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Originally Posted by DubaiSis
With all the explosive growth on so many campuses, this is something I've been thinking about, and how it varies from school to school. The systems with the huge physical structures don't want to expand to the point that they can't fill the houses every year, but you don't want to turn too many girls off because of an overly competitive recruitment either. In an unhoused environment, it's less about money but there are still burdens associated with too many members, not just too few. Meeting in a classroom is one thing, but if you have to rent a lecture hall to meet that would be less than pleasant.
So maybe some people can share. What do you think the perfect chapter size is at your school? And maybe a reason or two why.
I went to the University of Iowa (go Hawks!). The chapter houses are large traditional structures that hold 40-60 women. At least in our case, over the years they have adjusted down the number of girls who can live in. I don't know if that's because nobody wants to sleep in a quad or fire safety or too much electrical burden on an old house, or what. Anyway, I think the ideal chapter size at Iowa is 100-110. At 120 it was a little big, but much below 100 and you have to have more girls living in more years than they want.
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At Illinois, quota was about 50 most years that I was there, and I think that was about "right" for most chapter houses. Most of the time, the sophomore class + officers + a few women from the junior class who decided to live in again would fill the house. Some years, some chapters had to tell women who wanted to live in that they couldn't, and some years, some chapters had to tell women that they had to live in.
Anyway, given the retention problems most chapters had, this led to most chapters around 150, with official total set at 145. I think that was a workable number.