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Originally Posted by Greek_or_Geek?
So how did this happen? Did your chapter deliberately decide to offer more bids than they had beds for? How is your size and live-out situation looked upon by others in the community? Are sororities there able to offer as many bids as they want but chose to follow the bed rush formula?
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To answer your questions... The reason why we experienced such a sudden spike in members in such a short period of time was because our chapter struggled heavily during the 2000's, particularly around 2005-2009. It was to the point where our nationals was threatening to pull our charter if we didn't get it together. Winter 2010 recruitment was our most successful in years and it kept on going upward from there; we have made quota the past 2 years (not sure what quota was in 2010 but the amount of girls who accepted bids was around 50, which was substantially larger than the 14-girl '09 PC) and have had the biggest pledge class on campus each time, which is a huge accomplishment for a chapter that was literally on the brink of being shut down only several years ago.
We do not set our quota, our nationals does... they are completely in charge of it but they take various chapter trends into consideration (namely retention rates and quota met) when setting it. I guess the reason why our quota is so much higher than other chapters is because a) nationals wants to ensure that we continue to make quota/have enough members to sustain our chapter so they set it extra high to have some cushion for new members that might drop/not accept bids b) we have one of the largest chapter houses on campus, with room for about 100 members to live in, and c) they want us to continue expanding.
A lot of people respect the progress we have made over the past few years and understand that it's natural to have some growing pains, but people occasionally do get curious when I tell them I'm living out of the house as a junior because that's pretty much unheard of with all the other IU sororities. If anything I think that will be our biggest struggle; a lot of PNMs who want to live in the house want to be able to do so sophomore AND junior year. So, if they find out they can only live in our house 1 year they might set their sights on joining a chapter with a 2 or 3 year live-in policy instead. I think the best solution for our chapter and what we ultimately want is to be able to have a 2 year live in policy with all seniors living out... several other IU chapters follow this right now and I think it's completely fair. It also helps chapters with bed quota take slightly larger pledge classes due to the absence of seniors, which will help ease the competitiveness of recruitment even if only a little bit.
I'm not sure whether or not other IU chapters go by a quota set by their nationals or by the chapters themselves, but I do know that our nationals doesn't really take "bed quota" into account at all due to our unique circumstances as a chapter. I am pretty sure that we are the only housed chapter at IU to operate this way, however.