Quota?
 

I was curious to see the quotas that different chapters have set for Fall rush. We just found out that our quota for Fall rush is 60 girls! We never have a problem filling qouta but we are already one of the larger chapters on campus with about 120 so some of us are dissappointed. Not that we dont love having more girls but its just that as a chapter gets bigger, the members tend to know each other less.

we won't set quota until rush has already begun and the number of girls attending pref parties is know...

At University of Toronto in Canada,
quota in the past few years has been just 5.

We don't set quota til the third day of recruitment, but in the past few years, it's been between 10-15 girls.

Quota here this year is going to be set on Philanthropy night (the night before pref.). Last year's quota was 36.

I believe approx. 300 girls went through 7 sororities here the first night, but it dropped lower later on of course. We wait till later to try to prevent mismatches by only including the number of girls *still* in the system by the last two nights.

U of Toronto...the numbers are pretty low because it is a commuter school and Greeks are not a big thing in Canada anyway. As for the 5 girls, yes, it makes some of the groups struggle a bit. A lot of the groups have better success through COB.

If you have 1000 girls :eek: going through Rush, and only 10 sororities...it sounds like your university is ripe to have some new groups to come to campus to help alleviate the numbers! :)

Most schools don't set quota until after the parties start, simply because otherwise there is no way of knowing how many girls are really rushing. For example, at my school there were five sororities, and we would hear that 80 women were rushing.

Great, so quota can be set at 16, right?

Not so fast. By pref party, maybe only 40-50 girls would still be in. (The rest mostly dropped out - they weren't generally cut from rush.)

Alright, 50. So quota has been set at 10.

Still, even this didn't work out too well - this last fall, for example, I believe two chapters took quota, one got about half that, another got two, and one got zero. If quota had been set at 16, it would have been entirely possible that only two sororities would have gotten quota and the other three would have gotten nobody.

sundevil, quick question for you... does ASU have a new Greek Advisor?

Regarding quota setting... I'm a bit perplexed that quota has been set the semester prior to fall recruitment! As you can tell from some of the other posts on this thread, this seems to be a very unique situation. And there are some smaller chapters at ASU that are affected by this, I'm sure.

According to NPC guidelines (and I'm paraphrasing), quota is determined by the number of women acccepting at least one invitation to the first or second round of invitational events, divided by the number of Panhellenic chapters participating in recruitment.

A second option is a similar method, but factors in the number of women pledged during the past three years of recruitment.

There can be exceptions, but the only ones that can be made include the use of release figures or other unique situations approved by the NPC Area Advisor. You may want to bring this up with your chapter's Panhellenic representative and/or advisor. Especially if you are concerned that your group would be taking more women then they'd like. This could lead to large chapters getting larger, and small chapters getting smaller and eventually closing. That would be a shame!

Thanks for bringing this unique situation up for discussion!

At UWestGa, it depends on how many PNMs go through Recruitment and make it to Pref. Last year, I think it was 21.

As others have said, the ability to pledge more than quota will depend on how close a chapter is to making chapter total.

Hey Sundevil! I think we got your old Greek advisor. Was Dan the Man at your school last year?

I have never heard of a school setting quota before rush. What if a large amount drop out? It just doesn't make sense to me. I can definitely see where this would hurt the smaller chapters. I would encourage you as someone said above to talk with the greek advisor. I wonder what the smaller chapters have to say

At my school, quota was based on number of women attending pref. Generally it's somewhere around 31-32. I can't believe a quota of 60 - my whole chapter isn't that big :eek: - how well can you know all your sisters if your chapter is so big??

I always assumed that quota was based on the size of the house that the girls were living and that they figured in the number of girls that they would be losing per year.

am i totally wrong?

XP2k

Yes. But not your fault, your school is weird (absolutely no offense). ;)

Usually it doesn't matter if, for example, there are 3 groups and house A holds 70, house B holds 30 and house C holds 10...if there are 60 girls going thru rush, quota is 20 for everyone. As for the losing girls, if we would have said "we are losing half our membership, can our quota be higher?" the response would have been "tough s@#t."

We have a preliminary quota that we call "soft quota" and then actual quota is set during rush.

Wow, these are such interesting responses. I just wanted to add that we don't have houses, we have dorm like housing, and each chapter gets room for 30 girls to live there, I think. So, that has no affect on our quota. And yes, smaller chapters have had lots of problems. Sigma Kappa actually withdrew from campus and last year we lost Tri Sigma. There is another chapter that has low numbers but we are trying to work together as a community to help them out. It seems that the houses that weren't doing so well left campus. Somehow, things always work themselves out in the end and most chapters reach quota or are few away from it. We are just really pumped up for rush and to keep Greek life growing here at ASU!!!

When I was in college, we had 7 sororities with quota of about 32 and total of 85. About 225 women finished rush and submitted bid cards or whatever they are called.

Check with your Greek Advisor!
 

SunDevil2000,
You really should have this checked out... what it means, like greekwendy pointed out, is that your Panhellenic is not following NPC guidelines.

I have to say, I am really glad to hear that your greek community is helping out those chapters that are struggling. That is so important to the strength of the entire system. Keep up the great work!

I also wanted to through something in about XP2K's email and who ever posted after, yes, your school IU does not follow NPC guidelines in regards to recruitment. They do their own thing but I know NPC is working to try and change that.

:D

Maybe I'm totally off. Its possible that it was sort of like a "soft quota" as was mentioned before and that it is accurately determined during rush. I'm not really involved with Panhellenic, but our President informed us that we should be expecting 60 girls in Fall. I was unaware that it was breaking any rules. We are getting new advisors this year so things may change but I feel that things are running fine already. The chapters we have left are strong.

Sundevil--
ASU sororities do not set quota until after Pref Night because quota is based on the number of women who attend Pref. So, we are not breaking any rules.

Unless you went to my school 33 :) Then they'd say, ah, let's just bag quota and have a free for all! And then out of 10 sororities, 2 would get 0, 7 would get between 5 and 10 and 1 would get 23. But that's ok, right? :rolleyes:

For those who were confused and thought quota had to do with house space: Are you aware that a sorority or fraternity doesn't have to have a physical building? Lots of groups don't have a greek house, greek floor, nada. Just FYI ;)

Quota, by NPC guidelines, should be # of women attending pref/# of NPC groups. Quota is usually estimated earlier in the process, based on total registration and drop-out rates in previous years. This is done so that the chapters can plan for new members on Bid Day. IU does not follow the quota/total system due to their housing situation.

stupid question
 

What's the purpose of a quota?
Is the purpose to have every sorority the same size? Why?


I dont think quota works. You still end up with different size orgs. I'm not exactly sure how quota works, but can't some orgs make quota plus 1, some make quota and some might not even make quota? If you dont enforce quota then whats the point?

What happens when one org gets all freshman and another gets all juniors that are going to graduate in a year? You wont stay the same size.

Don't some PNMs end up getting screwed because of quotas? Example. The pnm wants ABC and ABC wants her but they are already at quota so she is left out in the cold. That su**s.

IFC fraternities dont have quotas so why do sororities need it?

Quotas make no sense
 

In stead of discussing what the quota is, you women should be discussing how to end that disgusting practice.

I don't know what misguided person started "quotas", but they certainly didn't have the best interests of all sororities in mind.

At it's basic level, rush is selling memberships - anything which restricts sales is bad.

Can you name any other place sales are restricted?

Actually qouta is great.

All the women's groups have a cetain number that they cannot go above...chapter total/ceiling, ours was 65.

Quota is the amount you can take during formal recruitment, ours has ranged from when I was a new member (32) to last year's (17ish...cannot remember).
Anyhow, it keeps all the groups at or around the same size.

Size is important for many reasons.
#1 we have houses and we need members to pay rent to keep the houses up and parlor fees, paid by every member, to maintain the houses.
#2 It keeps us on an even playing field. We are all capable of doing the same things b/c of money, # members for intramural games, greek week, philanthropy projects, panhellenic.....and so on.
#3 Quota is the amount going through that have made it to Pref divided by the number of groups...that isn't limiting at all. Limiting would be not using the number of girls coming through...100 girls would be divided by the number of groups...not 50 girls, the entire group should be placed!

A great example on my campus was all the fraternities. Some had 50 members and some as low as 10. Groups cannot do as much with 10 members as they can with 50 and it is unfortunate b/c some of the smaller groups are great, but rarely get seen b/c of numbers. We also didn't have an orgnized Fraternity recruitment either, so that made it a little difficult. Some fraternities were housed and some were not...that has alot to do with the amount of members you have to have.

Quota has its flaws, but I do agree with Lexi that it is important. Let's say a certain fraternity tells a group of incoming freshman that if they want to be cool, they have to join XYZ sorority. We've seen it before, especially on GC...girls will go into recruitment totally focused on a certain sorority and not even realize that XYZ might not be for them or that they could find a really good match with ABC sorority instead. Quota tries to equalize all of the chapters instead of letting one sorority have 100 members and another only, say 20.

Re: Quotas make no sense
 

If that's going to be your argument, then yes. It's called college. Using your logic, I can say that colleges are selling educations. I have to pay tuition, don't I? No standard 4-year college has a 100 percent acceptance rate, there are a limited number of spaces, plus I have to have the grades and activities from high school to be selected. I can be cut from some schools and invited back to others for a campus visit or orientation. Colleges, then, restrict their sales. They can't take everyone who applies, or even everyone they want.

My guess is that you've never been through Rush on either side, and have truly no idea how quota works. You are trolling, as usual.

Theoretically, quota sounds great, and I'm not trying to argue against it. I just never saw it work on my campus; chapters ranged in size from 15 to 55.

KappaStarGirl...good comparison!

Fuzzie: On my campus if a chapter did poorly they really hit COB or an informal recruitment. We all pretty much hover over total until seniors graduate and we have to fill spots.

How did your totals get so varied?

We held COB, too. What would happen was that during reading days (at the end of the year between classes and exams), the chapters could give bids to replace anyone who was graduating (or transferring). So let's say Chapter A has 55 girls, but 15 are graduating, they can give 15 bids out during that time. They then pledge in the fall along with the formal rush class. Same thing with chapter B.

Chapter A and B would get quota every time and stay huge. Chapter C would get slightly under quota, but would fill up to ceiling (50) through COB.

Chapters D and E would get only a few girls if any through formal. They'd get a few through COB, but not enough to bring them up to ceiling. Girls who skipped formal rush knew they didn't have to accept bids from D or E; they could wait until the end of the year and get a bid from A, B, or C. Generally speaking (and this is a huge and not always true generalization I realize), the "most desirable" candidates went to A and B; C got their pick of the rest and a few of the best; and D and E got girls who "didn't like the sorority thing" or girls who couldn't get bids elsewhere.

One argument people made was that perhaps five chapters were too much for our campus (one has closed). However, only a small percentage, about 15 percent, of the women are Greek, whereas a much larger percentage of men were Greek, so surely there were women out there who could be attracted to Greek life.

Quotas make no sense - they restrict sales
 

TO: QUOTE: "Colleges, then, restrict their sales. They can't take everyone who applies, or even everyone they want."

I therefore assume that you are not a business major.

If a college restricts their sales, it is their CHOICE.

QUOTA restricts sales, and quota is forced on the chapters by rules, sometimes made by the Panhel Council or by the school's dean, and enforced by them.

No outside rule maker forces the college to restrict sales, and they can accept as many freshmen/transfers as they can build/rent/buy classrooms and dorms to teach and house them.

Sorority rules are usually made by the handful of top sororities (look at the officers of your Panhel Council) and enforced by them. Quota helps keep them large and powerful, and also keeps the lesser chapter small and weak.

I call upon the small and weak to unite, and throw out the bums (and their quotas).

Most of the rules are made by the National Panhellenic Council, not the local ones. They aren't likely to change the rush rules because all of us have our fabulous chapters and our weak ones and it all evens out for the most part. There are very few national sororities that have mostly weak chapters...therefore, to change rules to actually benefit the smaller chapters at the expense of the larger ones could hurt more sororities than it could help.

Besides, if you try to force large numbers of PNMs into chapters they definitely don't want to be in (or even small numbers), all you end up with are loads of anti-Greeks.

Re: Quotas make no sense - they restrict sales
 

You are obviously not an economics major. It is bad business to have no roof on membership. Besides most women's fraternities are not trying to make money and cannot afford to have an endless number of members coming in at one time. Too many members coming in, means more money needed to run the chapter, which is stressful on non-profit orgs. We are not businesses so capitalistic views dont apply.

I feel quota is a good thing, something needs to be in place to regulate and make sure things are fair or as fair as possible for everyone involved. Mismatching does happen but I think that is more a computer or rush problem????

Thanks!!:D

The quota/total system can work very well, IF USED AS WRITTEN and if totals are kept at realistic levels, but when one or both of these are not followed the whole thing can turn into a giant clusterf#*k.

And as far as how many schools' Panhel council (and National Panhel) is run, who is an officer has nothing to do with the "top" sorority - offices are rotated through seniority & the alphabet.

hoosier, as we have reiterated over and over, Indiana U (if you really are from there) IS NOT a typical school as far as their handling of Q/T, so please don't judge or condemn the whole system based on what they do. I'm guessing you haven't pulled your head out of your ass far enough to see how it works at other schools.

Not to defend Hoosier at all...

GLO's are not businesses, but housing corporations are so sometimes, when you have a large beautiful structure, you have to pay the $$$ to keep it operating.

You are right 33girl, Indiana University is not like most greek systems at all. Sometimes, I dont know if that's good or bad?!?

Also, I dont know anything about who makes the rules for sororities. At IU, the stronger, more popular houses do tend to have a majority of seats on PanHel exec. This could be because they recruit the girls who are willing to step up and run for leadership positions. If you dont like the way things are being run, be pro-active about it!

I personally think quota is a good thing. As discussed on the "chapter size" forum (which I have posted in several times), sometimes enough is enough.

Also, I think quota HELPS the smaller (at least at IU) houses. If it werent for quota, the bigger "stronger" houses probably WOULD get most of the girls.

just my humble opinions again...

XP2k

33girl, I agree with almost everything you said, but lots of campuses don't use alphabet and rotation for Panhel offices. At my campus, for example, you just ran for office. And Panhel DID end up being run by the big chapters, because they were the ones who had girls to spare for offices! Of course, when it came time to vote on something, each chapter had one vote, but since there are generally more large than small chapters on a campus, the small chapters were always outvoted.