Quota Additions
 

So, sometime between my collegiate years and now, NPC did away with the rule that QA's could not exceed 5% of quota. Any idea why they did this? Why bother having a quota if chapters can go way over it?

And if this was discussed to death when the change was made, I apologize.

When RFM was instituted it was felt that by restricting the number of invitations that could be given by the more successfully recruiting chapters would ultimately result in those chapters having attendance at their pref parties and thus on their bid lists in numbers that would lead to fewer QA for those chapters.

In campuses that use RFM (with the exception of some in the south), I've mostly observed this to be true. That the large QAs seem to go to smaller chapters.

By lifting the QA restriction, it was felt, that there would be a better chance to place every woman who played by the rules and attended all possible events.

The problem, as I see it, is that there seem to be huge numbers of QA's at the same time there are chapters not making quota. I am really torn on this, because I don't want women to go bidless, but on the other hand, it really hurts the smaller chapters.

I also don't know if there have been changes to the RFM over the years. As I understood it, back when I was in school the formula was:

invitations = (number of women still in recruitment/number of chapters) *(number of parties in the round/average return rate of the last three years)

So, if there were 500 women going to pref, and each woman could attend two prefs, and ten chapters, a chapter with a 100% return rate could issue 150 pref invitations, and a chapter with a 50% return rate could issue 300 invitations.

the new RFM (release figure method) has a new formula which also takes into account the number of women likly to accept a bid from a chapter and restricts the number of preference inviations the strong recruiting chapter can issue even more that the old formula which was based more on statistical equality.

Do you know how it's calculated?

Demand forecasting is one of my areas of expertise, and I always thought the old system was flawed because a three-year average ignores trends. If your return rates over the last three years were 85%, 75%, and 65%, it's not likely this year will be 75%. The same is true for a chapter on the upswing.

Perhaps the best thing would have been to work all the bugs out of RFM and get rushees/chapters used to it, and THEN up the quota additions. (The result being, theoretically, that quota additions wouldn't be needed.)

The purpose of RFM is to keep invitations in line with the precentage of acceptances a chapter gets, on the average, by lowering the number that successful chapters can issue and allowing the underperforming chapters to issue more. This applies to every round of recruitment and so forces the bigger, better chapters to release women earlier rather than string them along till they dump them before pref. Also, it allows the system to place ALL women who "maximize their options" (that is, accept all invitations that they are able within their schedule to accept). And there are no restrictions on where those women can be placed except that that be on the sorority's list. The reality is that the chapters are thereby restricted as they are not going to put additional women on their bid list who were not invited to pref (these extra women are known as being on a "flex list"). And the women will not put a chapter they haven't preffed on their list. So they've already excluded each other thru the course of the week.

Hope that makes sense!

That's what I'm saying. I understand why we want to place as many women as possible, but I'm not certain that QA is the way to do it.

Obviously I am a small-chapter advocate, and we've talked before on here about the way to make 18-year-old women consider the smaller chapters or chapters that may not be viewed as "top-tier". But with QA's as they are, aren't we effectively telling them that there is less reason to consider the smaller chapters? If a bid were less of a sure thing, would women be more honest with themselves about where they belong?

On the sororities' side, we very often have to gauge a PNM's interest, and release women who we'd love to have in favor of women we think are more likely to join. For example, the triple XYZ legacy whose sister is the current president may not get invited back while a grade risk who we know wants to be in our chapter would. Shouldn't we put PNM's through the same type of thinking process?

I have not seen QAs hurt small chapters at my alma mater. In fact, the two NM classes that I saw at my time at UMD with the most QAs were from small chapters.

QAs are obviously unfair if a campus isn't using RFM. However, with RFM, chapters will be issuing the number of invitations that will most likely result in all chapters making quota. However, if a middle tier chapter does significantly better than in previous years, they are likely to make quota plus because their bid list is longer than RFM "thought" it needed to be. Simply put, large numbers of QAs are the result of a chapter doing better than expected per RFM.

I believe that a PNM should be guaranteed a bid from ONE of her preference party chapters as long as she has maximized throughout recruitment and ranked all her chapters. Say a PNM is invited to 3 "top tier" chapters for pref at a large campus, but she's near the bottom of all three lists. Since such chapters must make huge cuts, they have a fairly short bid list because they have a high acceptance rate. Said PNM probably does "belong" in a top tier chapter if she was invited to 3 top tier chapters. Is it really fair to her or the chapters to not get a bid to any of those? Do you really think said PNM would consider or fit in the small struggling chapter? I doubt it.

If a chapter has higher than expected success one year, they will have to release more PNMs next formal recruitment due to RFM. I think it all evens out. You shouldn't see the same chapter getting large numbers of QAs year after year. I see no reason to punish PNMs when a chapter does better than expected.

I'm not entirely sure what the protocol for matching QAs is; I've understood it varies from campus to campus and depends on current chapter size, PNM's preference, and where she falls on the chapter's list.

Also, with the advent of the quota range, quota is set such that it balances the number of chapters making quota, and the number of PNMs being placed, to ultimately equalize Panhellenic chapter size. If quota is too high, more PNMs are placed (likely in their first choice chapters) but smaller chapters are less likely to make quota. If quota is too low, more chapters are likely to make quota, but there will be a lot of PNMs unplaced, and matched as QAs, which will still result in massive inequality in NM class size. Quota ranges are used to find the best scenario.

Yes, the new release figures force higher performing chapters to release far more than in DBB's example.

I do not know the actual formula, but it takes into account not just return rates but relative recruiting strength, which is probably calculated by priority rankings, or number of PNMs that put a certain chapter in their top 8 (or whatever number) for the next round. "Return rates" don't really show the whole picture. Though a weaker chapter may have 80% return, I guarantee not all 80% put that chapter in their top 8. They return because other chapters cut them and they need to have a full schedule.

Using DBB's numbers, 500 PNMs, 10 chapters, projected quota at 50, and 3 pref parties (I think DBB meant 3 though she wrote 2 because of her math)...

The highest performing chapters (those with 100% or close to it return rates) do not need to invite 3x projected quota to pref to make quota. It's probably more like 1.5x projected quota. Because top chapters are forced to trim their bid lists to only what is necessary to make quota, if other top chapters outcompete them in one year, they sometimes miss quota (though spots are usually filled quickly with snap bids).

Yup, typo.

It sounds like they are trying to make it as equitable as possible, which I certainly support, and I totally get your point about not punishing PNM's because a few chapters exceeded expectations.

But then I see something like these posts in the NPC recruitment results thread:

At CNU, these were the final numbers
Quota was 25 (I'm pretty sure)

Alpha Phi- 28
Gamma Phi Beta- 29
Alpha Sigma Alpha-29
Zeta Tau Alpha-29
Phi Mu- 30

WTF? How can every chapter take QA? Why isn't quota just 28?


And this:

W&L - Quota = 30
KKG - 24
KD - 30
Pi Phi - 37
Theta - 32
XO - 32
ADPi - 34

I can't help feeling like Kappa is getting kinda screwed, here. Fifteen women were placed as QA's. I know NOTHING about this campus, but are we really saying that of those fifteen women, none of them would be happy in the chapter that didn't make quota?

The problem with your assumption is that by moving the Quota to a lower number you think that Kappa would suddenly make Quota. That is not necessarily true. Quota ranges are used to make the most chapters reach total and the most woman get placed. The woman who were QAs may not have had Kappa on their list for prefs and Kappa may be a top chapter at W&L who miscalculated when releasing women. I've seen several top chapters NOT reach total while "lower tier" chapters make way over so you can't assume anything. I don't know this campus, so I don't know if Kappa is struggling or not.

At CNU, changing Quota to 28 may have actually disrupted how many women were placed because of shifts in the lists. It's hard to look back and understand the reasoning when you can't see how the Quota ranges change the field.

RFM
 

With RFM you are given a number to rank on your first bid list...use 50 as an example. But, when everyone's lists are matched on the computer, 53 PNMS matched right away for all chapters or the vast majority of chapters.

The RFM specialist for that campus would then look at all the stats and decide if quota was 53, 54, etc....as a way to maximize the PNMs match potential. So, many times when quota is announced on GreekChat it is based on what the chapter was told to rank on the first bid list prior to matching...and is often not the case in the end. If one chapter only matched 40, then only 40 women were a possible match for them prior to quota additions. They have the opportuity to snap bid and COB. Other PNMs who maximized their choices but did not match initially are placed with another of their choices who has the next smallest membership number..even if they made quota.

RFM really does maximize the PNMs chances to match with a chapter. And I agree that usually the smaller chapters are able to pledge more than the old 5% standard..which helps them and the Greek system in the end.:D

No, you misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that quota be changed. I am suggesting that, rather than a huge number of QA's, there are women who go bidless, and then have the chance to take another look at the chapters that are below quota or total.

I am also wondering if (but this is far more conjecture) women would think harder about what chapters wanted them as well as what chapters they want if they knew they weren't guaranteed a bid just by making it to pref.

Sort of related question that I never thought of until now...

What happens if panhellenic estimates the lowest quota should be is 40, so chapters submit first bid lists in alphabetical order and then wants to lower quota? Is panhellenic then locked into a minimum quota of 40? If not, and they want to test out the effects of a lower quota, how do they know which PNMs would make it onto the chapter's first bid list if quota was only 37, let's say?