Does size necessarily equate quality?
 

I was reading a few threads, and I dont know if this was discussed before, but what does everyone think about size equating "quality" of the chapter? For instance, can a house be a "top chapter" and have outstanding women, but be lower in numbers than other houses? Or do you think a house that has the most women just has "better" women, and the other houses have less because there's something "wrong?"

Note: this isnt meant to be a flame thread, nor to disrespect houses that aren't a "top house." But obviously there is campus opinion on which houses are "better."

and I use quotes because i DONT think the quality of women is based on size-- i think the size is based more on reputation of the house on campus over the women who actually make up the house-- a reputation which may or may not be based on reality.

Gosh after reading the "who has it rougher" thread...I gotta get my mind out of people's pants!!!!

LOL

Size does not equal quality, but there is, on most campuses, a strong correlation.

Well, define quality and what sizes we're comparing and then we can talk :D

I think a small group has a lot to offer -- some folks find the atmosphere more appealing. Large groups in my opinion offer more opportunities and diversity.

There are pro's and cons either way.

In my personal opinion bigger is better to a point.

No, in my opinion, size doesn't matter.

Don't get me wrong, it's great to have a lot of members on campus to throw signs at, give calls to, and exchange 'naila with

but

when it comes to the real work, the serice, the paperwork, the programs, the actual business of the org, size doesn't matter.

I recently went to my national convention (my first seeing as I am still a neo), and my chapter recieved an award acknolwedging us for our leadership and such for the past biennium....and the chapter is only 15 members strong! I met sisters and brothers from schools with 20, 30, and in one school almost 40 members!

Maybe to some people 15 memebrs is a lot...but considering my school has 10,000 students in it, and other sororities have intake of 40, 50, 60 girls plus YEARLY, 15 members looks like a drop in the bucket!


Just handle yours, and do the d@mn thing!!

My formula for dominance
 

Show me a campus where the largest chapter, over a five-year period, isn't the most successful?

A great fraternity leader said "there's no problem a good rush can't solve." If you have ten good rushes (fall and spring, for five years), you'll rule.

Re: My formula for dominance
 

Success has to be defined. I can think of campuses where the most elite fraternity is large, but not the largest.

i wouldn't look at size as much as i would chapter retention - how many pledges make it to initiation, how many seniors still actively participate in chapter activities, etc. your strongest chapters are the ones with the highest retention - girls want to stick around. i would be weary of a chapter with a 55-60 member pledge class and 15-20 active seniors. that screams poor chapter programming and who wants to be a part of that?

I think it also has to do with the greek system as a whole on campus. If the school has more commuters than residents, that may be a factor to recruitment turn out etc. It also depends on how many GLOs are on campus...there may be a small number of PNMs and a large selection...So does that mean that the 1, perhaps new, sorority or fraternity, is not as strong? Well, I don't think so. But it does take time to develop something like that too...

So, I don't think size matters because why does it always have to be a competition? If we're greek together, should that really even be a factor?

I don't think size has anything to do with quality... I'm going to attempt to define "quality" because we can't discuss this properly if we don't have a definition or at least what to look for in a "quality chapter"
I think quality should be based on how well a chapter does at working to attain it's ideals... I would look at the events they had over the year, member retention, attendance at events, % of active seniors, debt to national, money raised/philanthropy activities, Grades, etc....
I KNOW there are chapters out there who have TONS of members and make quota every year and haven't done a philanthropy event in over a year, or only have a quarter of their members show up for events etc.. and in my opinion that isn't a quality chapter.

It'd be interesting to know how large the chapters are that the people posting on this thread belong to. Mine's mid-size but realistically will be growing by quite a bit soon. Right now we have 28. Hopefully, will be around 40-45 by the beginning of Spring Semester. It's tough to dominate a campus with a small chapter. In fact, it probably can't really be done.

But if that's not your goal... Small chapters may work for you.

with regard to my alma mater, we currently have an undergraduate enrollment of 23,595, 11 NPC sororities and 900-ish girls going through rush. after the dropouts, the crosscuts and the girls dropped by all 11 chapters, quota was usually between 51-55 with chapter ceiling hovering around 125. my chapter is currently at 145. it's all about retention, whether you've got 200 or 20.

Re: Re: Does size necessarily equate quality?
 

This is the most beautiful post I have ever read!

Re: and another thing....
 

and this would be the second.
You hit it on the head!

Size doesn't equate quality of a chapter or an organization (I know this thread is really about chapter size).

I come from a tiny chapter (where we ran the campus with as little as 3 members) within a large sorority, so I have an interesting frame of reference on both chapter and organization size.

Re: My formula for dominance
 

There are many chapters that have the size, but don't have the quality, or success. But, I'm coming from an NPHC reference.

Do you all equate success with "good rushes?" There are so many things beyond that, but maybe that's my NPHC frame of reference penetrating, again :)

Re: Re: My formula for dominance
 

Your doing something right...
 

Your doing something right----when you have more people wanting a piece of your org. than someone else's.

well...you are a Delta after all, you probably just can't help it. :D

too bad you're a deuce, you might be cool :mad:

**:mad: :mad: my stalker has returned :mad: :mad: **

SECURITY!!!!!!!!!


:D

I come from a small chapter as well, where the most members at one time has only been 8. But even so, we were the most active sorority on a campus where there were 50-60 members of everything else. There were even occasions where other sororities wanted to co-sponsor programs with us because they knew we were about business.

So no, quantity does not equal quality.....at least in my experience.

I'm the Chapter Adviser for AOII at Ole Miss and if have read any other posts about Ole Miss Greeks you know it is a very big system. We only have 9 sororities as of right now.

Anyway, I think that size can matter and I can think of one example where it did matter. A few years ago some sororities at Ole Miss had to "double rush" meaning, one actives sister would pick up more than one rushee for a round of rush and talk to her. Some rushees (PNMs) look at this as a weakness. Therefore, I think at Ole Miss it does matter what size you are. However, with the large New Member classes this past year, all of the chapters are pretty close in numbers, therefore it doesn't matter as of right now. However, I can remember when on sorority who is no longer at Ole Miss, only had about 60-75 members, when the rest of the houses were rushing that year with 125-150 members. That difference affected that house in a big way because they were seen as not doing something right because they were smaller than the majority of the houses. However, they still had the same quality girls that all of the other houses had, they just didn't have the numbers.

Size also matters in the aspect of events on campus. For Sigma Chi Derby Day there are points given to the sorority with the most members attending points, if your chapter only had 100 members and the others have 200, of course you cannot possible win. Derby Day also has the sororities dance in a dance off, where everyone in the chapter dances, you don't want to get out there and dance with only 100 girls when everyone else has 200. That would not be a good thing because Potential New Members come to Derby Day to visit their friends in sororities. It is a big Recruiting weekend before all contact with sororities ends at the end of the Spring semester. Anyway, I think it does matter. And I think it can matter whether or not you have a house to fill with 60 beds. I mean if you don't have the numbers then your house won't be filled and then you will have to spend more money on a house and not on swaps, socials, sisterhoods, etc.


That's my thoughts.

Why not be the biggest and the best?

I think size does sometimes equate quality, if your size is based upon the recruitment of contributing, well-rounded members of your chapter and the greek community. If during recruitment, you're the chapter that has high return rates, makes quota, and retains those NMs, you probably are quality. And likewise, you probably are larger.

If that is the case, why not award points based on PERCENTAGE of participation. In your example, of chapters with 100 and 200 members. Say the whole 100 chapter shows up, but only 125 of the 200 chapter shows up. 100 chapter has 100% participation but 125 chapter only has 62.5% participation. Looks to me like 100 chaper is more motivated and involved :).

There are always ways to help level the playing field....

Last year during derby days, I begged the guys to do it based on percentage. At that point, we were down to about 60 members, and competing with chapters with almost 200. We ended up tying for 4th place with ADPi, one of the largest chapters on campus, and beating KD, also one of the largest chapters on campus. This never would have happened if they hadn't done it based on percentage. It causes a little more stress for them, though, so sometimes they don't want to mess with it. In my case, I had just broken up with one of the brothers, so I was still friends with a lot of them, and they knew how much I was busting my butt to be competitive. They wanted to see us do well since they knew how much work we put into it. Still, it's always good to ask them to do it based on percentage.

As far as size in rush rooms... there are ways to trick the rushees. Sure, I noticed that tri-delt was by far the biggest, but they were in this huge room that made them look smaller than they actually were, and DZ was in a room that made them look bigger than they were. It's always best to get a room that actually fits the size of your chapter.

I think that PNMs (who aren't on the other side yet and may not know) perceive size to equal quality.

It kind of does work that way though, if you really think about it. WHY are the large chapters constantly meeting or exceeding quota, when the small chapters aren't? In my experience, most of the chapters that I have seen closed are because they are small and struggle to get numbers where they should be.

For example, if you are on a campus where the largest chapters have 60+ girls, and the smallest chapters have 15-20 girls, the PNMs may see it as "well, these large chapters are where it's at - that's the group I want to join." The larger chapters tend to be the ones that DO have the quality girls, so everyone wants to join that chapter, hence making them the largest group.

But again, it's not a question of what REALLY is a "quality" group, but what do the PNMs perceive to be as quality?

Just my $0.02.

Re: Re: Re: My formula for dominance
 

Amen.
When I joined my house in '99, there were maybe 25 active members and that semester, my class had 17. It was hard to keep girls interested and often we had participation issues. After some tweeking, in Fall 2002, we took a class of 30. The house was at about 24 active members. Most of those 30 have stuck around. But we have had people drop. But participation is up and the girls seem generally happy with being in the sorority. Morale is a lot higher than when the house was smaller.
It is a little strange saying my house is almost at 60 members, considering what it was when I started. But I always say, if the house is bigger, you get more options for leadership, more people cheering you on, etc. And the girls that aren't into it as much usually drop within a semester anyway.
But at rush, we do stress quality over quantity. And we have not extended bids to girls before because we just didn't want that big of a pledge class. (This was post Fall 2002.)
I come from a campus where house total is around 65. However I have been at philanthropies where we will have almost our whole house supporting where a chapter with 70-80 girls can fit all of their supporters on a small blanket.
So what good is having a huge chapter if no one will know it?

co-sign!

Size matters in different ways. It's definitely a good thing to have a lot of girls. It helps when there's stuff to do like rushing, and doing philanthrapy, and stuff like that so that there is a big turnout and it looks good. I know that it is damn hard to do things with a small org because of conflicting schedules and not that many girls at events. We want our girls to go to their classes first before trying to attend an event. And being in a school where it's not greek friendly, there's not that many girls that are interested in greek life, but the ones who are see the large orgs and would want to be with them. I'm not knocking down the large orgs at all so please don't take it the wrong way, i'm just curious to know how strong their sisterhood is because i don't know how they operate or what they do to make it strong? does everyone know eachother? do they all get along? i just know how some girls are (catty) and if other orgs have problematic ones like that, especially with a large group? i guess it just depends on the person that's interested, whether they want to be in a small org or a very large one. but in the end, it's what they like about the org and what it stands for and whether it's right for them.

If they aren't doing that based on percentage they are 1) LAZY and 2) maybe not worth supporting. If they aren't going to support you-why support them? It is so much better to have 100% of 50 girls show up than 50% of 100. Yes it is the same amount of girls-but not the same amount of support. If they can't do the long division and then move the decimal, I'd be happy to show them!

Second-it is us that is making this a size matters thing. It doesn't matter outside of our own world. Enron was huge-not the best company come to find out. Bigger=better doesn't mean squat when you leave the greek community and go into the real world. My highschool is bigger than yours-are we better-probably not. I do agree there are advantages to larger systems. You have many more hands to do the work. That is great. If you are too small it gets difficult for everyone to do everything all the time-sure. But thet's not forget that everything is realtive. A Tri-Delta chapter of 50 may be small at one school,but it may be huge at another college.

Also-ladies feel me on this. Why do we see so much more diversity in men's groups? Why can a campus have a fraternity of 50 and another fraternity of 20 and they are totally OK with that? I mean, I know when I was in school, the biggest sorority had like 150 members and the biggest fraternity had 80. But the sorority with 80 members was considered struggling. The fraternity with 30 guys wasn't considered struggling. If the sorority with 150 members had a social with the guys in the 80 member house-that is still weird. So telling me that people won't have socials with you or whatever if you are smaller is silly. The men's groups tend to be smaller in general because there is always more of them. I forgot what my point was. I have to take my medication now....;)

That's what i was wondering when i first read that. OF COURSE the group with 200 members is going to be on top just because they have more than the others. %s are much better. It helped us out.
The only thing i could see where it wouldn't help is if tickets are sold and sales go for points. Cuz one group could have minimal members but invite all their mom's sister's son-in-laws to an event while the larger group would only invite themselves.

I totally agree with Diamond Delta. I know of fraternities here that have a big difference in number yet, they are all in the top tier of fraternities at Ole Miss. It is weird the way it works because if a sorority at Ole Miss had let's say, 60 members and everyone else had between 190-260 then there would be a problem for that sorority with only 60 members. It is weird the way it all works out though. I met some AOIIs from some chapters in LA a few weekends ago and their chapter are so much smaller than the AOII chapter here at Ole Miss. I realize their campuses aren't as Greek as Ole Miss is but they were like, "How do you get to know eveveryone?" Well, the best answer I can give is that, you want to get to know everyone because you do have so many members. Even as a chapter adviser, I love talking to members I haven't met before or sat down with and talked to. Anyway, that's just my thoughts. :)

AMEN TO THAT!

One of the sorority chapters here decided that they were going to take a more diverse group of women. While they are still one of the biggest, the rumors going around are that they've gotten worse as a chapter. Totally untrue. They just have a more diverse group of women rather than the barbie-dolls that they used to have.

Yet, our fraternities consist of 5 "southern" fraternities, 3 "northern" fraternities, a fraternity for the political type guys, a Christian fraternity (also known as the fraternity that doesn't haze), a diverse all around fraternity (the pin-up party guys and the smart intellectual guys), and one fraternity that is known as the fraternity for guys who couldn't get into a fraternity (but that one's quickly improving). You can't really number the fraternities from best to worst. I mean, everyone has their own opinions as to who is number one, but with the sororities, it's pretty clear. It just disgusts me that there's no diversity in our greek system, and the sororities who try to be diverse ultimately fail and close.

All right, there's my vent for the day.

I think this is because of the total rule ... I mean because we have a number set by our panhellenic council that they feel the chapters should be at.. the ones below it (or at with other chapters WAAAAYYY over it) are not meeting a "standard" and therefore aren't "good chapters. It's really kinda psychological since you're given a goal if you're not meeting it then that's bad... esp. if other groups are.. it SUCKS becuase it's true the guys really don't notice (well they do) but they just join the house they feel most compfortable.. ( they see it as more of just a difference then something bad.. something to consider when joining and looking at the pros and cons of small V. larger)

Wouldn't the pressure to have a certain amount of people take away from the integrity of the institution? Just Curious.

SMSUBear

It could, but not necessarily. The pressure to acheive a goal can also unify the organization, and when that goal is collectively acheived, morale is sky high. Successful group acheivement can strengthen the integrity of that institution.

Size ALWAYS matters . . . only the small preach otherwise.

Really?

Yes, it is always percieved that the biggest chapter on any campus must be the BEST chapter at the school. But that is not always the case. Sometimes with bigger chapters there are more problems within the chapter that can't be worked out.

My chapter is at the moment only 16 actives strong, but I think that we rock as a chapter. We just had our philanthropy in February and we had such a great turnout , it really made us proud. We are also aproaching our 2nd anniversary in April.

Yes, with only 16 actives it is hard to do certain things, i.e. derby days, panhellenic stuff, but we have managed to do well,so well that we recieved Chapter of the Year, Highest GPA Awards at our Regional Conventions, which we hosted, we are small but we have quality, strong women.

So being large is not always the best thing.

ohh p.s., our retention rate is a good one. In the last 2yrs we've only had one girl go inactive and we've only dropped those girls that have comitted serious infrations during our pledge process. We hold our sisterly bond close to our hearts and we make sure that when one is having a problem we rally and help them out. We would hate to lose a sister because we didn't uphold sisterhood. ;)