[alum]

Originally Posted by jwright25

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.