How Can We Maximize Greek Membership?
 

Every year, I hear of more and more PNMs who go bidless. These girls have good grades, good reputations, good activities--and they come out of recruitment without bids. Yesterday Tiger's mom (Tiger is the PNM whose rush I followed at Auburn) called, very upset, and said that she just learned that a PNM she met at AU went bidless, even though she attended 3 pref parties and ranked all 3. This is so wrong!

I remember that when I was in college, there were lots of girls who signed up for COB and never heard a thing, although there were sororities who had openings. Again--wonderful girls who didn't happen to know any Greeks who would bring their names up for membership.

What's the answer? Should total be raised? Should all sororites be given a spring quota of say, 5, and they would all participate in semi-formal spring recruitment?

By being so exclusive (if you didn't get a bid in Formal, too bad for you, bye), we're sowing a crop of Greek-haters. I'm sure many women know of other women who would've been super Greeks when they rushed years ago but slipped through the cracks and to this day, are still hurt when they talk about their rush.

What can we do?

1 - reduce the number of rules

2 - reduce the number of rules

3 - reduce the number of rules

i.e. make it easier to join. Spring rush for HS seniors, summer rush, open rush parties, no fees, no required meetings or visits, oral bids, no limits or quotas.

Let each chapter choose what methods and styles of rush work for them.

Most of your rush rules are made by the big and powerful sororities and their leaders - ostensibly to make everything 'fair and equal' - but actually the rules only help the large and powerful, and seriously hurt the small, weak, and young. They don't have a chance.

My god, Hoosier, yes! Let me stand behind you so I won't get hit by the arrows that are coming your way.
Reduce the rules and increase the number of sororities. The sororities here are huge and successful, but we lose one every four or five years because someone is always the weak house. Instead of adding more new blood whose enthusiasm could energize the enttie system, they take the attitude that, well, if a woman doesn't want to join the best houses, she can always join the weakest. Panhellenic Love and all that.
When I was a freshman, we had nineteen sororities, all well-housed. Today, the memberships are larger, but we only have fourteen sororities; we've lost five and we're probably going to lose a sixth. Plenty of women want to pledge; they just don't want to pledge a weak house. Add more chapters! There are sororities dying to come back here, and a few still own their old houses.
Carnation's criticizm is on target. Not only are women going bidless, but a lot of really top-qulity women don't even go through rush because the top sororities won't take anyone who's not a freshman.

What I'm concerned by is the standards to which we hold PNM's. I'm not saying we should take every delinquent out there, but we all talk about girls with perfect grades and great service records and leadership and blah blah blah...and it's great that those girls want to be part of a sorority, but what about the women who haven't had those sorts of opportunities (Example: Homeschooling, rural living, transfer students from other countries, kids who worked 2 jobs to pay for school meaning that they couldn't attend the Little Sisters of the South Central Purple Rose meetings)? It doesn't mean that they are LESS worthy of membership, it means that they perhaps have MORE to GAIN from membership in a sorority. What is there to gain if we are allready filling our chapters with spotless women? I think that there are some GREAT women out there who would make tremendous contributions to the sorority world if they were given a chance.

Now how to do this..I don't know. The whole "application" thing is really foreign to me. OC doesn't require transcripts (deffered rush = first quarter grades used for freshmen) or any sort of application listing involvement...just name, number, SMC, and legacy status. Had there been an "application" per say... I don't know how half of OC would have been pledged. Just because we're fabulous now doesn't mean we came into this that way. I think that the sorority process is a great way to build leaders...perhaps we shouldn't be expecting them to cure cancer before we bid them.

YES. I get so sick of hearing about chapters who talk about other chapters during recruitment. Why does ABC need to talk about XYZ to the PNMs at their party? I know that everyone claims to endorse Panhellenic love and unity, etc., but we all know it's just not happening.

Dirty rushing needs to stop. PERIOD.

Also -- if the PNMs could just open their minds a tiny little bit more, they would realize that it's okay to not be in the top chapter. If they truly desired to be Greek, then they would be willing to step into a chapter with a not so great reputation and work to turn that chapter around. I'm not saying that PNMs should settle for a group where they know they wouldn't fit in, but let's face it -- PNMs are dropping chapters they have incorrectly heard are going to close or have low numbers or are at the bottom of the food chain simply because they are concerned with reputation. If we threw reputation out the window, we wouldn't have this problem.

I think one way is to teach EVERY chapter how to successfully COB. In my own chapter's case, we never had to COB more than one or two women when I was there, so we were horrible at it!! I can remember someone from EO saying, "You just invite women who are in your classes to events you're having..." when I was a senior. HUH?! I was a senior! Anyone who hadn't gone Greek by then wasn't going to do so!

Same chapter mumble, mumble years later: Last year was the first year in several that they came quite so close to Quota, but they are amazing at COB & Retention! Somewhere along the road, they not only learned how to COB, but they mastered it!

Rush Education is key!!!

Re: How Can We Maximize Greek Membership?
 

Hmmm...

First and foremost... that poor PNM! I can't imagine what it would be like to spend an evening having three different sororities tell you how much they want you to be their sister, and then not receive a bid from any of them. :( I wouldn't blame her if she's bitter.

Maybe some form of guaranteed bidding would help. If you attend pref and rank all the sororities you've preffed, you are guaranteed a bid from one of them. Of course, this can be dangerous - you'd need a way to prevent a situation where everyone prefs the same 2 or 3 sororities and therefore those sororities have huge NM classes while other sororities get no one. (i.e. you'd have to adhere strictly to release figures.)

I like the spring recruitment idea. At some schools, you either go through FR (or maybe COB) as a freshman and get a bid, or you don't join a sorority at all, because non-freshmen are routinely cut for not having 4 full years ahead of them. A spring recruitment with a small quota would give PNMs a second chance at the "top" sororities (which presumably have no trouble meeting quota/total, and therefore would not otherwise do a spring rush) as well as a second look at those sororities that did not meet quota/total.

I couldn't agree more about dirty rushing. Members should be focused on selling their own org, not bashing other orgs.

Maybe reducing the number of rules would help, but we in NPC-land like our rules. :p

It seems to me that if all but say one organization on campus are constantly hitting quota that NPC should mandate that a new group be allowed to colonize.

We have just that problem at a university I am close with. There is one NPC group that suffered a pretty major scandal that resulted in around half of their chapter being expelled. They never recovered and to this day have not once gotten even close to hitting quota (although I guess their numbers are strong enough to justify their continued existance to their HQ).

While all of the other sororities are at the maximum (some over) in terms of membership, this group hovers around 18-30 members.

Quality girls go bidless every year when there could easily be two or three other groups replacing (or supplementing). Once a house earns a certain reputation, it's very difficult to cast it off. Especially in the NPC system.

Yes, we'll force every girl to visit every house, so they can all see who has the prettiest girls, the nicest house, the nicest furniture, and the most trophies - and then we wonder why the girls don't want to join the other - and possibly smaller, younger - chapters.

If they've been rejected in formal rush, it's unlikely they'll COB.

Sororities are very lucky to have the alumnae involvement, supervising their chapters.

Sororities are very unlucky to have alumnae involvement, perpetuating silly old rules which help only the rich and powerful.

Hoosier, we've been down this path a million times. This thread is almost as tired as "How is XYZ at your school?"

I think I've said more-less the same thing too many times to count.

I've known some women who joined a smaller GLO after being cut from "the one and only" GLO they just knew they'd get a bid from. Funny thing happened: they had more opportunities for leadership positions and personal growth than they would have in the larger GLO. Try convincing a brokenhearted 18-year-old that everything happens for the best! A lot of the PNMs we're referring to were Miss High School but don't realize there are 500 other Miss High Schools going through recruitment as well. I think their egos take a beating when everything doesn't go their way, so their heads can't think clearly.

One thing I'd like to see is all GLOs being able to pledge up to the largest GLO's numbers. Even if everyone makes quota, the smallest group will never reach the same membership numbers as the largest one (unless something happens to the large GLO to reduce its membership numbers). The smallest one should at least be offered the option of pledging more women, whether through formal recruitment or COB.

AXiD670--AMEN!!! Dirty rushing boils my blood! :mad: Let the chips fall where they may--if the PNM you adore pledges somewhere else, then so be it. How sad that some GLOs aren't confident enough in their own sisterhood to play fair.

New Release Figure Method (RFM) will help some - once it is implemented FULLY at all schools doing a formal recruitment.

This one could cause a few screams - but I think that if they did a quota for each classification (fresh, soph, jr, sr) that is would encourage more non-freshman woman to go through recruitment. Of course it would have to be put out to the campus at large that these women had more of a chance.

I've seen jr. quota a a couple of schools - it hasn't made a huge difference in the number of jrs going through - but that is more b/c PH doesn't really do any PR to get current students to register for recruitment.

Any thoughts?

As for having a "open" round where all the women get to see all the chapters. I think it's a good idea - much better than just getting a list of those inviting you back for the first round and being cut with no rhyme or reason (at least not that a PNM would understand).

I also think it would help if each chapter, through PH actually posted what their grade cuts were. Maybe their national standard is 2.25, but the chapter is #1 in grades on campus and doesn't take anyone below a 2.75. This way women would not be as surprised if they were released from some chapters b/c they would realize it was for grades. Grades are such a big qualifier now - like someone said earlier - everyone going through is "Miss High School".

I can remember 15 years ago when I was in the chapter. I was on recruitment team and EVERYONE was in NHS, Student Council or Student Government and was either in Band, or a Cheerleader/Pom Squad/Drill Team/Flags etc. It was really had in some cases to have something truly unique about a women. For me it wasn't always the school activities that set a woman apart, but what else she did - lifeguard, build a house in Mexico, was into rodeo, won 4-H stuff - something that would seem random to some, but that was the point. I also don't think that women put enough stuff like this on their applications b/c they simply don't know to. As before, they don't release that everyone else was "Miss HS" too.

Oh, and don't even get me started on dirty rushing and bid promising! :mad:

TxGirl, at some colleges, jrs. and srs. are "free" in regard to quota. However wonderful that may be for the jrs. and srs., the poor sophs. can sometimes be left out. Of course, everyone would prefer freshmen (theoretically 4 years of active membership), but a lot of superb members have probably been lost just because they were not freshmen.

Your idea of separate quotas for the non-freshmen sounds pretty good, but it would probably be more work than Greek Life would want to handle!

Okay, I do applied mathmatics for a living, and I think there is a lot that can be done to improve release figures.

For example, in the 3-year average system that is normally used on my campus, if a chapter has return rates of 30%, 40% and 50% the past three years, their release figures will be calculated based on a 40% return rate (meaning they get to invite back temporary quota * number of parties in this round / 40%). However, they are obviously getting better each year, and are likely to have at least a 50% return rate.

HOWEVER, I am very wary of the new RFM. NPC will not publish how this is calculated, and makes vague references to a 'release figures specialist'. I put very little stock in the idea that the NPC release figure specialist can be totally unbiased and has the special expertise to pick numbers that will maximize the number of bids on bid day.

So what do we do? We should improve our forecasting methods using proven mathmatical forecasting strategies. Rather than some 'specialist' who allegedly has knowledge of recruitment, this is a mathmatical problem that should be solved by people like, well, me (of course with the aid of software designed for this and used widely in industries like mine).

Of course, this depends on whether you use the numbers from last year alone or if you factor in return rates from early rounds in the later rounds, but I see no problem with the former option. It doesn't matter if XYZ has 100% returns each round if their prefs are terrible and nobody ranks them #1 on pref night.

FR aside, I would also make total a more dynamic number. What if it was set after formal recruitment so exactly half the chapters are still able to COR if they make quota? So going into FR, you have six chapters with 90, 92, 92, 95, 97, and 100. Quota is 50. Total then becomes 145, so the bottom three chapters have 5, 3, and 3 spots open assuming they each make quota.

I simply cannot believe that there are STILL schools without "free seniors", if not "free juniors & seniors"!!! I already know of one senior who was cut completely because she's a senior. I feel like banging together the heads of her local Panhellenic!!

haha, hell hath no fury like a honeychile scorned.

Actually, thinking of my own experience - my Big Sister was a Senior (when we had Upperclass, then Freshman rush). Had Seniors not been "free", I would have missed out on a great friendship!

i am not 1000% sure, but i believe last year at convention, they explained that the "release figures specialist" was actually a mathematician who did some crazy figuring to get these numbers. as far as how they got them, beats me. even if it was explained, i would have stopped paying attention in a second.

i think it is great that the chapters with stronger reputations now have to release more women earlier in the process. i think it is more likely that they will stay with recruitment and check out the other chapters.

i actually agree with the guys here...somewhat anyway. first of all, there really is no panhellenic spirit when it comes to helping out the smallest chapter during recruitment. where do these reputations of being the weakest or worst or whatever come from.....current members of the system (both male and female) blabbing on and on about things they don't really know. for some systems where recruitment starts before school, the pnms here this info from friends at the school, siblings, family members in the alum groups in the area. "we here so and so is the weakest group and they are going to close." did they hear that from so and so's hq??? was there a story in the campus newspaper stating that so & so is leaving campus? no. just people spreading rumors.

girls who drop out mid week are not going to cob. the reason they drop out is bc the perceived best chapters drop them. they have no interest in becoming a member of the other chapters (or even giving them the chance) or else they would have stayed in recruitment.

as far as girls who go through the whole week, attend multiple pref parties and then go bidless....well, this is where i think that guarenteed bidding can be a benefit. but only for women who play by the rules all week and attend all of the parties (up to the number that they can) each day.

i also like the idea of having free seniors or juniors (for those schools with recruitment freshman year). we preach all the time that joining a sorority is for life...but only if you join as a freshman. that is just plain silly.

hehe, don't cross honeychile. :D

Seniors should be free... or better yet, juniors and seniors should be free, or have a separate quota. This would encourage chapters to look at juniors and seniors separately and not just cut them for not being freshmen. Even at the relatively laid-back northeastern school I attended, it was rare for a junior or senior (or soph) to get a bid via FR. I hate watching non-freshmen go bidless just because they're not freshmen.

Here's a question...are sophomore women who are not bid or drop out for various reasons or sign independent ALSO considered Off Quota at your universities? At Otterbein, if you drop out, turn down a bid or decide to sign independent as a freshman, in your sophomore year you are also considered "off quota", without necessarily having to go through the rush process again (nominated by a member of a chapter and agreed upon via voting) but some DO go through rush again, and are considered off quota still.

Juniors and seniors arn't free at Auburn, and I think that stinks :(

Auburn doesn't have free upperclassman?!

I honestly feel that most schools would have at least a 20% increase of greeks, if "free upperclassman" was in place. One of the women I know who was cut simply could not afford sorority until her junior year - she's enrolled at a private & pricey school (I'd rather not say the name at this time). Frankly, I think that says something about her willingness to be responsible for her dues & tuition.

Nope. It's one of those schools where girls who arn't freshman get cut more often.

We lose far more fraternities on a regular basis than we do sororities. The last time my campus lost a sorority was in the early 1990s, but we lose a fraternity every other year or so. This pattern is reflected on larger and smaller scales at every campus across the country. I'm not sure your plan is the best way to maximize membership. The fraternities have certainly not escaped the weak house/strong house designations -- that's not just a sorority thing.

I think there are three things that need to be happening:
1) Move away from the huge, competitive, formal rush systems into a more informal rush. The more informal rush is, the less pressure -- and the less pressure, the more likely it is that a girl will judge a house on its character and sisterhood instead of its reputation (and vice versa). It's these intense rushes where everyone's so focused on only getting the perfect girls/the perfect house that cuts are so heavy.
2) Be open to taking girls who aren't so young, or who have rushed more than once. Older girls who have been around school for a while have established themselves (you know what they're about), and they're (I hate to stereotype, but this is true) more likely to choose a chapter based on the deep-down stuff rather than the superficial. Maybe not a LOT more likely, but at least somewhat more likely. Separate quotas based on school year might help this. For EACH school year -- sophomores included.
3) Total needs to be examined and reset much, much more often than it is. At most campuses, nobody's even looked at the number in years, let alone thought about changing it. At my school, total is the same now as it was fifteen years ago when the average sorority size was a good 40 women higher. We need to stay on top of this number because the ideal total for a campus changes so much, and having it too high or too low can drastically affect membership. (For example, a campus near here has total set at a number that NO sorority on campus has reached, thus every sorority -- even the "top tier" groups -- has to focus their energy on COB year-round. That shouldn't be happening.)

The "release figures specialist" is a mathematician, and there is a software program that now calculates release percentages and quota ranges for you. The specialists are trained so that you have someone to call when you don't understand what the heck the numbers are saying, or something like that. DeltaBetaBaby, I'm sure you could volunteer your services or asked to be trained since you have the math background. You'd then be able to help advise a campus near you if they needed it (I'm assuming you're an alum and not undergraduate).

While I'm not totally defending NPC (I think some of the rules are wacko too), I do think that they have given campuses tools to make recruitment unique to them. The new recruitment styles are PERFECT to customize recruitment to a particular campus. NPC has also stated that total should be evaluated yearly in order to better monitor what's going on with the groups. The problem is that people are scared to death to change. If you start evaluating total, you have sorority alums and advisors freaking out because OMG!!!! a stinkin' number might change!! Numbers don't tell the whole story, and it's OK to lower total if a campus enrollment has lowered significantly.

When my campus did Partially Structured this past Spring (as "Formal" recruitment...deferred for Freshmen), the only invite party we had was Pref night...we had no quota...heck, we didn't have Pref cards or Bid Matching!!!! That wasn't working on my campus, so the groups voted to change. The PNMs came into my office one by one on Bid Day, and were presented with the bids they had received and we're asked to choose which one they wanted to accept. Once the recruitment week started, most of the sorority women flipped out when they realized there wasn't going to be a quota, but change is uncomfortable. The end result...in the past using quota, only 15-20 women were placed between 3 chapters on Bid Day (this is the first opportunity that freshman can join, remember). This year, we placed 34....AND colonized a new group the week after that. I only had 2 girls torn as to which group to join when they got their bids. How did my smallest chapter do? They took the most girls, and wound up within 4 of total (the other groups were 1 and 2 away from total).

Looking back, if we would have had any more PNMs during recruitment, someone would have gone over total, and we may have had to look at a quota. Don't know. Maybe last semester was a fluke...maybe the recruitment style actually helped. But we weren't afraid to try, and that's the point. Heck, if that hadn't worked, I was about to suggest a "fraternity style" recruitment for the girls (which here amounts to nothing more than a week of COR style events)!!

Now, do I suggest that the huge schools immediately go to Partially Structured? No...formal structured works (for the most part).

Bottom line...if it's not working for you, try something different. I think most NPC groups and most campuses are simply afraid to try something different. That goes for expansion as well...if you've got only one group struggling, go ahead and make plans for expansion for a year or two out. Tell that chapter they've got everyone on their side to help them grow (and MEAN IT!) during that time so the system can be as strong as possible in order to support the new colony. Then, it's up to them to take action and figure out what they need to do differently. **The total abolishment of any sort of dirty rushing techniques MUST go along with this. You can't be talking out of both sides of your mouth.

[/ramble]

PsychTau

And now I'm going to keep talking...
 

I just read Barbara's post about FSU and how some of the chapters had to cut 50% of the PNMs on the first round.

What would happen if you had several days of parties BEFORE cuts were made? PNMs and sisters would have more than 30 minutes with each other before making decisions, and those groups not considered "top tier" (however a PNM defines it) would have more time to make an impression...and a better chance at winning some PNMs over because there's more time to "get real" (face it...we all know that some PNMs go back to some chapters based on looks and appearances of either the members or the physical house in the beginning of recruitment). I also believe that it will help PNMs settle in and figure out how to make the right decision for themselves, knowing they've got a few days before they make the first one.

I also think that PNMs aren't always sure of HOW to choose a sorority to join until later in the week. The PNMs cut on the first night on not a whole lot of info, and I'm sure we could find lots and lots of stories (if they are willing to share) about PNMs who figured out later in the week what were the best choices for them and subsequently wished they could start recruitment over in order to "not waste time" on those houses that ultimately aren't for them.

I also wished that PNMs did their homework/research BEFORE recruitment to learn as much as possible about the National Organization....much like the NPHC aspirants do. On the flip side, I wished NPC groups sold (and consistently provided) the National values/alumnae/lifelong experiences as well as the NPHC groups do. There are some areas where alumnae are super active in giving back to the community and obviously living the XYZ life, and there are some areas where it's just a potluck dinner now and then.

OK...I'll shut up now.

PsychTau

A vicious circle has developed over the past 40+ years: larger quotas and higher totals led to larger chapter houses, which led to larger quotas and higher totals in order to pay for those houses.

I wish that NPC had gone for more chapters. That is, instead of 14 chapters with a possible total of 150, which perhaps 11 would reach easily while two would have to push through the year and the third would constantly struggle to exceed 50, another struggling at 50, there would be 26 chapters of 55.
Maybe there would even be more than 26 NPC groups: locals or multi-culturals could participate on a more level field.

It's never going to happen, but if I were Queen of the World . . .

the "logic" behind some chapters having to release a high percentage of pnms after the first set of parties is to not lead the pnms on into a false sense of "wow-abc is the top group at state u and they keep inviting me back-they must really like me. i'll bet i get a bid from them," only to have abc drop them before the pref round and totally devastate them. however, if, for whatever reason, justified or not, polly pnm has her heart set on abc or nothing at all, and for some reason she is dropped by abc because they had to release 60% of all the pnms after the first set of parties, she may drop out of recruitment altogether.

a few years back there was a theory that the large chapters were just inviting pnms back to make their return rates look good and based on that(and i am sure other things) it was decided that it would be kinder to release early on those pnms that they might not end up offering a bid to. i think that a huge assumption is being made by the powers that be-that the released pnms would never have been offered a bid by abc, but noone can know that unless the chapters are allowed to invite back as many as they want and more members can meet polly pnm.who knows?that next visit to the abc house may be the time she really shines!but it is a double edged sword-some girls will fall into the scenario in the first paragraph, and some will continue with recruitment only to find that they don't have a good fit with the remaining chapters. i don't know what the answer is, but it seems to me that if pnms are so upset after being released by certain chapters that they drop out all together, then it might be better to allow those chapters to release less girls, so that the pnms will remain in recruitment and hopefully give each chapter on their campus a good look and ultimately find the best group for them.

This is going to piss a lot of people off, but I just don't see the probelm in PNMs going bidless.

Obviously there is a reason for this. Not EVERY GIRL who goes through recruitment should/will get a bid. Recruitment is about first impressions. I may meet a girl 1 time during Recruitment week and talk her for a total of 5 minutes. If she does not make a good impression then why would I want to tell everyone in my chapter how awesome she is and that I would love to have her as my sister? Odds are, if she hasn't made a good impression at my house, she probably hasn't made a good impression elewhere.

On the issue of high release numbers, I think it's important to cut when you realize you don't want someone. When you hold everyone until the end, then you drop, all those girls have in their head that you want them. It also screws other sororities who cut early b/c PNMs who get cut by xyz and have a friend going through with them will jade that friend on xyz.

Finally, this notion that every girl should be able to join a sorority is bullsh**. I personally like being able to decide who I'm going to have to spend the next couple of years with. If everyone can just walk up and join what would be the purpose of a sorority? I'd just go join the band, or the Key Club. With these groups you get friendship, community service, and parties... they're just not exclusive.

Truly, I wish sororites did their rush like the fraternties on my campus do. Everyone goes the each house the first night. Then the fraternities send invites out, no mutual selection, they choose who THEY want. Then, at the ned of the week, they pledge who they want. No quota, no huge importance placed on total or numbers, just people they TRULY want as brothers, not just people they HAD to take b/c of quota.

YES.

When you look into some of these sad stories, you find out that the PNM said something to the effect of "well I wanted SKEPi or SHIM and they both cut me and I know I'm better than any of those other groups." I'm sorry, but cry me a fricking river.

I know there are instances where the PNM does keep an open mind and still ends up bidless, but I honestly think the above instance is more common.

Heather's also right about re-evaluating total more often. If it's off-kilter, it enables the strong groups to get bigger at the expense of the smaller and also puts you in the doghouse with your national - all they see is you didn't make it, not that no one has made it since 1988.

Just adding to the vicious circle are sororities with houses, especially those mammoth houses. You NEED the dues from over a hundred, twoo hundred members to keep the house afloat.

And it really would be exciting to see a school with 26 NPC sororities - but that would be a HORRIBLE rush!! With the amount of complaining when there's 11-12 houses, can you even begin to imagine trying to hit 26?!?!?!?!?!

You'd need some really comfy shoes. :p

During rush, do all the sororities know who has been "released" and who has not? Is there any sort of dynamic where a house will see that someone has been released by a rival, and then releases the same woman because "if she's not good enough for XYZ, then she's not good enough for us"?

If the goal is to maximize membership, then maybe they should, under certain circumstances.

I completely agree that if the group doesn't want the girl, it shouldn't have to take her. But at these big Greek campuses, is that really what's happening? Maybe some of those early cuts are simply girls without recs, or shy girls who didn't make an impression.

How would this idea work: after the chapters turn in their invite lists each round, the panhellenic computer makes a list of those girls who were completely released by all chapters. This list is then provided to the chapters before the next round begins. If a chapter wants to change its mind about any of those girls, then it can invite them even if release figures say their parties are full, and if the girl then makes it to pref night at that chapter, she may be bidded without counting in quota.

Obviously, if a girl was cut "for cause" (meaning she's a problem personality or was rude at the party), the chapter will pass on the opportunity to take a second look. But if she was cut basically to make room under the release figures, or because no one in the chapter knows her, maybe some chapters will give her another chance.

This is basically the same philosophy as quota additions, only applied to the rounds before pref.

My heart goes out to the women who get dropped from all the houses. I know if I had gone to a school that didn't bid non-freshman I would not have gotten the opportunities I have gotten from AST.

Here is my thought (kinda far fetched). PNMs are making snap judgements based on letters (and reps, size etc). Why not make the first round or two blind. Take the letters away (much like a rush story on here), do small rush groups so a PNM coming through couldn't tell how big or small the chapter really is. So if the smallest house is at 60 each group could have two rooms with 30 or three rooms with 20, the bigger chapters would have a back-of-house space for the other sisters to wait until they are roated in. Make the conversations really about personality and that interpersonal connection. Put in monitors who roam the room if needed to prevent dirty rushing, but let the PNMs have a chance to see the groups with out the preconcieved notions. You'd have to compare hometowns and not have women interact who knew eachother, but I'm sure things like that could mostly be avoided. You would have to put letters on it at some point, but maybe a blind round would help people keep their minds open more. I mean if you fell in love with the women of xyz, and you found out they were small, would you really give it up just for better letters knowing you fit with another chapter? I know that this is far out there...


I like the idea of 26 smaller chapters rather than 11 huge chapters. I think it is ok if a chapter is smaller, or only does cob and recruits women who the others would never bid. I think that makes a Greek system more healthy and helps break down some barriers. I dunno...just thoughts.