Obsession with total...why?

[DZTUBAGIRL]

Ok, I know I don't talk very much but I have been wondering something. My sorority did really well with recruitment this semester and ever since then our vp of membership has been hasseling us to get more girls. I don't understand why it is such a big deal to have total. I personally don't like when you don't know everyone in the sorority. I feel bad when I forget someone's name, but you can't possibly learn every name in a week.
One other thing that I noticed is that at my school the BGLO's are not very big but they are really close. I was talking to a girl in one of my classes and she was going on and on about how she loved being in her sorority and how they are so close to each other. I want my sorority to be like this. I am not sure if they don't care that they are the smallest or what but I really admire how close they are and how much they love each other.
I hope that I don't offend anyone with anything that I said.
Anne Marie

[33girl]

In the immortal words of P. Puffy Diddly Daddly Puff....

"it's all about the benjamins baby."

[A Random DphiE]

My chapter's not so much obsessed over quantity as we are over quality...YES we do get competitive during recruitment and YES we encourage sisters to be on the lookout, but thats only because we want those we KNOW will benefit our chapter. We take pride in the diversity and commitment of our sisters and plan on maintaining the legacy on which our chapter was founded. Right now we are over total and it seems we won't be recruiting 'till next Fall. We might be a "big" chapter, but we set our priorities straight...sisterhood above all else (which is a feat wihin itself since we are a commuter school)
I *heart* my chapter!!

EDITED TO ADD:
i KNOW i went into a tangent....whoopsy!

[josh8o]

i see what you are saying....last fall when i pledges my fraternity was about 25 members. our pledge class was 22 strong, and we doubled the house. this year we bidded 48 guys, and keep 28. it strange to see hous house at almost 80 members...and its hard to come to the understanding that i will not know all of my bro's, but as long as i try to talk to everyone, and at least know their first name and where they are from, and they know that i am happy they are a part of phi psi, it is ok.

[AXOLiz]

I've noticed the obsession with total and I think it sucks. We've ended up taking girls who we knew didn't fit our chapter or would be a problem from the beginning - and guess what - they turned out to be big problems and either deactivated or gave everyone else hell or were just plain miserable. Or we took the ones that were super nice and had so much "potential for growth." Ok, fine, I personally believe every freshman will definitely grow, but why are we taking sophomores and juniors that can "grow"? If you're excepting them to change and suddenly become less shy and turn into super rushers, that's:

1) Not going to happen.
2) Unfair because it means you don't want the girl for who she is, you want her for who you want to try to turn her into.
3) Not staying true to the membership criteria, because last time I checked, "nice" wasn't one of them.

Yes, I hate super-exclusive chapters that make a point about bragging about it. But frankly, when you start giving everyone and their mother a bid, that's when your numbers start going down. I'm sick of seeing chapters pushed into taking people they shouldn't solely for numbers when chances are, if they were more picky about who they gave bids to and worked on developing a stronger sisterhood, quality girls would start becoming interested.

As heinous as it sounds...no one wants to be in the chapter that gives bids to EVERYONE because you never know who you'll end up with. Can you tell my chapter's had issues with this?

stepping off my soapbox now...

[aephi alum]

Quality, not quantity!!

On the one hand, you need to have enough members to sustain a viable chapter. If total is 100, all other sororities are at or above total, and your chapter has 10 members, most of them juniors or seniors - you've got a problem.

On the other hand, that doesn't mean you should stand in the middle of the student center and hand out bids to every unaffiliated woman who walks by.

No matter your chapter size, you need to meet women, get to know them, and then be selective in whom you bid - even if that means you stay under total. No sense in bidding up to total and ending up with a bunch of women who either deaffiliate or are just letter-wearers.

Sadly, all inter/national offices usually see is the numbers. X chapter has 75 sisters and total is 100 - that's 25 more potential dues-paying members. And, oftentimes, all PNMs see is a rush room or house that has suspiciously fewer sisters in it than the other houses; they wonder if the chapter will be around in 4 years, so that's the first sorority they cut.

[33girl]

Originally posted by Blue Violet
I Like I've said before-my friend is at a school where her chapter is really small-like 20 I think now, and they are close to shutting down b/c they don't have enough members. Who cares???!!! They love each other, are good girls, have the highest GPA on campus still do service etc etc. but now they are bidding girls they don't really know or like a lot to get numbers up. So sad.

When nationals shut chapters down for numbers, they usually say something to the effect of "the group was too small for the members to have an enjoyable collegiate experience." Bullshit. They'd HAVE an "enjoyable collegiate experience" if the national HQ would stop breathing down their necks to increase numbers.

If you have a huge house to fill, then yes you need numbers, but if you don't and you have 20 involved, loving, happy sisters who are enjoying being sisters and contributing to the community and the sorority, why penalize them and make them feel worthless simply because there aren't more of them?

[FuzzieAlum]

There are some good reasons to be concerned about total, although I can't condone being obsessed with it:

1) The more girls you have, the easier rush is. It doesn't matter whether you want to grow or to remain the same size, but if you're small relative to the other chapters on campus, each sister has to work harder. Rushees don't like being double-rushed formally, and informally, the more girls you already have, the more you know and are interested in you.

3) While small chapters offer opportunities, there is clearly a point of diminishing returns. If every sister has to hold three offices, she'll get burnt out. And not every PNM wants to be Ms. Officer; some just want to join and be active but not a chapter leader. You won't get them if they know they'll have to take an office.

3) If you have a house and wish to keep it, if you get far enough below some number, it will be hard to make rent. The ideal situation is a house that holds few enough girls that no one ever *has* to live in (except perhaps certain officers).

4) Events like Greek Week, for example, favor large chapters. Now, this won't matter to every chapter, but it can be discouraging to come in last place. Every single year. Yeah, can you tell I've been there?

5) If you believe you can't know a chapter of 50 members, how do 150-member chapters do it? Yes, it is different. No, it's not as bad as you worry it might be.

Some reasons against worrying too much about total:

A) You bid Suzy just to make quota, even though she's questionable - and even one bad member can turn away many PNMs, thus reducing numbers in the long run.

B) You start to focus on rush instead of keeping members. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

I think aiming for ceiling is a worthy goal. I do agree that if you get 48 instead of 50, you're doing fine, and it's better than taking two not-so-desirable extra girls just to make it to 50. But if you are getting 25 instead of 50, you're not doing OK. Put it this way: If your org is as great as you think it is, shoudn't everyone WANT to be in it? Now if the entire school wants you and you choose to be tiny, fine, but if you're only getting 25 because that's all you CAN get, protestations about wanting to be small sound a little defensive.

And yes, I know of what I speak, because my chapter was the poster child for "we're small and dang it we LIKE it that way." If we liked it so much, why did we always stress about it so much, and complain when we got a smaller class than another chapter?

[FuzzieAlum]

I wanted to add: I can only speak about my own experiences with my own GLO, of course. But my impression has been that AXD at least is less focused on being at total than being at the same size as the other chapters on campus. At some places this is total or over, but at other schools it's far less (or there is no total).

And even then, it's not like they boot a chapter that's one person smaller than the rest. If say ceiling is 50, they're not going to get too excited if you have, say, 30. The ELC might say, "You should rush," but it's more advice than a mandate. Only once you get down past 50% of average campus size do they start to worry about the chapter. <disclaimer, this is my experience and not in any sense a quote from a national policy manual!>

So maybe that affects my outlook. Certainly if nationals demanded that every chapter be 90% the size of total or they were automatically closed, I'd feel that they were unduly obsessed with total.

[gphiangel624]

I agree wholeheartedly with what FuzzieAlum has to say, as well as everyone else. I'd be perfectly happy if my chapter didn't make total (and yes, that's happened to my chapter, too- it wasn't the end of the world), so long as we got a pledge class full of the wonderful ladies we loved and saw as great members of the chapter.

But... in the defense of "obsessing" over total, sometimes a chapter has to obsess because: a) nationals might threaten to suspend or remove the chapter for not keeping up with other houses (happens every year to one chapter on my campus, and they're a great chapter, just a little weak during recruitment which is OK), or b) Panhellenic on the campus strongly pushes hitting total for one reason or another. I know that Panhellenic on UCR's campus is always pushing for total because if every chapter is at or very close to total, the university might actually see Greek life as something important and worthwhile. It's also stressed by PH because if every chapter is at or close to total, we can increase total and/or look into expansion, which will make Greek life appear more worthwhile to the university.

Not that I'm defending people or chapter's who constantly obsess over total- we have one of those on campus and it can get annoying- but I can understand why they do it sometimes.

[AchtungBaby80]

I've been wondering what the big deal is about numbers for a long time. My chapter is pretty selective, maybe too much so, but I think that's better than being "that" sorority--you know, the one that bids anyone and everyTHING. I feel like we're under a lot of pressure to keep our numbers up, though, especially since the reason my chapter was shut down and recolonized several years ago was low membership. My campus favors big chapters, but in my opinion, it was a little easier to become close with everyone back when we had 60 members as opposed to the 140 we have now. Aaaarggh! I'm just glad I'm not Recruitment Chair.

[DeltaSigStan]

Originally posted by josh8o
i see what you are saying....last fall when i pledges my fraternity was about 25 members. our pledge class was 22 strong, and we doubled the house. this year we bidded 48 guys, and keep 28. it strange to see hous house at almost 80 members...and its hard to come to the understanding that i will not know all of my bro's, but as long as i try to talk to everyone, and at least know their first name and where they are from, and they know that i am happy they are a part of phi psi, it is ok.

I wish I could have that feeling of ballooning that fast.......

[texas*princess]

Originally posted by Blue Violet
Like I've said before-my friend is at a school where her chapter is really small-like 20 I think now, and they are close to shutting down b/c they don't have enough members. Who cares???!!! They love each other, are good girls, have the highest GPA on campus still do service etc etc.

Yea I totally agree. While there is pressure to have total or over, I think it's sad to see chapters go because of low numbers. Delta Sigma Pi also has guidelines when it comes to membership (although they set "total" and "quota" a lil bit different than how NPC does) and it is sad that chapters that still do everything they need to do get closed just because of low numbers.

I also totally agree with what 33girl mentioned ..

[A Random DphiE]

I am fortunate enough to be the VP of Recruitment for my chapter for this upcoming year... chapters on our campus are pressured to keep up w/ total but not REQUIRED. Although the majority of the six NP sororities that are on my campus are at or near total, Formal Recruitment always pressures each chapter to reach quota or something very near to it. I admit that when it comes to Formal Recruitment, we all obsess about being in the "top three"...having larger numbers helps out tremendously during Recruitment not only becasue you have a better sister to PNM ratio, but because (as bad as it sounds) it LOOKS good. Granted there are some chapters that are labeled as "super selective" while others are known for "practicaly handing out bids", but in the end everyone gets what they "wanted".

I take pride in the fact that my chapter is 94 women strong, and that these women love their letters just as much as i do. There might be chapters out there that due to their large numbers lose sight of the true purpose behind a sorority...SISTERHOOD. I don't claim to belong to the perfect chapter, but i do belong to a chapter that has gone through it's ups and downs, yet continues to move forward. I came in when my chapter was split into two sides..and am HONORED to see it where it is today. We take pride in the fact that we have nearly DOUBLED in size, not because we "sold" ourselves, but because we've PROVED ourselves.
In Greek Bonds,
A Random DphiE

[James]

Total is a useful way of keeping score relative to other chapters of your campus as some of the very perceptive ladies pointed out above.

Kudos to you ladies.

If you houses at total on your campus, and you fall far short of it, then you have to wonder at the desirability of your chapte, or at least the PR aspects of it lol.

What we find when looking at smaller organizations, is they begin to preach the virtues of smallness and tightness. .. . because they are small!

If they really wanted to justify being small and exclusive, they would have to definitely something near twice the number of PNM's they need to list their chapter as a first choice . . . and then cut heavily.

That is exclusive. If you don't have enough warm bodies to fill quota pick you first, then you are not really competitive, you are just justifying the fact that you are small and not-competitive with the larger groups on campus.