My School is Doing Away With Formal & Quota
 

So my school decided not to have Formal Recruitment anymore. We had only 13 potentials come last year. The weather might have had a little to do with it. We have deferred and it snowed on the first day. Plus, we are a commuter campus. On the other hand, we knew there was something wrong when one chapter had 1 NM from Formal, then had a class of 15 the next week.

So our solution was to just not have Formal anymore. We also threw out quota. Quota would basically be ceiling (or house total) which is 45 on our campus.

This is what we will be doing instead:

Wed 9/8 & Thurs 9/9 is a Greek Expo and sign up from 11-3. (They're just info tables)

Mon 9/13 is a Round Robin where PNMs will go to each chapter for 20 mins.

Tues 9/14 open COBs, ecah chapter choses their own location, PNMs can go to anyone they want to
AEPhi - 6:30-8
Tri Delta - 8-9:30

Wed 9/15 open COBs
DG - 6:30-8
SDT - 8-9:30

Tues 9/21 open COBs
SDT - 6:30-8
DG - 8-9:30

Wed 9/22 open COBs
Tri Delta - 6:30-8
AEPhi - 8-9:30

Thurs 9/24
Pref 6-10
Each sorority will have 50 mins, PNMs can go to as many as they like, all 4 if they want to

Fri 9/25
Bid Day
PNMs will pick up their bids in the Greek Office between 11 & 2, they must make a decision on which bid they are accepting right away. There is no bid matching and no quota (unless the chapter reaches 45).
Sororities can pick up their New Member list after 2.
Since 9/25 is Yom Kippur, sororities can choose to have bid day celebrations on 9/24 or 9/25.

We will do the same in the spring.

Any thoughts on this? I'm a little shaky with the no quota, I see the big getting bigger and the small getting smaller. But, we're all about the same size and we don't have to extend bids to all the PNMs. On the other hand, it could benefit all 4 of us and we'll be able to increase celing or possibly invite another sorority to colonize. I just hope we have a good showing on Potentials, I heard there was a lot of interest. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

This sounds like a simplified form of FR to me. It does sound interesting though. :)

I think the big will get bigger and the small will stay the same.

Suspending the rules will help your system. Of the four, one will prosper and become the leader. Two will be similar to each other in size and standing, and the fourth will fail because they don't offer an attractive-enough product. Invite two or three good nationals to come in immediately. They will infuse energy and passion into the system right away.

Isn't this new "Partial Structured Recruitment" that NPC came out with late last year?

Yes, I believe so. I remember it sounds like one of those 4 choices from the "menu" of recruitment styles. My undergraduate campus was thinking of doing this, but last I heard they scrapped it. Which was good, b/c it would have been bad for them. On that campus, of the 5 sororities, there are 2 that everyone wants to join, there are 2 that are in the middle, and there is one that is the smallest and always struggles. By not forcing the PNM's to go to every group each day, they would have all naturally gravitated to the top 2 houses, and those 2 houses would always have the biggest pledge classes, and many girls would have gone bidless. At least, that's what I think would have happened.

It seems to me that in a system such as this, while no quota would be okay, there should be a max amount of PNMs a sorority can extend bids to. It's not fair for one group to take 14 of the 15 PNMs going through recruitment.

Especially w/ no total, the big will just get bigger and bigger and bigger. Then, there will be a house w/ only a handful of girls, and yes, they will suffer and probably eventually fold.

I don't agree w/ this particular recruitment structure. Especially on a smaller campus such as this one. Of course, on this campus, there are only a handful of PNMs, but if one group takes 10 PNMs every year, and another group only takes 2 PNMs every year, it will eventually take its toll. But that's just my view.

Now how is that fair? Why couldn't the campus put the energy and passion into helping the fourth group succeed? Closing a group and bringing on a new one just b/c they have a "more attractive product" will do nothing to help the Greek system. That new package will only be attractive for so long, and then a new group will be on the bottom and struggling. Fix the problems, not the symptoms.

And how can you say "invite good nationals to come in" - aren't they all good?

It borders on Fraternity recruitment, but I don't think it's bad necessarily. I think that the big will get bigger in *THIS* process. Ultimately though, it will be up to the chapters to go out there and FIND the quality new members that they are looking for and get them in their houses. On a campus such as this, sororities can't sit on the sidelines and wait for formal recruitment, like say a Florida or Texas. You have to go out and find that 60% of 'maybe' women, and show them what you've got.

I think NPC really meant this recruitment strategy to be used when the most popular houses are close to total. This would force them to limit the number of bids they give out (since they can't exceed total at all, unlike formal recruitment where even the biggest house can get quota), which allows the smaller houses to give out as many bids as they like and see who accepts. This mixed with the fact that total can be changed yearly, could work well.

Unfortutately, I've heard of a lot of campuses which have very high totals compared to the number of girls actually in the houses. If all the houses are at 50% of total, then the situation describe where the big get bigger and the small die could definately occur.

My big beef is that this recruitment strategy doesn't really force the PNMs to keep their options open - they can basically suicide after the first day?

That's exactly my beef too - these PNMs that want the top house will choose to only go to the top house, thus limiting their options. And since the top house is limited to only so many, you'll see a lot of disappointed, bidless girls.

EDIT: Stupid question.

As long as you keep total/ceiling, and it's REALISTIC - i.e. don't have it be 60 when 3 of the 4 chapters have 30 or fewer members - it should work fine, actually may help since no one will be able to go over total. Although I'm a little fuzzy on the bid thing. Will the rushees be able to see if they got multiple bids and pick which one they want? Will this be a "first come, first serve" situation if a sorority goes over total - the first girls to show up at bid day get a better choice?

I also think that rushees should have to be invited to pref parties. It's not fair for the sororities to have to entertain girls at their pref party that they aren't interested in at the expense of paying attention to the ones they DO want. It also can give the rushees false hopes, whereas if they have to be invited and aren't they know they don't have a chance in that group. Even with structured informal, I've never heard of anyone who wants to come to pref being allowed to.

I would hope that it's the other way around - that groups can only bid to total. So, in the end a PNM could get 3 bids and accept any one of them. And of course, that leads to it's own bag of problems, which is why I think this recruitment strategy would never work on a mid-large size campus.

That's what I meant.

Say DG is 2 under total and SDT is 10 under total (completely random name picks). There are 7 girls who get bids from both SDT and DG and they all want DG. Once the first two of the seven get there, even if the remaining 5 are holding DG bids they can't join DG, from what it sounds like. That would be sucky for the rushees to know that if their elevator would have gone a little faster they'd get the bid they want. :)

I have a question: Decision on a bid has to be made immeaditly? Don't they get some time to think about it?

Okay, I need to stop chatting on AIM with you people and get more sleep. It's starting to affect my reading comprehension. :D

I went back and re-read...for some reason I originally read it as the campus was doing away w/ quota AND with total. So here I am, thinking, "Goodness! They're doing away with quota, and since they won't have any total to cap off at, these girls can take as many PNMs as they see fit." So in my mind I saw, basically, a free-for-all where XYZ snatches up 15 PNMs and ABC, DEF and GHI are left w/ no one.

But, I still stand by what I said about the PNMs will be shooting themselves in the foot earlier in the week. Many girls, as much as we hate to admit it, have a preconceived notion about a group going into recruitment, and visiting these other groups throughout recruitment helps them to realize that what they hear isn't always true. That's why I don't agree w/ this system.

As for not having total, well, that's a different subject altogether.

How I'd assume it would work is that DG can only give two bids. Period. So if those two PNMs join another group, then DG is SOL. Which sucks for DG, but is best for the PNM (no holding bids the sorority can't actually use).

This sounds almost exactly like we did spring informal on our campus. We still had formal rush in the fall though. The only difference is that the sororities still had to invite PNMs to the later rounds, but the PNMs could choose on their own which parties to attend. It actually worked pretty well but you do have to worry more about girls refusing to visit all the chapters. My campus addressed this by giving each PNM a "passport" that you got stamped at each house you visited. They didn't require you to visit all the houses after the first round, but it was basically an incentive system - if you completely filled your "passport" with stamps you were entered into a drawing for a prize of some sort. (usually gift certificates.) Bribery works wonders.
And the way we did it, a chapter could not extend more bids than they had slots and the PNM got to see every chapter that offered her a bid.

It's an interesting idea.

I agree that PNMs should have to be invited to pref. Otherwise, a sorority can be overwhelmed with PNMs they're not interested in, and the PNMs get no "feedback" from the sororities as they go through recruitment. But in this situation, they should be allowed to accept or decline the invitations without penalty.

I imagine you'd also have to allow COB to continue outside these "formal" periods. A sorority can COB to total at any time. So in our hypothetical situation where DG is 2 under total, offers two bids, but those two women go elsewhere, DG isn't SOL - they have the option of holding another COB rush later in the semester or just waiting for the next "formal" period.

Total is still in place, so the big wouldn't get bigger - the big would hit total and stay there. (As long as total is realistic, as 33girl mentioned.)

When all is said and done, the sorority system at Adelphi will be much stronger than they are now.

Why not just have a scholarship then to pay the dues for people that opt to join less popular groups? Or some other kind of financial consideration?

Why be so focused on crippling a system to save one group? For example, lets say you keep total and quota the same in the spirirt of saving a chapter with 25 percent of the members of the rest of the groups, when you could probably bring in two more groups and Rush them to total?

I hope you're right! :)

Thanks for all the input, it really raised some interesting thoughts.

I like the idea of the passport. That's really cute. And the PNM would have a nice souviner from Rush.

Someone raised a question of how many bids we can give out. I'm pretty sure it's as many till we reach total. IE - total is 45, we're at 21 so we can extend 24 bids if we want. But since freshmen can't accept a bid until the spring, we will want to keep some spots open for the spring. I think that 45 is a reasonable, attainable total for Adelphi.

Someone also said something about extension. I know that our Panhel will do everything it can to make sure that no chapter closes due to low numbers. Especially since 3 of the 4 are so close to Centennials. I don't want to see anyone close either, even if we are so competitve. I'd rater see the Greek system flourish than dimish. Our hope is to raise total and maybe bring on another sorority.

Last comment I wanted to touch on was the PNMs decision. They will have to make a decision when they pick up their bid. They won't have time to think of it. We did this to prevent the PNMs letting their friends make the decision for them. They will be told before hand that they have to make a decision on the spot.

I don't see how bringing on a new group will help. If numbers are low - why are they low? Closing a chapter and bringing on a new one will just make a new chapter be the one that suffers...and eventually closes. Which means bringing on a new chapter....

So I say put forth the energy into saving that group before bringing in a new one just to bring up the numbers. Numbers might be up for that new group, but if you can't increase numbers overall, then there's no sense in doing that.

Because it doesn't seem to work that way. It doesn't seem like smaller chapters are able to recover through the formal rush format, a minority seem to achieve revitalization through COB.

Generally a new group will Rush to total.

Question: What are the sororities going to do about their rules regarding legacies?

AEPhi's legacy policy is that a legacy must be invited to the first invitational round. After that, she can be cut. If she is invited to preference, she must be on the chapter's first bid list.

Suppose Susie Legacy comes through recruitment and loves AEPhi, but she's just not a good fit there. She goes to AEPhi's pref... whoops, she was at pref, we have to give her a bid! That doesn't seem right...

Or would legacy policies just be ignored because this is technically COR?

Re: Re: My School is Doing Away With Formal & Quota
 

I'm not 100% sure. Since there is no quota, we can had out as many or as little bids as we like. Someone raised the question of then having PNMs at pref that we really don't want to extend a bid to. I actully hadn't thought of that until it came up here. I don't know how we are going to handle that. I'll to check with our VP/M or Panhel Reps.

Tri Delta is required to have a legacy on their first list or at the top of their second list. But, unfortunately, legacies at Adelphi are few and far between. Most of us are the first Greeks in our family. With this system though, it looks like it's the PNMs decision on what COBs they want to go to, the only required event is the Round Robin. If a legacy comes to our Pref we'll gladly extend her a bid, but if she decides she doesn't fit in with us we can't force her to come to us.

Re: Re: My School is Doing Away With Formal & Quota
 

I still think PNMs should have to be invited to pref. It gives the PNMs and the sororities some level of feedback as to what might or might not be a good fit.

Hypothetical example: Sally PNM comes through recruitment, attends the round robin and some of the open COB events, and totally falls in love with chapters A and B. She's not sure about C, and dislikes D. A and B have decided that they will not be offering Sally a bid, but C is interested.

On pref night, Sally (having no idea) decides to focus her efforts on A and B, because they are her favorites and she thinks there's no way she won't get a bid from at least one of them. She does not attend pref at C or D.

C decides not to offer Sally a bid because she didn't pref them. Now Sally is bidless. And some sororities have a "cut once, cut always" policy, so because of a silly decision she may never get the chance to go greek.

Now, if she had had to be invited to pref, she would have shown up for pref night and been given her one invitation, C. She would undoubtedly be disappointed to get cut from her two favorites, and she might withdraw, or she might give C a shot and become a happy member of C. GC is full of recruitment stories where people got cut from their favorites but found a home in a GLO that wasn't one of their top two or three going in.

Plus... at pref, a PNM can look around the room at the other PNMs present with the understanding that these are the women whom the sorority would like to have as sisters, and that if she joins this sorority, some of these women will be her pledge sisters. If you don't have to be invited, all you know about the other PNMs in the room is that those PNMs like this sorority.

But whatever... you have to do what's right for your campus environment. Good luck with the new recruitment style - let us know how it works out. :)

I agree with everything aephi alum said - I think not cutting before pref is a HORRIBLE idea. There were some girls at my pref party that made me go "what are they thinking" just because there were a lot of people in the sorority at the time who didn't want to cut anyone. If I had any doubts, it was partly because of that. I mean, if you want to invite everyone, that's your prerogative, but as we've seen on here and probably IRL, it can backfire.

I went through spring rush with a *very* similar format.
 

"Each sorority will have 50 mins, PNMs can go to as many as they like, all 4 if they want to."

When I read that sentance, and based on my experience, I understand it to mean that a member is not restricted to only two parties. If she's invited to three or four she can attend them. When I went through I had three Pref invites but only felt a connection to two. So I declined the third. No big deal. I don't believe girls will be able to show up for Pref at will. Even if that is what happens, the chapter's will likely already know who they want and will focus their attention accordingly.

Round Robim Night
 

Tonight was the Round Robin and it went well. It was very relaxed and care-free. It was held in the Quad and each sorority took a different corner. Since there are a lot of afternoon and night classes at Adelphi, we decided to let PNMs and chapter members come and go as they please. The PNMs weren't forced to go to every chapter and we actually had 2 stay with us the whole night. PNMs were given a Lei to show what groups they visited. Panhel provided ice cream for everyone which was nice. There were a lot of freshmen there but they can't accept bids until next semester. We heard a lot of "I want to join you next semester!"

I also just found out that silence is still in effect. It was hard enough when it was one week, now its two!

Tomorrow is our first COB round. I hope that a lot of PNMs come. Keep your fingers crossed for us! Thanks! :D

This is what my school does during spring pretty much...