Quota, Limit, and the Single Bid System
 

Could someone knowledgeable in this subject please explain to me exactly that quota and limit are. I'm sure I am not as knowledgable about it as others and get some things wrong.

Also, why do sororities go with a single bid system. I think that some of the problems that I've seen in the sororities around here with sisters totally dispising others sisters and hating them from the date of their induction could be ended if the sororities would go to a two bid system like most of the fraternities have. Please discuss this freely, my feelings are not hurt easily and I don't get insulted easily either.

Do a search.

Rrrrrrrrooooowwwwwrrrrrr.

Maybe pointing out a link to where this has been discussed before would be more helpful.

Here is a good post from aephialum that explains it quickly:

Total is a cap on membership that is applied to all sororities on a given campus, not just one. It's set by the campus Panhellenic, and reevaluated as necessary. (So if there are a lot of women interested in joining a sorority over a couple of years, Panhel may raise total, or may invite a new sorority to colonize.)

Total isn't used during formal rush. Instead, quota is used (# women attending pref parties / # of sororities, typically). This is why sororities can be over total - if total is 80 and quota is usually around 30, you could potentially have a chapter with 120 members.

Total becomes important during informal/COB rush. A chapter at or over total can't hold informal rush. A chapter below total can hold rush, but can only extend bids until they reach total. This allows smaller chapters to grow.

In neither case are bid lists sorted alphabetically, so Ms. W. wouldn't be left out in the cold simply because of her name.

Clarion's total (limit) is 60.

I will put in my 2.5 cents that we need to reduce total by at least 5 to 55, and 50 would be even better. Nationals pressure the groups to be at total, even if total isn't realistic, so they end up taking people they'd probably rather not. I mean Pitt's total is the same as ours - last I checked, Clarion has a few less students than Pitt.

Cranky? You bet! In another thread, he posted:

If I felt he was sincerely looking for information for any other reason than to just rip into the system, I would have been more helpful. I'm getting sick of men complaining about our system, especially ones who haven't bothered to take the time to understand it first.

Both of these topics have been discussed to death in the rush forum . . . check it out and see what you find.

As for the quota/single bid system, most sorority women agree that it works better for us than IFC rush would work, and it isn't going to change anytime soon. Men and women don't function the same way and the way men rush wouldn't work for women. But find one of the posts already about this subject, pull it back up and post there if you want to discuss it again.


Here are some places to start:

http://forums.greekchat.com/gcforums...ht=quota+total

http://forums.greekchat.com/gcforums...ht=quota+total

I think I finally understand it now. Yay!

>>>I'm getting sick of men complaining about our system, especially ones who haven't bothered to take the time to understand it first.<<<

Amen, and thankyou Fuzzie.

In Ziggy's defense, rush is pretty @#$%ed up at our school, and for years we had an advisor who didn't know what she was doing (and her screwups helped the larger groups, not the smaller ones). So from his vantage point, it does look like a mess.

Why so cranky? About 98% of the 2000 posts on total/quota are from women who understand and don't understand total/quota.

Nobody answered PSK's first question. "Also, why do sororities go with a single bid system. " What is the purpose of only 1 bid?

I am sure I will get the standard answer that if you have more than 1 bid and did away with total and quota, then the big sororities will get bigger and the small sororities will get smaller and die out. I dont buy it because it's already that way. Most sororities go under because of numbers, while fraternities go under because of risk management issues. I think there is a thread titled "small chapter syndrome" or something like that, that talks about how there is such an emphasis on totol, but PNMs won't pledge a small chapter that isn't at total, so things backfire.

Look at what happens when PNMs dont get matched with their first choice. Some of them drop out of rush. If sororities changed total, quota, bid matching then the PNMs woudn't be as prone to drop out. Some of the PNMs will pledge the bigger sororities but some of them will pledge the smaller sororities. Both will benefit.

Nobody answered his question because it's been discussed ad nauseum in the rush forum. Try the first thread that I linked above, for starters.

If you want, though, I'll give it a shot. This is a rather simplistic example:

Let's say there's a campus with two sororities. One has 75 girls, the other has 50 girls. The larger is invariably looked on as the "better sorority." Let's say that quota is at 20, and there are forty girls rushing. About thirty of them are seen as "desirable." With the quota system, the larger sorority will probably get 20 desirable girls and the smaller will get 10 desirable girls and 10 "leftovers." Of course, some will drop out because they didn't get their first choice, but the majority will stay because they want to be a part of the Greek system and their pledge class isn't completely hopeless. Things are more even between the two sororities and the smaller group has hope that they can turn things around. Without the quota system, the larger sorority will get 30 desirable girls and the smaller will get 10 "leftovers." Most of those ten will drop out because they don't want to be a part of a sorority that only gets the girls that the first sorority can't get. If this happens year after year, the smaller group will eventually die out.

Of course that doesn't take into account a lot of details, such as the fact that not every sorority wants the exact same type of girl. But you get the point.

Yes, the smaller groups do die out as it is . . . but it takes a lot longer than it would if there was no quota system. With quota, it takes years for a sorority to die off. Without quota, it could happen in as few as two or three years. And usually the extra years given in the quota system provides the sorority with a chance to turn itself around and work its numbers back up. This happens more often than you'd think. If we didn't have quota, that would be infinitely harder.

Furthermore, sororities ONLY use the single bid system during formal rush. They don't use it during informal rush . . . and informal rush has its own set of problems. Switching to a multiple-bid system will not fix them.

And I fail to see how "sororities with sisters totally despising others sisters and hating them from the date of their induction" relates to the single-bid system -- that sounds like a problem within individual sororities, not a result of the single-bid system. There are plenty of campuses that use the single-bid system where this is not a problem.

Oh, and as for your point that most fraternities go under because of risk management violations while most sororities go under for numbers -- that's because the numbers game is played in an infinitely different way with sororities than it is with fraternities. We have fraternities on my campus that have less than ten members and they're still operating as fraternities. But if a sorority here went under 50 girls, that would be grounds for nationals to pull its charter.

You can't compare the two because they are based on two different systems.

It seems to me that the women's groups kind of do offer more than one bid. If a PNM goes to 2 or 3 pref parties and they all put her at the top of their bid list, she basically got 2 or 3 bids (granted, she only knows about 1 of them the next day!). The ball is in the PNM's court after the parties--she ranks her choices. It's enough to boggle one's mind to see how this system works, but for the most part, it does.

This is a good point. There were always quite a few young women who were on multiple first lists. These women had their choice of sorority. :)

Take a look at the thread "normal women represent." Would guys ever have a thread like that? "Man, I'm so sick of seeing buff guys in magazines. I want those of us with beer guts to stand up loud and proud! I'm tired of being told I'm overweight." "Hey, there's nothing wrong with being buff, as long as you're not an exercuse bulimic." "Dude, I work hard to be buff. Don't bring me down." "I've seen pics of you, and you are not overweight. Be proud of your body!"

The point is that men and women, in general, think pretty differently. Women are more concerned with meeting some "standard" that is pretty hard to reach in reality. We have to be ultra-skinny, and we have to be in the "right" sorority. Lots of women on here have said, "I wasn't sure about my bid from XYZ, because they weren't a top house on campus." How many men say that? Are there a lot of men crying on bid day because Beta didn't give them a bid?

What the quota system believes is that if the women's system were run like the men's system, the imbalances in chapter size would be much, much larger than they are on the IFC side. And they would grow worse over time instead of remaining relatively constant. You'd have a 300-woman house and a 10-woman house. Of course, there's no way to test that theory short of actually changing the system.

That's not to say I don't have any criticisms of the system myself, but it's not so ludicrous as some people think it to be.

33: Thanks for explaining things clearly to me without flaming. Now that I understand how it works I see it is a better system for women to follow. The explanation given to me before by our Greek Life Advisor, I now realize, was extremely biased against the system.

I didn't want to find out about it just to tear it down, I wanted genuine information and opinions about it. The reason I said in the past the system seemed assinine to me was because of how screwed up it was become on my campus and how uneven alot of the houses are. You have houses of 60 and then houses at like 25 or 11.

I am sorry for any hard feelings I have caused anyone. I usually try to remain open minded about things.

PSK480, I tried to PM you, but your box was full.

Sorry I jumped on you. We get a lot of questions about that on here, but that's not your fault. As everyone's mom says, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." I'm still working on that one.

It's ok, I think everyone on greek chat needs to work on that one. After finding out more about the sorority rush system I'm starting to wondering if my campus is administering it in the totally correct way, if that made any sense. I'm sure it is run properly in some areas but others I'm not so sure about.

PSK480, I advise the DPhiE chapter there and no they aren't doing everything recruitment wise exactly "by the book", but I don't think most campus' are. Example, I still don't know who is doing bid matching for them, they don't have a chapter advisor and collegiates aren't supposed to sit in on bid matching.

Fire: I knwo shawn does it, but I'm not sure if he has anyone else sit in on it. It just irks me a little that he lectures us about accountability and doing things by the book, and we are always getting lectured when we do something wrong and what not. But, who holds him accountable for the mistakes he makes or what happens when he doesn't do things by the book?

wasn't there a grad assistant there who was an alum from one of the sororities? is she gone?

the problem is, most of the advisors (except for Jamie B) are not Greek and they don't really understand the process. I think when Gayle was our advisor she went down with our rush chair and observed, but if there would have been an infraction or screwup I don't think she would have realized it.

Karen graduated from the grad program, she is a PSS. I don't think the grad student now is greek and they have her split between 2 or 3 offices.

I have to jump in here and give a long rant about the sorority bid system, or at least the way some folks abuse it.

I actually think the one-bid system is the best system. It does the most good for the most number of people, and I think it keeps most houses from dying off. It's not perfect, but I don't think many other (formal) systems could do better. Like MSKKG said a few posts back, many rushees get multiple bids, the the "final" bid they see is to the house they "A-listed." To me, that says it works.

However, the reason I don't like the current system is that not all houses play fair. Some houses abuse the current system, and would abuse a two-bid system given a chance. They would give bids to more people than they wanted to accept just to make sure they made total.

I'm not going to name names because I know its a different story on every campus, and houses and people change year to year.
But here's what I used to see: Some houses just want numbers, by any means necessary.

For example, one year Rho Chis from a house, let's call them ABC, told all the rushees that my house had a reputation for being selective, and that they should be wary of returning to our parties. Selective? Yes we are, but with good reason. We have strict academic requirement, so we drop anyone that doesn't meet it first round. It's not fair to string someone along if you can't give them a bid. There is a way for us to make exceptions, but it is very rare. (aside: same ABC Rho Chis also told people that the local GLO on campus was not a "real sorority", Did I mention our panhel advisor was an alum from their house who "dismissed' all complaints about them? but I digress)

Now the ABC house has a similar academic policy. However, they don’t drop people until third party. In fact, ABC is far more selective than us, and they are far crueler about it. We're the most selective house for 1st, 2nd party, but once we invite someone back to third, unless we discover they are an axe murderer, we usually invite them to final party. We think this means we string along the least number of people, and it lets us really get to know the people we are very interested in. I'm not saying that's for everyone, but it works for us.

Well an ABC sister admitted to me that they intentionally invite people back to second, third party who they don't want, and sometimes they invite girls who they can NEVER GIVE A BID to (scholarship requirements, right?). I have nothing wrong with houses not being as selective in the early parties, but this house is different. They're just as selective as we are, except no matter how much they "select out" girls, they always invite back the maximum number, even if that means inviting girls they have already "dropped." For instance, before third party they select girls they will invite to final, then the invite back as many people as they can anyway. Only if girls don't attend their 3rd party do any of the "b" list girls get bumped up and invited to final. And, before final party, they decide who will get a bid from them (And none of those "b" girls are on the list). Final party has absolutely no bearing on selection for them, some of the girls they invite will never be given a bid - they're just party fodder. Why? They want to be sure their parties look the most popular.

(Side note: The year the Rho Chi nonsense happened, we made quota, got half the girls from ABCs A-list, and had an awesome pledge class. Call it karma. I still think they play dirty)

Another house I know, let's say XYZ, has dropped people second party (After breaking all sorts of rush rules by telling the girl that they are the only house that really wants her). Then after dropping, they give the girl a snap bid when not enough people they bid accepted. Our panhel rules let houses invite back lots of people after second party, which is often well over HALF of the people still in rush. Would you really want to be in a house that doesn't think you're even in the top HALF of rushees? sheesh. The sad thing is the poor girl was so upset that XYZ lied to her, that she didn't attend anyone’s party - even though she was invited to three final parties. (which is why she was eligible for a snap bid). It also happens that the girls' RA is in XYZ house, and she makes sure that the other snap bids left under the door "disappeared" except the XYZ bid. (See, they tell the girl, we were the only ones that wanted you). I don't even think I have to mention this, but they later made the girls' life so miserable she de-activated. How unfair to the girl - I think she would have been mcuh happier elsewhere, if given the chance to look.


Anyway, long rant but I just have to say this - some houses behave with integrity, others will always play dirty. The one-bid system and the formal rush system exists to ensure (most of the time) parity remains. It's not perfect. But it's objectives are good: Give all rushees a chance to see all houses on a level playing field, give all houses a chance to select fairly, allow decisions based on mutual selection, make sure most girls going through rush are given a bid.

I hate to be the one to air dirty laundry like this, because it reflects poorly on the system as a whole. So my message is this: 99% of Greek organizations are outstanding. The system isn’t “bad”, some people just abuse it, break the rules, and hurt the rest of us when they do so. I've known a girl accept the bid for her second choice house go on to become president of it. That house really wanted her, treated her well, and she became a great leader for them. Better that than a house that gives bids to people they don't want then treats them like sloppy seconds.

So what's the problem here, the system, or the bad apples?

Panhellenically,
Paula

paulaKKG, your story makes me shudder because I know it's true. I've seen it happen on other campuses as well. As flawed as our system might be, I agree with you that it works best for NPC.

If these groups are toying with these freshmen's feelings BEFORE they join, how much of a sisterhood could they really have? It's selfish and cruel to just want the numbers and not try to find sisters. If the sisterhood is there, the numbers will follow. There are some things that can't be faked.

I have heard rumors told about the Kappa chapter at USC, like we won't have a house, etc. They are absolutely unfounded; in fact, we WILL be in our house at the beginning of August whereas some of the ones spreading the rumors will be lucky if they get in theirs by the end of the semester!

The freshmen going through recruitment are trying to position themselves in a new environment, so those kinds of rumors could be the kiss of death, even if the PNM likes the GLO being dissed. I could get writer's cramp going off on this topic, so I'll just stop!

I don't think that the first part of this is necessarily a terrible thing -- it might just be the sorority acknowledging that they made a mistake during formal rush, or that they didn't feel like they got to know her well enough during formal rush or something like that. But you're right, when the system starts to get abused, that's when we have problems. I have a friend who rushed at a small liberal arts university with three sororities. Total is around 55, but quota is usually around 10, and they have deferred rush, all of which leads to the fact that no group is ever at total. This can lead to a lot of dirty rushing. When my friend rushed, her favorite group was the biggest group, ABC. ABC already knew that they were going to make total, so they told a bunch of girls, including my friend, to suicide ABC after Prefs and that they would snap bid them the week after rush. That is exactly what happened, and my friend is now a happy member of ABC. At the time, neither she nor I knew that what ABC told her to do was against the rules (she was a rushee, and I hadn't rushed yet). And I think that's part of the problem -- the PNMs are the ones being affected by the rules, and if the PNMs don't KNOW the rules, then infractions don't get reported.

I think one thing that everybody's missing is the fact that, unless you decide to have a free-for-all rush with no rules whatsoever, rules are ALWAYS going to get broken. During informal rush here, XYZ offered a rushee a bid two parties before they were technically allowed to because they were afraid they were going to lose her to another group. Fortunately, the infraction was overheard by another sorority member and reported, and the rushee in question did not take XYZ's bid -- ultimately, XYZ lost her to the group that they were afraid they were going to lose her to. And there was just a post in the rush forum about total rules being broken during COB-ing. So it's not formal rush that's the problem -- it's when the rules aren't enforced or carried out fairly, and this applies to formal rush, informal rush, COB, whatever. I think formal rush just gets more than its share of "bad press" because there are SO many more rules in formal rush; therefore there are more rules to break. :p

sugar and spice, I agree with you also about the PNMs not knowing when a rule has been broken. Maybe the rules could be included in the recruitment info as a start to fixing the problem. I also agree that the rules must be consistently enforced.

However, I think paulaKKG was referring to the sneakiness of XYZ, not the fact that someone who pledged decided to drop her membership. Mistakes are made and women pledged who are not a good fit for the GLO, but to do what was described is unconscionable. That's abuse of the system if ever I heard of it.

Excellent points, paulaKKG!

With what you said about a chapter possibly abusing a two-bid or even open bid system by handing out more bids than they had spots...I think there was a perfect example of this on the rush forum. A GC'ers (sorry, I forgot the thread starter!) system had a house who "accidentally" bid 3 more girls than they were allowed. It wouldn't be fair the extra 3 girls to take back their bids...after all, they don't know the way things work! It seems the Green Book prevents the chapter from getting in any real trouble.....

So what can we do? Stick with the one bid system, catch chapters who break the rules before they have a chance and if all else fails, hope the rule-breaking chapter screws up on something where they can be punished.

I'm curious ... how much rule breaking do the guys in IFC groups see? They still do have some rules, like on my campus they could not give out bids before a certain day in the fall, there couldn't be alcohol at rush events, contact with to-be frosh over the summer was verboten, etc. So - guys, do you ever feel like the other houses on campus are "playing dirty"? Because we don't hear about it as much.

I get the sense (and this could be totally off-base) that even in totally informal Panhellenic rush that is really the same as guys' rush, there is a lot more "dirty rush" going on.

Interesting, because it was my thread, and when I brought it up, I got a lot of flack for saying I thought there should be a punishment.

Sorry, back to the topic at hand...