Not true. If you expect that few women will accept invitations, you invite them all. You do not want the girls who you DO want showing up and seeing that your party only has 20 PNM's when every other chapter's party has 30.

Yes, but if one of the girls came to a previous party and was all "I'm going ABC and the only damn reason I'm here is because they told me I had to come" you want to release her butt as soon as humanly possible. People with bad attitudes aren't something you want around as they can "infect" the other rushees with and then you're doubly SOL.

As far as the grades question, you literally may not be allowed by your national bylaws to ask them back.

Also, you may want to leave the freakshows (you know, the ones that came in hungover and puked in the foyer, jumped up on the table and did a striptease, etc.) off your invite list, even if you need bodies. PNMs are going to see that girl back and think "Gee, if this sorority invited HER back, I sure don't want to be a part of it...".

I certainly agree with this. I am just saying that when a chapter has the option of inviting back girls they can't take due to grades, or having empty parties, you shouldn't assume that they are always going to err on the side of sparing the PNM's feelings.

I think I am very cynical about the process, because I notice I am playing devil's advocate an awful lot.

A couple of comments...
 

1. No, it does not say anywhere in the green book that you are guaranteed a bid if you attend and rank the maximum number of pref parties. Some campuses have this rule, but NPC does not.

2. If your campus has spring rush, the chapters under total can do COR in the fall, unless a specific campus rule prohibits it.

3. Release figures are recommendations. However, some campuses have the rule that if a chapter does not abide by suggested release figures, they are not eligible for quota additions, which, at 5%, can be 4 girls on larger campuses.

Hmmmmm...couldn't one way around this be to have fewer parties for that sorority? Example, if there are 7 time slots for parties on that night, and in order to have fuller parties a group needed to have 6, wouldn't that be an option? Or, if there were an extra slot built in for each sorority to have a break anyway, who would know for sure if a group got an extra break time? Then, the parties would be fuller, even though the sorority is cutting harder.

The problem with that would be coordinating the scheduling w/ the rushees' other parties. I'm sure it could be done with a smaller rush, but at places where 2000 girls are going through it would be a nightmare.

Hmmm...are any of the software vendors paying attention? This could be done pretty easily programmatically.

Assuming the computer does the scheduling, I think this would be a great idea.

I can see your point from a rush PR view, but I was really thinking in terms of what was good for PNMs. It seems to me like it's better to let them know where they stand with your group sooner rather than later so that they can be realistic about where they might join.

The flexible number of parties sounds like a good idea.

Doesn't the small party thing work itself out though because the groups with low returns are smaller in number themselves? Is it better to have a small number of guests but at least one rusher per guest or is it better to have crowded parties and maybe have to double rush?

releasing a certain amount of girls could work in a chapters favor, making them appear more desirable to the girls who were invited back to that chapters next round.

I like the new release figures system as it is used at UGA. It has worked on our campus. No, not every house is making quota, but many more are than have in the past. I honestly think that with a few more years of using this system that all of our houses will be consistantly making quota.

The main reason that I like this system has nothing to do with quota, party size, or release figures. I know that this system helped us to place many girls. Before, houses could continue to invite PNMs to parties so that they would have high return rates, or for whatever reason, and then release them before prefs. Girls would be devistated that they were released from their favorite houses and withdraw from recruitment. If larger houses have to cut up to 70% of PNMs after round 1, it gives the PNMs a realistic view of recruitment. It is easier to convince them to give houses that weren't their number one a second chance after round one than after they have just been dropped from their favorite house right before prefs. I hope that makes sense...

This sums it up. The release figures are mainly to benefit the RUSHEES, not the sorority chapters. People have finally wised up to how damaging it is to have women who were previously pro-Greek turn anti-Greek because they got screwed at rush.

This is partly why I'm asking for the mock range
 

I think it's a great system. I don't know that the numbers will ever work so perfectly so every group makes quota every year, but I think it's helping.

(I'm afraid that girls dropping out after quota is set will always make it hard for it to be perfect, but it will be greatly improved. Everyone will be a lot closer to quota even if they don't have it on bid day.)

I went to Georgia back in the 1990s, and I know that you are completely right about the old days.

I'm still confused about one aspect, though, and this is why I was hoping that we could get walked through a mock release figure rush.

I don't see how a group can cut 70% of the PNMs and still have 12 full parties the next day. I thought everyone got to invite at least estimated quota back to each event at each round, and that your previous return rates determined how much over that you could go.

So let's pretend at UGA during second round, 1000 girls were still in rush, and some groups had to cut 70% of them. That would leave only 300 girls to fill 12 second round parties. Do these groups have 25 girl parties?

I absolutely know that there are groups at UGA that if they only got to pref quota, could probably still have everyone they preffed want bids from them.

But I just don't see how the numbers work through all four rounds.

Anyone?

My response to that is - There are still some pnm's that get released from ALL or MOST of the sororities on the first/second night. The same girls are more then likely released the same days - except for the girls that everyone wants.

Therefore it doesn't effect quota. (if quota is set after theme or prior to pref)

I mean, lets say 200 girls go through and there are 4 sororities. . . it is very likely that 10 of the pnm's will be released from all four sororities the 1st night. (at the university that I work with these pnm's that were likely to be released early on were warned that this could happen [grades])

I hoped that helped a little or maybe I am way off base on your question.