can someone explain cuts to me
 

I hear people talking about cuts and release figures a lot in recruitment threads on GC and I was just wondering what they were. The school where I went to had a pretty small school where everyone was (for the most part) significantly below total that no one had to worry about cuts. I'm not sure what release figures are. Does your school's panhel or the NPC actually tell you how many girls you have to cut each day?

It's sort of complicated to get into the whole process, but the easy answer to what your looking for (I think) is say XYZ was THE favorite last year and they took total and quota and almost all the PNMs accepted their invites back there...then XYZ would have a bigger number of girls to cut then ABC who only got half of quota and very few girls accepted their invites back (in fact, depending on the numbers, ABC might not have to cut at all and get to invite all the PNMs they want back). It was designed to not mislead PNMs by letting them continue to get invited back to a sorority where they're on the bottom of a bid list of 400 girls and the chapter can only take 40, so they can concentrate their efforts elsewhere and get a more realistic picture of where they fit.

Also, with the new rules, the stronger chapters have to cut more, earlier on. In a 5 night recruitment, they may do a full MS after the 2nd night, where everyone else does it only right before pref night.

Small groups of girls will get cut before the MS('s) as well, such as grade risks or girls who no one wants/acted like they didn't want to be there anyway.

Personally I'm always shocked at the girls who act like they're better than XYZ, until they get cut from their "sure bid" and then they're just sweet to everyone.

The vast majority of PNMs are not bitches, but those rare few... ugh.

what's MS?

Membership Selection.

Membership selection. It's considered ritual so no one can tell you their processes, but it's practically one of those things that "doesn't exist" as far as the real world is concerned. But everyone knows that the sororities do SOMETHING to choose members... even if they pick names out of a hat.

/neither confirming nor denying

Oh. Now that you and honeychile explained it, it seems so obvious.

At my school, there were three nights of recruitment and pnms were required to visit each sorority each night and we couldn't cut anyone. The first and only chance that we got to cut girls was for pref.

[quote=Drolefille]Also, with the new rules, the stronger chapters have to cut more, earlier on. In a 5 night recruitment, they may do a full MS after the 2nd night, where everyone else does it only right before pref night.

Small groups of girls will get cut before the MS('s) as well, such as grade risks or girls who no one wants/acted like they didn't want to be there anyway.
quote]

Drolefille,

Can you please provide a link to the new policy/rules? I couldn't find it on the NPC website.

i believe the resolution passed two or three years ago. i will see if i can find it in my green book,but i'll have to do it later.

The technical name for the new stuff is "Release Figure Method." Go to Google and type that in in quotes. You'll pull up several links - most of them to pdfs, and even the PowerPoint presentation given by Laura Malley-Schmitt. I have seen her presentation, and she is great!

Basically it is a new method that is designed to help all the chapters fulfill quota, and to allow potential new members to maximize their options. Release figures are based on chapter history (return rates from previous years, # of women on first bid list matched, etc.). The Greek Advisor works with a Specialist who is a representative of NPC to determine how many PNMs each chapter may invite back to each party. Then the Greek Advisor shares that number with the chapters, who then go to MS Session and create their lists of invitations.

Historically strong recruiting chapters release more women early in the process. This allows the women that they know they wouldn't ever bid get a chance to meet the other chapters and consider them more strongly. Why drag a PNM along and let her get her hopes up that she'll get into a chapter that will just release her right before preference? This way she'll spend more time getting to know the women in the chapters where her chances of membership are greater. And in turn, those chapters who have struggled with recruitment numbers in the past have been seeing VAST improvements in their return rates and final numbers. Many campuses have chapters that have never made quota now making quota easily.

This new method forces the chapters who will be releasing heavily to get to know the PNMs much earlier. As has been mentioned in several places on GC, this makes recommendation letters all that much more important. Heavy releases means 50-60% of the field released on night one, so chapters need as much info as possible.

Another great thing that I learned from Ms. Malley-Schmitt is that the Specialist and the Greek Advisor take the current year's performance into account as well. That first night number will be based on the past, but later nights can also incorporate current year statistics. The Greek Advisor should have a good idea as to what chapters are performing well based on how the PNMs are ranking, and she can tell the Specialist, "Well, even though ABC has great numbers from last year, something bad is going wrong cause everyone is ranking them low." Then they will adjust mid-stream so that ABC still gets to invite plenty of PNMs to future rounds.

It's a great theory and has been great at most campuses who have implemented it properly. We are doing it for the first time this fall, and I'm anxious about it, but I am trusting the system and those who know what they are doing to take care of everything!

This is very interesting. Thank you for the explanation and link suggestions.

So if I understand correctly:

1. The bigger, more "popular" sororities on a campus make drastic cuts after first party for Round 2.

2. Many of the sororities have an automatic "courtesy" invitation to 2nd round for legacies.

To me, this seems as if there will be even less slots open to non-legacies for Round 2.

I don't know how it works in a situation where most of the PNMs are legacies to one org or another.... or where there are sooo many legacies that you can't bid them all... but

1. If the stronger chapters cut early, they're doing a full MS, this includes dropping legacies if they don't feel they're a fit. Our rush had 2 rotational nights and then the strongest chapter cuts after the 2nd, everyone cuts after the 3rd and the fourth day was Pref. Here, quota is the number of PNMs divided by the number of sororities so theoretically there is a place for every girl.

2.There are actually more spots for non-legacies in a way. They just know that ABC has already dropped them, so they look at DEF, GHI, JKL, and MN where there are STILL spaces for them.

The actual number of spaces hasn't changed, just the distribution.

SEC ladies, please chime in!

Carnation???

carnation's response will probably be better, but here's my $.02:

When I went through recruitment, there was a rumor that PNMs could not be invited back to a certain house after round 3 if they were not legacies there because there were so many legacies to that house. Of course, I know several girls who pledged that house as non-legacies, BUT they admitted to me that they sometimes had to cut even double and TRIPLE legacies because they had so many going through that they would be unable to take any non-legacies if they took all of the legacies.

So, in short, I don't think the release figure method means that non-legacies can't pledge ABC, it just means they'd better be damn good if they want to stand out in a pool of 100s of legacies. ;) I would assume this is similar with other traditionally strong houses at other SEC schools.

What dgdramadawg said!

I have seen the new release figures cause a few unexpected results. First, it seems that far fewer legacies are getting bids...almost all the legacies I've known who went to UGa or Auburn were released right after second parties. Also--and I know we talked about this on some other thread--students have to be outstanding to get accepted to UGa. I mean, sky-high SATs and grades, top activities, the whole bit. So here all these outstanding girls are pitted against each other and sorry folks, that's what it is, and after second parties, massive cuts are made. Really super girls are blasted away because they get their results and over half the sororities have cut them. They don't care what they have left, their egos are shattered, and they drop out-especially if all their buddies did well.

My daughter and a friend were in front of one of the freshman dorms last year and all these buses drove up. Crying girls began to get off the buses and the friend asked one why they were crying. She told him that all these girls had dropped out of rush, having gotten their invitations after second parties. :(

I see the point of release figures--back in the day it was common to keep lots of girls as late as possible because it looked good--but I fear that we're alienating several potential, outstanding Greeks and I have let folks in NPC know this.

When I hear of SO many top women who were cut so quickly in Recruitment, I can't help but wonder if that campus has enough sororities on campus. I was always in awe of the SEC campuses with 300-400 women in their chapters - until I saw that there was ten chapters or less on campus.

I know that release figures (and yes, I intend to go to the site mentioned later tonight) are supposed to help out the smaller, "weaker" chapters, and sometimes, that does happen. Other times, it creates a large community of anti-greeks. Somewhere, the twain has to meet.

I think carnation's last paragraph and hc's whole post are both absolutely correct. Especially for those girls who do give every sorority a closer look and keep an open mind.

However...as I've said before, a LOT of the time, it is girls saying "I'll pledge ABC or I won't pledge at all...I wouldn't lower myself to pledge XYZ." I have no pity for those people at all. Those people (and to a lesser degree, housing issues) are the reason we do have 400 person chapters - because they refuse to give a new chapter a chance.

Cutting quickly may create anti-greeks, but so does being strung along until pref and not getting a bid. The former at least makes things easier on the sororities.

Before they rolled out the Release Figure Method on a nationwide (and I say that loosely as it is still voluntary at this point) they asked all the NPC groups to reevaluate their MS process. The powers that be at each group were to look at how their process worked, what their policies were regarding legacies etc. All of this with the knowledge that on some campuses their chapters would have to release 50-60% of the women that signed up for recruitment - legacy or no.

As to courtesy invites, I know that many chapters at UofTx did this, but they never had any intention of taking an entire new member class of legacies. I think this is probably true for most schools/chapters. Of course the PNM's don't know this.

I think that while it is unfortunate that the women's carnation's daughter saw dropped out of recruitment because the didn't like their invites, it's also indicative of more than that. It seems that it is possible that many of these women had preconceived notions about the chapters on campus, their chances with each chapter or could possibly been promised bids. All of these things have to figure in somewhere - not to mention the domino effect that could also happen. But I also feel like 33girl, if they came with the mindset that they are only going XYZ then which is better to drag through the whole process only to be release or to be released after the first day? If only one chapter on the entire campus will do for you then I think it's better to know after day one then to fall in love with the group more and more each day only to be release before pref. I think the sting of the first is a lot less than the second.

So which makes the more "anti-greek"? The woman who knew after a day that XYZ didn't feel she was a fit for their group or the women that went to XYZ for 3 days, was made to feel welcome, befriended and on her way to being a sister? No one wants to be a seat filler (unless its for the Oscars or something) and that's basically what a lot of the women that are carried to far are.

It was mentioned that it also helps smaller chapters. While this may be true, it isn't always. No method is going to save chapters that are too far gone. I do feel that it's main purpose is more to help the PNM's than the chapters.

While everyone may not love it, it is far better than the old release figure methods. I think one of the big reasons chapters/advisors/alums are scared of it is because it's not a formula thats written in the Green Book for all to see. Of course the reason it's not published is because NPC doesn't want someone to make a program and charge us to use the method we came up with in the first place.

Also, as mentioned earlier, its a working "document" (for lack of a better term). It can adjust to what is going on for that round, with this group of PNM's and this group of chapters. As we all know, many things can change in 3 years with a chapter and campus. The old method was hard and fast and just because you had done great the prior three it didn't help you if you feel on your face during the current year.

Sorry, I'll step off the soap box. I just really feel that the new Release Figure Method is a step in the right direction to help PNM's and chapters make the best of the mutual selection process.

Hard to say for sure, but my daughter (a new ChiO alum) and others I've talked to at UGa feel like it's not so much that the girls they knew were cut by specific groups. At UGa, where the freshmen are the type who have succeeded in almost everything they've done in high school, the devastation seems to come when many girls are cut by the majority of sororities early in rush. I have never seen a rush booklet that warns the girls that this can happen and maybe they all should.

I totally agree. What do I say to a gorgeous valedictorian with a million charity hours and tons of extracurriculars who was cut by 6 houses in round 1? It's just hard to explain to the girls that ABC and XYZ have to cut tons of girls just to keep the playing field level for everyone else. And a girl like this would most certainly roll her eyes at me if I mentioned the possibility of a less-than-full round 2 party list, so I don't think that mentioning the possibility of high cuts would do any good. High achieving young women have difficulty understanding that UGA rush is like swimming in a sea of high achieving young women.

However, on the flip side at UGA, the release figure method has been very helpful to a few chapters on campus that used to be much smaller than the other groups and now these groups have at least 100 members each. I think this definitely shows that the method CAN help the smaller groups on campus grow, whether or not it helps the women growing through achieve a high number of invites.

it's not just UGa etc...
 

I've seen girls who were the queens of everything in high school get cut hard at Clarion and I'm sure it's happened at other small schools too. No one is 100% successful 100% of their life. If you get to learn that lesson the first week of college, you might get saved a lot of pain later. And no matter where you end up, college is not like high school.

They should probably do as they did in "Class Reunion" when the women were starting at Radcliffe and told them sitting on each side of them was the valedictorian of their class.