Priority Ranking
 

My campus just switched to the new release figure method last year, though we remained accept/regret. I was suggested we have PNMs "priority rank" this year instead of accept/regret. I understand the reasoning behind priority ranking, but can anyone explain how it works
(i.e. when do PNMs rank, how do the chapters make their selections, etc)? Thanks so much!

How many sororities do you have?

in campuses that use priority ranking the chapters continue to do their membership selection/round invitations in the same way as before.

what changes is the method that the PNMs use to accept invitations. Instead of seeing who invited them back and accepting and regretting those invitations, after the last event of the round the PNMs rank the chapters.
Some campuses the PNMs rank all chapter .. whether or not they attended an event at that chapter or not. At other campusus the PNMs rank only the chapters they attended.

then before the next event round, the PNMs rankings and the chapters invitation lists are matched (much like final bid matching) and then the
PNMs are presented their invitation lists just prior to the time of the first event for the round.

Example
campus has 8 sororities, 4 rounds with 8, 6, 4, and 2 events.

Patty PNM attends events at all 8 chapters in round 1
after round 1 Patty ranks the chapters 1-8 or 6 #1s and 2 and 3 (either works)

the chapters submit their invitation lists and Patty gets matched and accepts invitations per her priority listing .. so let say she get matched to 5 of her first 6 choices and then picks up #2 (ie #7) as her 6th invitation. She will not know if she was invited to the 8th chapter or not.

after the second round (where Patty attended 6 events) the PNMs again rank the chapters ... either all 8 or just the ones they attended. Patty ranks them 3 #1s 2, 3, 4. She can receive 4 invitations for the next round. Again rankings and lists are matched. This time she only gets matched to 3 invitation lists 1 #1 and #3 and #4 and so this time she receives invitations to 3 chapters for the round of 4 events. In this case she whould know that 2 of her #1s and her #2 choice did not invite her back.

This continues thru preference with rankings and invitation lists being matched for each PNM.

excellent explanation AZ-alphaxi !

the one drawback from the pnm side is that they may end up going back to a sorority they did not want to revisit again. the up side is that their opinion of the sorority they did not want to revisit may change with a 2nd look.

Priority ranking is really nice from the perspective that a pnm takes a second look at a chapter she may not have thought highly of originally. I suppose it could be the same if you aren't invited back to the one chapter that you were really gunning for and then end up looking at the others more closely, but it seems like that would be less likely to happen with accept/regret.

Thank you AZ-AlphaXi! That's a wonderful explanation.
To answer your question 33girl, I have 5 chapters. Does anyone have any thoughts on which is better, cluster ranking (4 #1s and 1 #2) or ranking 1,2,3,4,5?

it shouldn't matter which style of ranking is used. say that on day 2 pnms can accept invitations for 6 of the sororities and there are 8 sororities. whether they rank the ones they want to return to all 1's and then the two they do not want to return to as 2 and 3, or they rank them 1,2,3,4,5,6, and the least favorites 7 and 8 it won't matter.

if the girl receives invitations from 1 thru 6 or all six 1"s, then those are the 6 she will revisit. if one of her #1's doesn't ask her back, then 2 moves up to take its place, if they have extended an invitation. if they did not, then #3 would move up. if neither of them extended her an invitation, then she attends 5 parties. the same thing happens if the pnm ranks them 1-8. if number 2 does not ask her back, then #7 would move up, if they extended her an invitation and so forth.

The only benefit I can see of cluster ranking over straight ranking is that with cluster ranking the PNM's may keep a more open mind ..

ie with 6 #1's each seems to be of the same weight of "want" as opposed to the mind set of 1 vs 6 with #1 being "better" than #6.

I agree!

Great explanation, AZ-AlphaXi.

It's worth noting that under either system (priority rank vs. accept/regret) a PNM could still end up being forced to go back to a sorority she doesn't like. Say there are 8 sororities, and a PNM comes out of round 1 hating two of them. She gets 7 invitations to round 2, including both of the sororities she dislikes. She can go back to 6 sororities. Usually, if you get more invitations than you can accept, you must decline down to the max # you can accept, but you can't decline any other invitations - you have to end up with a full schedule. So the PNM can decline the invitation from one of the 2 sororities she dislikes, but she'd have to keep the other.

Or, the PNM might receive only five invitations, including the two sororities she dislikes. She would then have to go back to all 5 if she wants to stay in recruitment.

Of course, in taking a second look at sororities she didn't like after round 1, the PNM may find she does like them after all.

Another benefit is time. It's sometimes impossible to convince a PNM that since she can accept 5 invites tomorrow it doesn't matter who she gives the 3 and who she gives the 4.