are huge as well, with one exception. The chapter that handed out 66 bids ended up with 60 girls, which is still over quota and an amazing number for them, because they were not at total beforehand.

The thing they don't do there that is at my campus is the idea of decline with regret, so maybe that might help even things out. (?) i have no idea why it was so many.

I have heard from numerous acquaintances that the new member dropout rates are shocking at some of the competitive schools that brag that all of their sororities reached quota. Does anyone think that it's due to pressure to take unwanted bids?

No, I think it's a healthy weeding out of women who went into rush for the wrong reason - wanting to join a sorority just to be popular and not giving a crap about sisterhood.

There's always been pressure to take "unwanted bids." It's usually been on girls without a lot of choices in rush, and on their sorority counterpart - misguided "let's help poor XYZ and throw them the leftovers." Well now it's happening to the girls who thought they would always get what they want and would never be anywhere in the "leftover" category. Pardon me if I don't cry in my Cheerios.

I think part of the problem for dropout is that the pledge classes are HUGE, and, imo, the New Member Programs are not geared to deal with the problems this brings. My daughters (both) were in pledge classes of over 75. I can see that a girl could get lost in this group and not feel connected, etc.

I can only speak for my school. The historically struggling chapter made quota this year for the first time in forever. Apparently only about 2/3 of those new members showed up on bid day and only about half of those lasted until initiation. I'm not sure what the real reason is or have any idea what the solution could be.

The real reason is that when you put on that new member pin on bid day you are advertising your social status to everyone and not a lot of girls want to advertise that they are at the bottom of the social food chain. They would rather just opt out of the greek system entirely. The sad thing is that if all these girls stayed in and worked to build up the chapter they would end up with the reputation as a chapter on the rise but that's not how girls think.

A lot of that has to do with Panhel interactions, I bet...at my school, though we DO have 'higher' and 'lower' chapters, because we all get along great, work together and try not to talk badly about each other, we tend to have very few problems with reputation.

Fixed your post.

This is why rush shouldn't be your first huge decision when you get to college. You should have some time to get away from HS and your family and become your OWN person before having to worry "OMG, what are people going to think of me if I join this sorority?"

But unless you go to a college with deferred recruitment as I do, rush is the first decision when you get to college. You join a sorority before classes even start. As far as these girls being dumb, they are not dumb, just very socially competitive. As I remember back to my high school class, it was the socially competitive girls who rushed and the others not so much.

Yes. That's my point. Thank you for re-making it. I meant "dumb" in the sense of naive.

It may also be tied in with the economy in the last few years.

If a girl wasn't just in love with her group immediately, she may feel less comfortable spending money on the group if it's a campus with housed chapters and the expenses that go along with that. I think this is especially true if she has the perception that her family is facing some economic pressure.

I've also noticed that high school kids may be more accustomed to superficial involvement with many groups rather than a deep commitment to any one thing. I think this trend has increased in the last 10 years.

Again, if a girl wasn't immediately amazed with her group, she may feel like the time required isn't "worth it."

I wonder if anyone keeps data of initiation rates and involvement through graduation in GLOs, as well as bid day stats. It would be interested to know if they've increased, stayed the same or decreased over time and how they track with the general economy.

This sounds like what happens regularly at a friend's school. The chapter would make quota on paper, but only a fraction would show up on bid day. Personally, I think Panhellenic and the Rho Gammas are forcing PNMs to rank chapters on their MRAA. So, PNMs rank the "low" chapter that they don't really want, either because they think they have to, or because they think it helps their chances for getting their first choice. This drives up quota, and the large chapters get the larger quota as a ressult of more women getting matched to the "low" chapter. PNMs who rank a chapter where they would not attend bid day aren't helping the chapter at all.

I'm wondering if some Panhellenics are thinking they're doing themselves a double favor by (a) getting great PR with everyone reaching quota and (b) "helping" smaller groups enlarge. I can see where some people would never see the downside of this.

However, the depledging numbers I'm hearing about are huge and I don't think they're doing anyone any favors--except, maybe, the girls who come around to liking the groups they never really wanted and the groups they pledge but that doesn't seem to be a significant number. When a group loses at least half of a very big pledge class, who benefits?

I'd love to see a comparison over time to know what we were really talking about.

One of the things to keep in mind, I think, is that I don't believe release figures have really increased the negatives for the PNMs in terms of actually pledging a group. Quota seems the same or higher at the campuses I'm familiar with, so if anything a girl has a slightly higher chance of pledging her top groups.

A girl might be cut hard after second round and be more likely to drop out, but in the olden days she might have gotten cut hard right before prefs or just not matched after prefs.

There may be a couple of chapters per campus who lose girls who were pressured to see recruitment all the way through with the groups they had left, but they were likely to be the chapters that just would have lost them earlier before release figures or would have been trying to snap bid them on bid day.

If nothing else, I think the "everyone made quota" PR does help because it takes an objective and public measure of recruitment success or failure off the table when people are talking about "struggling" chapters.