RFM Question
 

I can swear this was answered before, but I can't seem to find it. If a woman gets released from all chapters immediately before prefs, does the RFM specialist and/or GA attempt to flex the numbers at all to obtain an invitation for her?

For example, Suzie goes to four parties for second invitational and then receives no preference invites. Do they check to see if Suzie was on any of the flex lists for her four groups? And if she isn't, is there any horse trading with the advisers to try to find a spot for her?

The reason I ask is because, in this situation, Suzie has already made it through two rounds of invitations, and is probably just a victim of numbers, i.e. she probably meets the qualifications for membership and just got released because there were other PNM's the chapter wanted more.

I can say that at my institution there were girls that were offered around if they were victims of numbers and usually there were chapters willing to take them back. They have made great sisters when we've accepted them. Have there been refusals by chapters as well? Yes. Have there been a handful of women pushed back on the chapters? Yes. But if you really stand firm they won't force it.

Oh Ack. << Error Code 100: Too many variables>>

We can't really say for sure without knowing the school or the specific situation. Many places the GA might be able to do this but might not want to? It could lead to some unhappiness at the chapter if someone gets put back on the list for prefs that was off the list previously.

She may actually be better off making sure that people know she is eligible for a snap bid or COB. She may actually have more choices then.

Right, and I think that "forcing" is a bad thing.

I was just wondering if (hoping that) there is a mechanism in place to say "Suzie PNM didn't get any invites; we'll let you go over your suggested invite number to take her", much the same way that women getting placed as QA's are usually well liked and just got screwed by numbers.

NO NO NO, I don't mean the GA putting someone back on the list unilaterally. I mean the GA calling the chapter and saying "you can go over the RFM number if you take Suzie" and the chapter says "cool" and gets put back on the list and everyone is happy.

If she's on the flex list and they have room in their parties for that day, then she would be slotted with them. Otherwise, no. If the GA had the time and inclination, she might call and ask. Otherwise, she'd go in the pot for a snap bid or COR.

This sounds like a great idea to me.

If you can answer this generally please do: are there flex lists for prefs most places that use RFM or do chapters get a hard number to send as the bid list for prefs?

If they are using flex lists, it could be set up to be almost automatic without even having to ask the chapter, couldn't it?

Would this end up increasing her chances exponentially to be QA for that chapter though? She'd be far enough beyond what the group usually took to reach quota as to not be within the invite cutoff. She might not have any other pref groups, unless each chapter was offered the same opportunity to add her and she was on multiple flex lists.

To the best of my knowledge,all invitation lists (skit, pref, whatever) are to also have flex lists. And they don't call on it , they just use it if situation calls for it. The bid list itself is one as you have your first list and then the ranking of all the rest.

So the only way a PNM is totally dropped is if she is not on any list or she is so far down the lists that no group gets to her before they top out...though that second one is not very probable.

But don't you think DBB's idea is a great one? To go ahead and double check for the PNMS, if any, who do happen to get dropped by all groups and released from recruitment, even if they were listed on bid lists/flex lists but at chapters where RFM required them to be released rather than invited?

It's because it probably isn't common that it might be worth looking at.

At some campuses you could. But look at it this way. If all the groups drop her after the first round, there's an issue with her. If it's right before pref, she might be OK but how many GAs have the time to do this? Maybe - and it's a big maybe - at a smaller school but I can't see it happening at Alabama or UGA or Auburn or Arkansas, etc.

It seems like you could be setting up the young woman to end up bidless anyway if you did this right before Pref.

But I think we're only talking about girls who get dropped completely right before pref, by groups that might actually want to have them but have to release because of RFM.

I may be wrong, but a drop for an issue, isn't going to be on a flex list for pref.

And I think we're talking about a really small number of PNMs.

A girl who made it to third round with highly selective chapters and who doesn't quite make the cut for prefs on numbers is probably still likely to be a really good member.

If she makes it to third round with the "highly selective groups" she's still going to be on the other groups lists. She shouldn't have to worry.

If this happened at prefs - and the GA makes such calls, she might only get one choice. She would have to take whatever the GA comes up with. If she waits for COB she might have 3 or 4 chapters to choose from or have a better chance to evaluate where her friends end up?

This too...but I really think that anyone who makes it to the last round before pref is going to have an option...it just may not be her preferred option.

I may not understand how much the release requirements drop off.

You're basically saying that say at a campus where one goes to six groups for third and three for prefs that virtually no one would make the cut to be invited to the most selective chapter for third round but also be too low to be invited to prefs by the sixth?

I was imagining there could be scenarios for a girl ranked around 200 by multiple groups. She might easily make it to third but not make it to prefs at all.

I would think the total drop is rare, but probably there are a handful in ever big FR. Illinois publishes its stats, and I think it's like 5/year, on average, that go to second invitational and rank, then don't get an invitation to pref. I was thinking the GA should take a second look at these girls and offer to let them be addition invites, just because it seems that it means so much the PNM's, and so little to each chapter (assuming they are awesome girls who just got bitten by the numbers).

That's exactly what I was wondering. I thought if RFM was working the way it's supposed to, by the time you get to pref, the most popular chapters are down to as bare bones in terms of numbers of PNMs as it's possible to be.

But she could go to prefs and figure that out for herself, right? If she didn't like the one option, she could not list it on her bid card and still leave herself eligible for COB. On the other hand, she might have liked that one chapter.

There was one PNM I was corresponding with here who was apparently dropped from about five chapters at UGA for third round to no one for prefs.

It could have been the case that none of the five really wanted her, but having looked at her list of chapters, some would have seemed selective enough to me that they would have released her before third if that was the case.

I also think that this would have to be true in the number of PNMs released. If it's a larger recruitment and the GA (or whatever) had to double check for numerous women wouldn't that be very taxing on the GA and the chapter? Some chapters have membership selection late into the night especially right before pref. If the PNM isn't already on the flex list, would you really want to convene your chapter after already having a late night membership selection and a long recruitment week to yet again go through membership selection? I'm pretty sure my undergrad chapter would have some mutinous members.

I thought so too which made it plausible that if you somehow made it to the top six for third round, you might have to worry if you weren't in the top 100 that you'd get dropped.

It sort of goes along with the hard cuts early help you more than hard cuts late thinking, IMO. Not only are you more realist about chapters, but you're going back to the chapters who will be able to invite back the highest number of girls and will go further down their bid list to make quota.

The impression that I had from DBB's original post was that we were talking about girls who were on the flex lists but who ended up on the wrong side of the RFM cut for all her chapters.

I think she was just asking if anyone looked at girls who got completely dropped before pref to see if they were in that situation and tried to address it to get her to pref.

I'm not sure I would add her. You are basically guaranteeing her to be in your pledge class unless another chapter also had her on the flex list and also opted to allow her back to pref.

It's one thing to bring her back and give her another chance, but I would rather do that earlier in recruitment, not on the day when she will end up somewhere on my bid list and probably on no one else's!

We're not talking about a PNM that they ranked as low as possible - we're talking about someone who was, oh, #205 when they could only invite back 200. And if the GA is asking you to do this, I would also assume that she's giving you a "freebie" - i.e. adding this girl is not going to mean she bumps PNM #34 (or PNM #199) off the bid list.

At huge rushes I think it's more a question of keeping who you like the most, rather than cutting who you like the least, if that makes sense.

But if she's already on the flex list for pref, hasn't the chapter pretty much already said that it's okay to give her a bid?

I do feel somewhat uncomfortable with it because it seems to basically guarantee her as a QA and that just feels weird because you're basically signing up to take someone you know was near the bottom of your list. On the other hand, she was on the flex list/bid list and she's not displacing anyone you ranked higher, so what's the harm?

How do chapters view the flex list for pref? Does the average chapter member have any idea who is on it rather than the regular list? I would doubt it, but I have no idea.

I suppose you could just put her dead last on your pref list and then there wouldn't be any concern that she might have taken the place of another QA...

Right, this is indeed what I meant. Especially because the difference between #200 and #201 on a list can be totally arbitrary.

The other thing that makes me feel weird about it is that we often have to use the flex minus list at the chapter I work with. So, she may have been ranked somewhat lower on the list than everyone else that comes back. Still, you all are right that we shouldn't put anyone on the flex plus list for pref that we wouldn't want to offer a bid to.

What is a flex minus list?

It's the same thing as flex plus, also ranked PNMs, but the first 10 or 15 or whatever that we would drop if our return is higher than they thought.

Do other schools not use a flex minus list?

I was only a sorority recruiter one year and was a rho gamma the rest so I was never involved in actually making a list. I have no idea what my chapter/campus used. I've only heard of the flex lists because of GC.

I am surprised that people would be uncomfortable with this, but okay with QA's. Aren't they the exact same thing, just at a later point?

I think you all make good points. If she's on our flex add list, then we were comfortable having her somewhere on our bid list. I think as long as I put her last on the pref list, I'd be comfortable. I just would want to make sure she doesn't get an advantage over anyone we wanted more.

One question... let's say we're only going to get 5 QAs based on decisions the GA is going to make. I'd rather have 5 other women we wanted more than her, but she can only get a bid from us. So, will she bump out one of the other 5 QAs we wanted more? As long as the GA guarantees us she will be a free quota addition on bid day too, I'd be comfortable.

Again, I'm pretty sure this happens already with QAs. If a woman has only XYZ left at pref, she will end up as a QA to XYZ. If some other woman has XYZ and ABC, in that order, it's entirely possible that she could get placed at ABC to give XYZ and ABC one QA each, even though the second woman is higher on XYZ's bid list.

Also, it's been my experience that ranking women on a final bid list comes down to the slimmest of margins, once you get past the top "rush crushes".

(I suppose it would be a problem if the woman who was returned to your chapter was a legacy, and you had the legacies-first policy)

I think this is a good idea, and something that could easily be written into the code. And frankly, it could be done at every stage. If a girl is going to be cut out completely, the computer goes back to the flex lists to see if she was on any/some. If a girl is on a flex list, the chapter was willing to invite her back anyway, and the number of girls being invited to any given round of rush is determined by the RFM coding so adding 5 girls automatically (without asking the chapter) would be easily done. Now, this does NOT mean a girl who legitimately got cut from every chapter gets a free ride. But the cuts are brutal and the sororities are making a lot of tough choices. Or maybe a high flex (where she would get a pass) and low flex (where she wouldn't) could work. Or stated another day, if she's on the top half of the flex list she gets a pass.

Just a thought but I think trying to help the girls who fall through the cracks would be a good thing and not punishing any chapters or cramming anything down their throats.

I go back and forth on this, because I go back and forth on unlimited QA's. I just don't see why we'd have one and not the other.

If she is totally not on anyone's invite list at pref, she won't be on their bid list = anywhere. Without getting into private membership selection, suffice it to say there are often requirements on the chapter side at this point which preclude adding her. Inviting someone to pref - for some groups - is different than inviting someone to another round. And she pretty much has to be on your bid list if she is invited to pref so you are sticking yuor neck waaaaaay out here.

Here is the problem I see with this sort of scenario (not talking about flex + lists). The GA won't know which PNMs might be in this position until after invite lists had been run on the computer, which means after invite lists have been turned in, which is after membership selection meetings are completed. The GA would call the chapter Pres, Recruitment Chair, and/or an advisor to make the decision whether to add a dropped PNM or not. If those chapter reps say yes, then Debbie Dropped returns to Pref -- without the blessing of the entire chapter.

What happens if one or more actives throw a hissy fit? "Debbie was dropped last night!!! What is she doing here? We've wanted her dropped all week and were happy when she finally was. That's why nobody fought for her."

This. Inviting to other parties doesn't potentially give the girl a bid to your group where an invitation to pref does. Not every campus does the flex positive list anyway.

I would think there's a difference that has come out to some degree in MS sessions between Debbie Disappointingly Dropped (that #205 when you can invite back 200) and Debbie Damnwearehappyshewas Dropped (#505) and that those chapter reps would not give the OK to invite the latter Debbie back.