Taking New Members After Reaching Total
 

I got into a discussion with a sister earlier about rules surrounding, quota, total, COB, etc. and realized that there were some gaping holes in my knowledge. Hypothetically, chapter XYZ pledges quota during formal recruitment plus a few quota additions for good measure. They are now over campus total. If they maintain all of their new members and stay above total is there any situation in which they can extend bids to new members for the rest of the school year, or are they required to wait until the following fall formal to take anyone? I assumed that they couldn't but as I looked over the green book I couldn't find anything hard and fast to support that. I apologize if it's a silly question, I'm just on a continual quest to understand the ins and outs of NPC formal.

No, they may not offer more bids. They may take up to total, or up to quota, whichever is higher. If they get quota additions, there could be a few extra, but the only way to go over total is through formal recruitment.

(NB: There are a few campuses that do a bid match for informal recruitment in the semester in which they don't have FR. I think that chapters can go over total in these situations, but they are a) very rare, and b) essentially a second FR, if panhellenic is doing the bid matching.)

DBB is correct. A chapter may pledge up to Quota or up to Total which ever is higher. If pledging quota takes the chapter over total but then they lose some of those new members, they may not be replace unless/until the chapter goes below total.

Example
Total is 80 and quota is 22. Chapter starts at 60 members and pledges quota + 2 (24) new members. That places their membership at 84. Chapter cannot pledge any more new members until they lose enough members to be below total or in this case more than 4 members.

Thank you both! Can I ask a follow up question? Is this an NPC procedure that every collegiate Panhellenic must adhere to or just a common practice that each college may choose to enforce?

This is straight out of the NPC Manual of Information (aka the Green Book).

Wonderful, thank you!

Here's the excerpt from the green book

B. Each NPC fraternity chapter has the right to COB to reach Quota or its
total allowable chapter size during the regular school year as defined by
the school calendar. To accommodate the colonization of a chapter or to
allow a chapter to build its membership, the College Panhellenic Council
may vote to suspend COB for a period not to exceed three weeks.

Pardon the slight hijack, but this brings up a question currently on my campus. Our (new) Greek adviser has told Panhellenic - and our Panhel delegate has reported to our exec board - that after formal recruitment, no one will be allowed to COB, even if they're not at total. I read the quote above to mean that this is not kosher.

There's no colonization happening, and we're a deferred recruitment school (FR is in two weeks).

sounds like the new greek adviser needs to re-read the green book. he/she is wrong.

If your chapter will likely be below total after FR, you need to let your HQ know about this ASAP. They can help you get this corrected.

Thanks all. I did get clarification on this. Every chapter is currently at total (or one shy). In the past, it seems that chapters were allowed to go over total in FR to "replace" the seniors that would be graduating. When the Greek advisor says "no COB," he is meaning that he anticipates everyone being at total after FR, so it won't be necessary. Fall (informal) recruitment will be used to "replace" the seniors that will by that time have graduated.

Thanks for the responses! :-)

FWIW, I always thought that the reward for taking quota in the first place is not having to spend so much time on formal rush!

I'm confused. You CAN go over total during formal recruitment-unless you're a chapter at Indiana(maybe a few other schools) that have a "bed" rush. Formal recruitment is the only time you can go over total , by pledging quota. As Honeychile said, that is the benefit for pledging quota. There shouldn't have been two sets of numbers running, i.e., pledging quota and in addition, pledging "x" girls to replace seniors who will be graduating at some point that year. Glad the Greek advisor clarified what he meant.

And let me guess, when fall rolled around, there were seniors who had been "one class shy of graduating" and were still there. :rolleyes:

Glad your new GA put the kibosh on this - it sounds like your campus is finally getting on the right track.