Scary Quota Numbers
 

I'm wondering how many universities out there this fall are concerned about potential quota numbers. Last year at Arkansas quota was 101 on bid day, with several chapters taking 103-105. Recruitment registration closes this Friday, but as of Monday we were already at 1250 ladies registered to participate. I'm wondering how it is physically possible for us to take a pledge class any bigger than we did last year. Are there any other universities struggling with similar numbers? We have a guaranteed bid system as long as you make it pref and maximize your options. Rush has already expanded to 7 days of rounds (2 for each except pref) spread out over two weeks. I just can't wrap my head around a potential quota of 130-150 :/

Maybe the University will evenutally get their act together and make it feasible and desirable for new chapters to colonize which would relieve this. Until then, it is what it is.

:eek: When I was at Arkansas, quota was 25-30. Of course, that was when it was a bed rush and you had to be a sophomore and move right in. It was worse than big quotas, though, because some years over half the rushees went bidless. One huge result of this was many enemies of the Greek system.

I can't imagine pledge classes of that size!

Holy new members, Batman. Now, my school had a lot of chapters but wasn't horribly huge... I think our entire chapter had about 70 members, and that was the limit. I absolutely cannot imagine having a PLEDGE CLASS twice the size of my entire sorority. Different strokes, I know, but wow!

Note on current situation.
 

University of Arkansas, according to its website has only 8 NPC sororities on the school website: ADPi, AOPi, ChiO, Tri-Delta, KD, KKG, PBPhi, and ZTA. With only 8 NPC sororities at an SEC school, there is *definitely* room for expansion. I'd be shocked if this *wasn't* the smallest number of NPC sororities of any SEC schools. Does anyone know if the school has lost any NPC sororities in the last 5 years?

naraht - No, Arkansas has not lost any NPC sororities in the last 5 years (the last one to leave campus was Phi Mu in the mid 1990s), and as Titchou alluded to they were open to expansion last year, but they did not had any NPC groups interested in colonizing for various reasons.

hooty hoo - I know that it will be crazy, but also know that all you Greek Razorbacks will do the best that you can do! At KD convention I spoke to the Advisor for the new members quite a bit about this (we were pledge sisters at Arkansas a few moons ago). One thing that she and the Member Educator did last year was speak to some of the larger chapters of KD across the country with largest pledge classes and saw how they handled the large numbers. Logistically, I am sure that the executive councils of all groups (I know at least KD has this at the top of their minds) are thinking of ways to handle this influx again (lots of possibilities are on the table - multiple chapter/new member meetings, putting an importance on new member group leaders and having them make sure that all of the members of her group (we call them SETs) are getting acclimated to the chapter, etc) . Maybe (hopefully) this is something that was brought up during Presidents meetings and Panhellenic meetings last spring and the groups were able to springboard ideas off each other on how to keep new members and members active and involved in such large chapters.

I had a feeling the number at Arkansas would be large. Just spent the last few days with my Alumnae club writing RIF's for local girls. So many great girls going thru recruitment.

Why are there no chapters willing to go to Arkansas? Such a beautiful campus, I understand the cost is high. However there is expansion going on all over the country. Why not at Arkansas???

Because the cost is high and the probability of 'failure' is also high.

Why not spend resources elsewhere if you're a national org.?

With so many girls going thru recruitment now do you think the chance of failure is still there??? I guess the best thing to do would be to look and see if the numbers continue to trend up...

arrowlady, I will send you a PM :)

thanks!

I highly doubt that anyone would fail at this point if they had comparable housing. :) According to numerous people in the know, it's mainly a combination of the incredibly high costs of Fayetteville real estate and the lack of cooperation of the university in helping to find housing.

Remembering the houses of 3 groups that have left: one sold their house to Sigma Chi and the other 2 houses were way too small in order to compete these days; actually, they were smaller than the rest back in the seventies.

There were several fraternities back in the day on Stadium Drive that played musical houses and some have folded. I wonder what the chances are of buying and leveling one of those houses and rebuilding.

Ahh Real Estate, that I can see. I do remember a lack of space around the Campus on our visit there.

What if Panhellenic did away with guaranteed bids? Would that reduce the size of pledge classes to make it manageable?

Arkansas' NPC culture is very similar to Ole Miss, which is also very greek but only has 9 NPC groups.

You reap what you sow

You know what has played into the large pledge classes we're seeing in the NPC? The fairly recent difficulty of getting into UGa as a freshman or UT because of the 10% rule. A lot of kids who would've easily gotten into either back in the day still want the huge university experience so they leave their home states for Arkansas, Auburn, Bama, and Ole Miss. I write most of my recs for those 4 schools.

I'm guessing that the "guaranteed bids" concept is kind of a moot point since from what people have said, very hard and very big cuts happen early on anyway. In other words, the girls getting to the pref round are girls that the groups truly do want. There just happen to be a whole lot of them.

I think the out of state tuition waver that Arkansas has for gpa, is really growing the numbers of kids attending there as well. Great school and reasonable tuition is pulling lots of kids from Texas for sure.

I understand and agree with the "you reap what you sow" comment, but it's probably a little unfair to hold the folks there today responsible for a campus culture that probably took generations to build.

Other than facilitating housing, which probably involves a lot of money that would be hard to defend to the campus community at large, what can the University or Greek life really do to fix things?

Is is crazy that I get a little thrill whenever Arkansas is discussed on Greekchat even though we are talking about a dire situation?? (I'll answer: yes)

Arkansas has created a monster, and not just for Greek Life. Housing at the university is at a premium and the rumor is that next year they will not be able to guarantee housing for anyone other than freshmen.

I think all of these groups had better think 'outside the box' about how to reach and connect with their pledges. I believe the kappas are setting up small groups with individual leaders (similar to what the KDs are doing) and then the groups will shuffle every week so the girls can get to know each other. Also,let's not forget how first semester initiation negatively impacts this!

I just pray that the UA can also 'think outside the box' about ways to help with housing a new group(s) who want to come to campus...please!!

PS Also heard a rumor that head of Greek Life resigned a week or so ago. Has anyone else heard that?

I am glad to hear that groups are trying to find ways to better get to know such large groups.
Hopefully in the future some brave group will colonize and get support from the other groups on campus.

I think this might be a good thing, lol.

As far as I know, no. Our assistant director of Greek Life left earlier this summer for a job promotion at Arkansas State.

Also, I know several of the chapters have struggled in the past, and one still doesn't make quota today, but we're desperate for more chapters. AOII has done AMAZING thing since being becoming a part of the U of A and took quota last year. During expansion last year we had 6-7 national organizations take exploratory visits, but the cost is just too high to secure a colony.

Thank you guys for the small group ideas. I'm pretty sure it's ZTA at Arkansas that has done something like this in the past. We talked about grouping of girls of 5-6 each week and just having them do something together on their own like study, go to coffee, eat lunch, etc. At this point I think anything can help.

Also, while out-of-state students do add to the population and pull to Arkansas (myself included), our huge jump last year was due to the lottery scholarship. It is only offered to Arkansas residents, so we expect this to be a big factor this year as well. But, on that same note, when I went through rush I was one of 2 girls from my very large district that went to Arkansas. I know of 20 girls already from that same district signed up, so out-of-state and in-state students are both increasing.

Is Arkansas one of those campuses where it's actually cheaper to live in a sorority house than to live in the dorms or off campus housing?

I'm trying to figure out how the Pi Phis did that. Maybe they incorporated the whole bottom floor?

Same for the others, though.

This definitely violates brothel laws.

/kidding

Since GC is a caring and sharing place, one thing I respectfully wonder is whether larger quotas/larger chapters have a negative connotation as far as some NPC chapters and some NPC members are concerned. Different opinions of larger NPHC lines and larger NPHC chapters have been discussed numerous times on GC over the years.

If answering my question is going to cause a shitstorm or hijack, please feel free to PM an answer. :) (ETA: Or tell me to stay in my lane and go to hell.)

Pledge classes of this scale put the sororities in the same range as the residential colleges at schools like Rice, Yale, and Harvard, as well as some of the Oxford/Cambridge colleges that inspired them. That model works very well and can inspire tremendous spirit, loyalty, intimacy, etc. within the group. That said, the residential space is usually designed to hold everyone, or close to it, and there isn't necessarily an aspiration for everyone to know 100% of their collegemates personally.

This calls to mind the early years of Sigma Kappa, with multiple SK chapters operating on the same campus. I wonder if the chapters could unofficially divide into teams or shifts for various activities.

Has anyone ever read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? It talks a lot about how group dynamics change drastically at around 150 members. He makes some very good points for keeping groups to this size if they are to function as a unified whole.

The housing issue is not the only one at Arkansas. The Greek Council there has some issues. They did not ask for expansion last year. The university president told them to open. But as stated, no one was interested. The cost of building a house coupled with knowing that you are not going to get the kind of assistance that some other large CPH's provide(such as Alabama) just makes it not worth the time, money and effort.

And doesn't MS State have just 7 NPC groups?

Yes. They too have lost 4 chapters that I know of, although I think that someone else has been chosen to come aboard in a year. The schools are comparable in some ways (such as many PNMs going in with their minds set on certain older chapters) but State doesn't have nearly as many girls rushing.

Irishpipes or gee_ess, do y'all know the feasibility of knocking down one or more of the sixties-style fraternity houses on Stadium Drive and replacing them with new Greek housing? Or have they already been knocked down? I swear, the Sigma Pi house looked like a warehouse.

Just as being in a struggling chapter doesn't give you a quality fraternity experience, so does being in a huge chapter.
How many women only turn up for the minimum number of meetings once the "in love" stage of the sorority experience is over? Will never do more than serve on a committee because there are too many other members? Can disappear for weeks and nobody realize they haven't seen her for a long time?
I think it's awfully sad when you ask a girl about a sorority sister and she says, "I've heard the name, but I don't know her."
I'd really like to see the statistics on retention.

I agree with everything you've said, but my chapter imo has done an incredible job with the large numbers we experienced last year. I know several chapter struggled with participation and retention on campus, but that is something we stressed the entire year, and it definitely paid off. We had one girl drop from 104 new members the first two weeks because she just didn't think Greek Life was for her. Other than that, we only lost 3 other new members. This was due to the fact that we have grade requirements for initiation. When they were informed they would have to pledge another semester, they decided to drop. I know it's not perfect retention, but I would say 100/104 (96%) is a hell of accomplishment considering the circumstances. I'm hoping with more programming and extra focus on involvement, we can achieve similar or better odds this year.

I just have to say DAYUM. :eek: I cannot imagine having 100 pledge sisters and having 400 people in the chapter. Logistics must be a nightmare. Where do you hold chapter meetings - in a lecture hall? Where and how would you do initiation, and wouldn't it take forever? (I know one chapter at my school took 25-30 new members each year in FR, and divided each NM class in half and held two initiations - and that was for only 25-30 NMs.)

These are situations where expansion is certainly called for, but unfortunately, the barriers to entry (must have a big house from the get-go, must bring in 250-300 women in the colonization process (and imagine THAT initiation!)) are just too high.

Well, Stadium Drive has already had some recent new housing put into it (Sigma Nu house). If you look at Google Maps, and do a street view, you will notice that (from North to South) that there are the Athletic dorms, then the new Sigma Nu house, the Phi Delt House, the empty lot where the KA house was (I am not sure if anything is currently being built on this lot), the Lambda Chi house, and then the SAE house. Others may have more current info. I haven't been down stadium drive since last football season.

No, no shitstorm. :) The only way this would be looked at negatively within the school or the national org is if the way they were getting these huge pledge classes was that no one was getting cut - i.e. taking the selectivity out of membership selection. As I said before, none of these groups is having to resort to taking Courtney Love Junior to get that quota of 100+ people. (I get the impression that sometimes that is the opinion when NPHC lines are super large.) There are huge numbers of awesome rushees that any chapter would love to have.

I personally would hate the concept of not knowing all my chapter sisters' names and only having super close friendships with a fraction of the chapter, but then again, it's all what you're used to. I'm sure someone from Arkansas might come to my school and feel absolutely claustrophobic. You can develop sisterly relationships at either place. The only problem comes when you try to run/counsel/discipline/reward very different chapters in the same way.

Very true and Ole Miss is expecting quota to be high again too. I think the chapters were told to plan for quota in the high 90s-100s. Which just boggles my mind because quota was just in the 50s when I was in college at Ole Miss, of course that was in 1996 and we did have 10 sororities then!!!!

ETA: I think if expansion isn't happening (like at Ole Miss and Arkansas) then it just comes down to each sorority to "figure it out!" I know some chapters at Ole Miss have figured it out. And yes they do eat in shifts (from what I've heard at some chapters at Ole Miss). AOII does not eat in shifts but our addition to our house a few years ago allows for just about everyone to eat! And I think in the beginning of the year events/meetings/meals are attended more and then it does subside. Does this mean those members who aren't coming to everything aren't getting a good experience? Nahh! I think for some women they are looking for a different experience than others. So, it's about offering all aspects of sorority life to all members. (Academic, Sisterhood, Social, Philanthropy, etc). Do I think having a new member class of 100 members or more is insane?!?! I do think it is but I think all of our chapters have women who are willing to adjust and “figure it out” to be successful and compete on their college campuses. So, that’s just my two cents.

I guess that either the new SN House or the KA lot is the location of the former Sigma Pi House. I can't even remember where Wilson Sharp was in relation to them. Then the AKL House was down by Pomfret, where I lived the first year, and I wonder if it's still there. It's hard to live close to the fraternities but, hey, it'd be close-in housing.

What's where the old Sigma Nu House was on Arkansas Avenue? And the TKE House, which was on a side street nearby?

I really need to go to Fayetteville.

Maybe I'm more sinister than the people who have replied already, but don't the debates over small vs. large lines or NPHC chapters also have something to do with feeling like if you get too big, you get away from being as selective as you should be?

I think the whole quota system means that NPC groups don't get hung up on that very frequently.

I'm certainly not claiming it's never been said; I've just never heard of a top group saying that even if they attracted every strong potential new member going through recruitment, they still wouldn't feel like they have quota's worth of worthy candidates.

I've only heard of "struggling" groups who face the pressure to take quota but might feel like they didn't want the part of the pool that wanted them.

I think the philosophy is that if the campus is good enough to have your group on it, then there are enough good candidates out there; your job as a chapter is to make sure you get the top girls as your pledge class.

Now, with fraternities, I've heard of stronger ones being critical of other stronger groups because they took too big a pledge class so they weren't as selective as they should have been. I think the when number of bids that you can give is sort of open ended, then the pressure is greater about where to draw the line so you don't appear to be just asking everyone to join.

But yeah, I'm sure the experience of being in a chapter of 200+ presents different challenges for sisterhood.

ETA: I see now that 33Girl did touch on being selective. I missed it before.