I agree with all of this. A lot of people argue that bigger is not necessarily better. This may be true as far as internal matters are concerned: you don’t get to know all of the guys as well, the brotherhood may not be as tight or close-knit, etc. However, I think it depends on the person. If you are in a 100-member house and you really take the time to get to know everyone well, then you can do it. But externally speaking—social, campus involvement, intramurals, recognition among other houses in the Greek system—bigger is definitely better.
Another point concerning quality and quantity: You can get quality out of quantity, but not the other way around. Meaning if you pledge 20 “average” guys, your house can mold them into 20 solid, hard-working brothers. But if you pledge only 10 guys, even if they are all rock-solid, it’s still only 10 guys, and you can’t get 20 guys out of that. Do the math. Another argument for quantity.
My chapter’s goal was just to get as many pledges as possible, because we were a small house and couldn’t survive otherwise. We couldn’t plan on just getting the 20 best guys who walked through our door, because we didn’t have the same rush numbers that a lot of houses have. Basically, if someone had a good attitude, got along with our guys during rush, and seemed to be willing to work hard for the house, we would give them a bid. We would end up with a pledge class of diverse, solid future brothers, but we would lack the size to really make an impact on campus.
I guess what I’m trying to ask is how different houses of different sizes determine how many pledges they want to get in a given semester. I am interested in finding out if houses try to balance a semester of “quantity” with a semester of “quality,” or if the goal is to always get 30 pledges no matter what, etc. Do houses ever set a goal of “we want to be the biggest fraternity on campus” and then go out and get as many pledges as they can, to achieve that goal? Do they fluctuate based on how many seniors graduated last year or how many will be graduating next year? Does a house that already has 90 members really need a pledge class of 35, when a class of 20-25 is more than enough? Or do they pledge 35 guys with the knowledge that only 20-25 of them will make it to initiation?
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