RFMs and QAs
 

Hi all. I haven't been very active with my sorority alumnae organization the last ten years :(. But I have a renewed interest in sorority life now that my daughter is heavily involved in recruitment at one of the most competitive universities. I also went to a much smaller university. What are RFMs and QAs? The whole process is like greek to me! :p

How nice that you finally remembered your sorority again now that it could benefit your daughter. Sorry all, but I'm sick to death of alumnae like this.

Why don't you use the search function to find these answers that have been posted about And explained ad infinitum.

I was trying to brief and ask a question. I have actually contributed to my sorority foundation every year for thirty years and used to serve on the board of my alumnae association. I moved to a new state, had a very ill child and simply did not have enough time to be heavily involved with the chapter at the closest university. I do however go occassionally to alumnae socials. I just joined this greek chat because I read some wonderful advice from several alumnae to PNMs. I didn't expect such a response.
I could ask my daughter who is very gracious and certainly doesn't think ill of me for wanting to learn more about recruitment now that I have more time to devote to it.

also...my knowledge won't benefit her at all now...she is VP of recruitment and very busy this week...

WTF?

I know that activity always picks up here during fall NPC recruitment, but man, this seems like the most brutal season in years.

RFM = "release figure methodology"

RFM sets different release numbers for different groups at each stage of recruitment. Strong recruiting chapters have to cut more women then weak recruiting chapters. The goal is to have every group get quota. This slideshow explains more:
http://www.slideshare.net/AFLV/npc-r...-figure-method

QA = "quota additions" If a potential new member attends every party to which she receives an invitation and she lists every chapter at which she attends preference parties on her bid card, she is guaranteed a bid on some campuses. If she does not match on the first set of bid lists, she will be added to a bid list as a quota addition. This means that a chapter with a full bid list will take quota plus. Different schools decide on where to put the QAs in different ways.

So you're basically sick to death of the 95 percent of your initiates who don't do anything with their organizations after they graduate.

Yeah, that would piss me off, too.

A lot of women have to take some time off from being active with their groups during the busiest times of their lives. I also know that a lot of women who are involved in with their alumnae associations/chapters/clubs don't necessarily understand the ins and outs of release figures and quota additions. I'm heavily involved with the operations/chapter development side of my fraternity and wouldn't understand all the new recruitment terms if I wasn't on Greekchat because we have recruitment specialists who focus on those things. You don't owe anybody an explanation :)

I'm the same way. I am an active adviser, but I would be lost with the ins/outs of recruitment without GC. Actually, I'm still kind of lost.

In any case, KDCat gives a great starting point, and there are tons of threads around here that give additional info.

I was not active for a really long time, too. I moved to the middle of nowhere after college. The closest alumnae chapter was 2 hours away. I donated, but didn't keep up. My chapter was 3 states away. Then I went to law school, started a career, and had two kids, one with ASD. It's only now that I've had time to volunteer. (My kid with ASD was mainstreamed last year and we stopped all of the outside therapies.)

Life happens.

thank you...I had simply "googled" the terms and first went to greek rank...Yikes!
I should have originally said I haven't been "active with recruitment" for ten years! I continue to write many recs every year and travel with six sorority sisters every other! I didn't realize my ignorance could launch such excitement! I will be more careful with my word choice if I ever ask another question.

To everything there is a season; for most of us, there have been times when we were really involved and times when we couldn't be. I mean, REALLY couldn't be. How can we judge her? We don't know what's happened.

GC At least helps me to keep up a little bit with the Advisors over recruitment, that way they don't leave in the dust, entirely.

That would be correct, but particularly the ones who don't have time for us until they have a college aged daughter. Then they want us to jump up and do everything for them. I'm tired of dealing with the calls about how snowflake legacy got cut even though mom "was" an XYZ. Never mind that she hasn't bothered to even pay dues for a couple of decades.

We're all busy. We all have lives. Most involved alumnae I know have kids. I had four of them and still managed to volunteer even in the years we lived in BFE. There are ample opportunities to volunteer that don't require your physical presence.

Deciding to be inactive is one thing. It's the coming back and giggling about how inactive you've been and expecting special snowflake treatment that sticks in my craw.

Which is not at all what the OP did.

SECKDLady, there is a lot here, the good the bad and the ugly. I would start by only trying to understand the big picture and not get into the nitty gritty too quickly. The 10,000 foot version is that all the chapters have a set percentage of rushees they are allowed to invite to each round of rush based on prior performance. That number varies by recruitment strength from chapter to chapter. What it means on the ground is that most chapters have to cut far more girls in the early rounds than they used to back in the olden days. The good news is it doesn't give rushees false hope about their chances in the most sought after chapters. The bad news is it doesn't allow much room for those most sought after chapters to give out invitations to very many maybes.

And the 5 or so years later result seems to be dramatically bigger pledge classes with fewer dropouts from rush and expansion going crazy all over the country, particularly on traditional Southern campuses where pre-RFM there were a lot of girls who would get to the late stages of rush before seriously getting cut, then lose their favorites and drop out completely. Obviously that still happens, but I think 200 girls out of 1200 at Bama means a LOT more girls are seeing it through once they get their second round invitations and have time to fall in love with some new chapters.

Quota additions is a hot button issue, but in short, if you attend all of the preference parties to which you were invited, and list all 3 on your preference card, you are guaranteed a bid. Even if you were only invited to 1 preference party, you are still guaranteed a place in that chapter. What that means on the ground is if quota is 40, it is not uncommon for chapters to get 42, 45, even 50.

I hope that helps!

Many very involved alumnae, even those who serve at the national level, do have times in their lives when they are not involved with the organizations. Life happens. When something sparks an interest and they come back, it doesn't do any good to jump on them for having been gone.

Welcome, SECKDlady.

NOTE QA only applies to SOME RFM campuses, not all.

I'm sorry but I haven't been very active with my sorority alumnae organization the last ten years. But I have a renewed interest in sorority life now that my daughter is heavily involved in recruitment at one of the most competitive universities says to me that 1) I haven't been involved 2) Now tell me everything about RFM and QAs because now my daughter is involved.

IMO there's a big difference between "I haven't been an active alum & I'd like to learn about these new NPC policies/procedures." and "I haven't been an active alum, how could you drop my daughter???"

Perhaps. But right now "I'm not an active alumna" is making my head explode between dealing with lack of alumnae recruitment help and fielding uninvolved momma bear calls (three just today.) So this is a real hot button issue for me.

Remember to type this response for every username that deserves it. :)

I can understand how the first impression of the OP's post could warrant this response.

Yep.

And cultures only change from within.

SECKDLady:

the best way I can explain RFM, QA, etc is this: it's voodoo.

I'm joking.

Actually, RFM is a complex mathematically based system of managing recruitment invitations and all that is entailed with formal recruitment; that is the simplest explanation and the best way I've been able to understand it. AZ-AlphaXi and AOIIAngel and thetygerlily (and many others) have been trying to explain it to me for quite some time and I still don't fully grasp it. That is why I say it is voodoo (okay I will stop with the jokes).

How exciting that your daughter is VP Recruitment for her chapter! Send her a care package when it's over, she's going to need it. And I bet she could answer a lot of questions for you when she's finished with recruitment.

Fair enough. But that's not OP. Her daughter is already rushed, pledged and initiated.

And don't look at me. I only have boys. It's a total sausage fest at my house.

Good luck with recruitment GoG. It's stressful.

thank you for clarifying. Thank you to all who advise during rush...I have seen the advisors who stay up all night several nights in a row and the sororities are fortunate to have you!

As far as I know, all groups have the NPC Manual of Information ( aka Green Book) on the member only part of their web sites. I strongly recommend you download it and read it = verbatim. You'll learn almost everything you need to know.

Thanks for the tip. I'm starting on a CAB in January and that is very helpful.

I def understand this frustration. I've tried to find advisors for collegiate chapters and been turned down over and over...tried to get a few of the 100+ alumnae in a town to have 3 or 4 alum meetings a year. As an alum panhellenic officer we have, EVERY year, Greek mamas who haven't lifted a finger for 20 or 30 years until DD comes to our tea.
But I do try to slap a smile onto my face (or into my voice) that says "welcome back, we missed you and need you."
I have seen where these women get re-involved at that point (yes, even when DD does not pledge mama's sorority) and serve on regional and national levels.

I don't think KD does, at least not in the section available to members not serving as advisors, national officers, etc., unless I'm not looking in the right place, which could well be the case.

SECKDLady, if you have the spring issue of the Angelos (cover story on the National Collegiate Training Academy), there's a primer on new recruitment processes in it.