University of Southern California Recruitment Begins
 

University of Southern California begins recruitment on August 22, 2011 with orientation. All registered participants must have completed the alcohol education requirement.

Nine chapters will participate in formal recruitment. A change this year will be three evenings of "Conversation Days". Three chapters will be visited each evening. Following will be House Tours and Slideshow Day.

Preference will take place on Sunday morning and Bid Night will be celebrated Sunday evening.

Presents, a long tradition at SC, will take place in October during Parents' Weekend.

That's a really interesting change- and I like the concept! Are the parties for the "Conversation" days longer? I hope this schedule works out well. Seems like it gives everyone, especially pnms, a better opportunity to make a good first impression without just blazing through nine parties in four or five hours. By the time you get to that last party everyone is exhausted!

SC Schedule
 

Last year pnms visited the nine chapters in two days. Classes were in session, so it was stressful for both actives and pnms. The hope is women have more time to meet actives and become acquainted with each chapter using the new schedule.

Times are the same for three days: 5:30-7:35 Group I and 8:10-10:15 Group II

Friday will be chapter house tours. Women will visit up to six chapters by invitation. Times are: 2:00-11:20

Saturday is Slideshow Day. Women will visit up to four chapters by invitation. Times are: 11:00-6:10

Preference is Sunday morning from 9:00 to 12:30. Women visit up to two chapters by invitation. Bid Night is 8:00 for the celebration.

Sigma Delta Tau will have informal recruitment after formal recruitment is completed..

Any news on how the first convo day went? How many have registered for recruitment this year?

I have a super-fantastic pnm going through - hope it goes well for her!

Last I heard was over 700 registered as of a week ago Monday, and registration closed last Sunday night. I'm sure it went up after move-in day.

I'm living in this year, and it's an odd experience not being able to go through our front door at certain hours!

The daughter of a coworker is going through recruitment there right now. So far, mom says daughter is having fun & is enjoying getting to know the different chapters.

I like that they have spread convo day over three days...much less grueling for pnm's and actives...do you think everyone seen on the first day will be at a disadvantage because the memory is not as "fresh"?

I don't know, it seems more grueling for the actives, though way easier on the PNMs. I mean, the actives do get more breaks, but still. It's still another day of recruitment.

Any update on how the conversation days went?

Some news
 

Recruitment numbers were down from the record registered last year. I have only UNOFFICIAL news quota was 48, down from 62 in 2010.

Apparently, huge numbers of women dropped from recruitment. No official numbers are available at this time.

I wonder if the new method of recruitment had anything to do with the large number of women who dropped out?

There are many factors involved. In my opinion the student profile of freshmen has changed to more northeastern students and international students. They appear to have less interest in Greek life.

The RFM method seems to place more women who stay with recuitment. SC has lost a list of chapters over the years.

Many of SC students are from Trojan families of many generations. To some only certain sororities are "acceptable". If invitations do not include those chapters pnms drop out of recruitment.

Some pnms use recruitment as a way to meet people and have no intention of becoming Greek. They drop after first round.

SC now has residential colleges. Certain students choose these instead of joining a Greek chapter.

The university encourages double majoring and multidisciplinary choices. Many students feel they would have no time for Greek life due to demanding academic schedules.

The above are my guesses. There are no studies available why the numbers have dropped dramatically.

Although many of these items may be true I doubt that it would be that drastic of a drop from one year to the next. I would think it would be a more subtle decline over years.

As I wrote these are guesses.

Football Fan - you rock in my world. There are too many variables to speculate, aren't there? Thanks for all the information about USC.

That is really, really low, but I think pledge classes at USC are often much higher than quota...although I don't think it makes sense with NPC rules (which I admittedly don't know about), it seems like every year every chapter makes over quota somehow. Pledge classes are usually in the 60s. Do you know how many ended up in the actual pledge classes?

First timer...have lurked for a while, and mother of a USC sorority member. I have a few comments, observations, questions. Quota was in the mid-forties for my daughter's sorority but they have over 60 new pledges. Having pledged at an sec school way back in the day, I don't understand why there is such a bump up from quota. Also, football fan, have enjoyed reading your observations about sc sorority rush. I think you're right on with the changing demographic of the student body, but it's hard to understand with such a "strong" greek system why so many women drop out of rush when they don't get invited back to the so-called top tier ones. Evidently, there was a large number that dropped again this year. Having attended an sec school, and having had another daughter also attend an sec school, and hearing about the success that Alabama and Florida State are having with new chapters, why won't these girls make that leap of faith? They clearly wanted to be part of the greek community because they started the process.

Ginger, when they figure quota, they run the numbers on how many girls get placed if quota is 30, what about 31, what about 32, and they put quota at the best figure and then add as many quota additions as they can. But some schools seem to choose an artificially low number and have everyone have tons of quota additions. Technically you could have quota be 1 and everyone has 59 quota additions. You'd end up at the same place. I think (don't know for sure, but I know there are some advisors who have been in the room with THE COMPUTER and have seen it in action) some schools weigh quota additions in favor of the chapters and some in favor of the rushees. The huge quota additions may have something to do with that as well. But I'm just speculating.

Why do girls drop out when they get cut from their 1st choices when they still have several perfectly good chapters available? There are many threads on here that discuss reasons, from they're snotty spoiled children to they just don't understand the process. I think there are probably nearly as many reasons as the girls who are dropping out. I wish they wouldn't, but what else can you do?

If you set quota artificially low, it allows you to say that all chapters made quota. :-)

I'm trying to think through the math on this, and I think that a lower quota combined with QA's helps to better achieve equity among chapters. QA's are supposed to go to the smallest chapter listed on the bid card, though I have no idea if every school does it that way.

So, let's say you have two chapters, and ten women. All ten women list chapter A first and then chapter B. B is the smaller, less-popular chapter. If quota is five, five end up in each chapter. If quota is four, four end up in each chapter during the quota calculation, then B gets both of the QA's because it has the smaller total chapter size.

Okay, now say you have five women who list A first, and then five only invited to A, but all at the bottom of A's list. If quota is five, five match to A and zero match to B, then A gets five QA's. If quota drops to two, two match to A and two match to B, and then B gets one QA and A gets five QA's.

In either scenario, the lower quota helps B.

what a fabulous explanation deltabetababy!

But it has not been determined if QA's go to the smaller chapter or to the girl's choice. I believe I've read here that it is done both ways at different schools. Which would explain why, using a scenario we've read about here, Theta at Auburn had a disproportionately large pledge class this year. The presumption was that they are smaller so they "had the room." But we have since been corrected that they are in fact one of the larger chapters on campus. Which would seem to indicate that QA's at Auburn are going to girl's choice, not smallest chapter. Since Auburn seems to have achieved chapter parity, this may be the way they have to go since no chapter is in need of an extra 30 girls or something.

Now USC (from my understanding) does NOT have chapter parity, so maybe they do it in favor of the smaller chapter, but I don't think anybody's going to be fessing up to that one as it could really affect how a girl fills in her bid card.

Any one have any idea if the fraternity recruitment numbers were down/less than expected as well? Other influencing factors sorority recruitment: the stock market tanking right before the registration deadline, the well publicized fraternity events of last spring and the party restrictions placed on the Greek system that might make it "not worth it" for those that are just focused on just that aspect.

Those could very well be factors. However I know chapters that took above quota. Perhaps they set quota low this year to try and help everyone achieve it, as DeltaBetaBaby stated. That statistic may become helpful for SC's upcoming extension plans. There has been a chapter which has not been so consistent on that regard and had to sometimes participate in COB over the last few years.

Anybody know the pledge class sizes for either guys or girls? Guys always feels like some crazy range from 4 all the way to 35, but I imagine girls are much more standardized.

The sororities still have to vote for extension and if there's a fakishly (is that a word?) low quota, it's not going to sway their vote - they're going to know what's up. Especially the chapter that hasn't been making quota.

True, but it can also help the group not making quota, because quota is even smaller with another chapter present. If a group is stagnant while the big keep getting bigger, it can be worse than if a group is stagnant while the big have levelled off.

Perhaps chapters with a lower relative recruiting strength or lower retention rates are favored for QAs? Just ideas. Not saying this is the case with Auburn Theta...just that as a new chapter, you're generally not top of the totem pole right away. Of course it's not out of the realm of possibilities that lots of PNMs may have wanted Theta and/or that because of a possible lower relative recruiting strength, they had a bunch of women attend their party whose only preference chapter was Theta, and per guaranteed matching policies, Panhellenic would have to match them with Theta.

I'm pretty sure the MOI contradicts itself. On page MR-44:

Chapter Eligibility for Quota Additions
• Chapter must have followed the RFM throughout recruitment.
• Chapter must have already filled quota.
• Chapter must be the smallest chapter listed on the PNM’s MRABA.
• Chapter must have the PNM listed on the chapter’s bid list or the
snap bid list.


but also:

Resolved (2007), That in placing Quota Additions, the Release Figure
specialist and the fraternity/sorority advisor shall consider and balance preference
for chapters with smaller total membership, for placing potential new members
with chapters with lower relative recruiting strength, for potential new members'
first choice, for even distribution of potential new members, and for potential new
member position on a chapter's bid list.


Perhaps the latter is more recent, but clearly they say two different things in rapid succession. I am looking at the 2009 version; I don't know if anything has been updated since then.

What I get from this? It's up to the person sitting at the keyboard to make the decisions. And relative recruiting strength - according to whom? Going back to Theta at Auburn, since they are relatively new, the person at the keyboard may still be seeing them as the new kid on the block and pushing all QAs their way, even though it's probably much more realistic to spread the QAs more evenly across all the chapters.

But thanks DeltaBetaBaby for the specific text, confusing though it may be.

Relative recruiting strength is an actual number assigned to each chapter for use in RFM. I believe its exact calculation is proprietary, but it is based on the number of invitations accepted in previous years, number of PNM's listing the chapter first on their card, etc.

But yes, the rest of it pretty much says the advisors can make whatever call they want.

The Manual of Information was updated in 2010 and 2011.

Not all chapters at USC made quota this year. It was a varying number. I don't know why. My best guess is because they didn't know how many girls would drop after pref, but I really have no clue.

Some chapters took more than the upper end of quota + the four "free" juniors. The only reason I can think of for this is that they were under total before formal?

Or else there were quota additions.

So can anyone share what quota was and how many pledges each chapter took? Also, any word on how informa; recruitment is going for the two chapters involved and when they offer bids? I have heard that quota was 45-50...

More on Univ. of Southern California
 

USC is a private research university located in Los Angeles, just three miles from the downtown civic center. The campus is noted for the many fountains and courtyards with landscaped green spaces shaded by tropical flowering trees, Moreton Figs and eucalyptus. Roses and flower beds dot the pathways.

SC has more international students than any other private university in the U.S. The student body is extremely diverse and over 1,300 high schools were represented in the 2010 entering class from over 100 countries. Many students come from abroad to enroll in the top notch art schools: School of Theatre, School of Architecture, Thornton School of Music and the School of Cinematic Arts.

Pledge classes, in my opinion, are diverse. The question was asked about quota. For some time all the chapters made quota with the exception of one chapter which was near quota. In 2007 a new chapter was added and there are now ten NPC chapters.

It is my understanding quota was 48 for this August. Tri Delta took 50. I looked up quotas for the past four years when pnm numbers were higher. This is just an example how quotas have changed in the last four years: 2008 Q 60-- 2009 Q 51--2010 Q 66 --2011 Q 48.

I have heard the weirdest numbers this year. Tri-Delt 50 and ADPi 64 (ADPi from their national Facebook group), and then an unconfirmed Gamma Phi at 68, with the quota anywhere from 46-48 and at least one group (I know which, just not saying) that didn't make quota, not to mention a couple national groups that seem to have posted the pledge class numbers from every school but USC.

These numbers literally make no sense to me. Tri-Delt's number makes sense if quota was around there, but if the ADPi (nationally verified) and Gamma Phi (not verified) numbers are correct that's not only absurdly high above quota, but also a huge discrepancy between those groups (and those three sororities are almost always around the same size, it's not that Tri Delt is exponentially bigger/smaller than the other two). If anybody knows why these numbers are so ridiculous this year, or they know of numbers from other pledge classes that would help illuminate this situation, I'd be interested to know.

I'd like to know as well, because what I'm hearing (not to mention suspecting) just doesn't make any sense for a school that is pretty consistent in terms of #s and chapters and how they recruit.

DTD alum,
This year there was much more of a range of new member classes. These are the numbers for Tri Delta for the last four years according to my records.

2008 Q 60 DDD 64

2009 Q 51 DDD 62

2010 Q 66 DDD 68 That year there was a record number of pnms.

2011 Q 48 DDD 50

As far as I know Tri Delta is at or above total. I have not spoken to our alumnae advisor this month, so I do not know why there was a range of numbers for chapters. Last year Tri Delta at SC was on the honor list for recruitment from national headquarters. Sorority chapters at SC are long established and many of them consistently receive national recognition from their respective organizations.

Perhaps DukeDG or AZTheta could find out numbers for their chapters.

Any chance of getting the bid list?