Potential improvements to invite matching?

[jwright25]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

1) If a chapter's total number of women returning is not enough to fill up the number of parties - 1, they only hold the number - 1. In the above example, if you had fewer than 80 attending, you would only hold 4 parties instead of 5. This helps the parties look fuller, and gives the chapter a break.

This quite often takes place. And the converse is also true. If some chapters are releasing heavily early in the process, their second round parties may appear quite small - even though they are a historically strong recruiting chapter. It's really all about the chapter's preference - Panhellenic should accommodate them. If you want fewer parties with greater people in each, I say why not!

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

2) Allow a second invitation list below the first one, so if not enough women accept, it goes to the second group, as in final bid matching. In the above example, you could submit 150 invitations, plus up to 50 others you wouldn't mind inviting if you weren't limited by the number of invitations. If only 75 women accept from the first group, the software looks at the second list, and if any of those women do not have a full schedule, they are added to your party list.

In RFM, this is called a Flex List. It is used only with Priority ranking, though, rather than Accept/Regret. (Which is another "pro" for Priority.) In A/R chapters don't know their return rates until after all invites have been issued and either accepted or regretted. Chapters are given a certain number to flex from both their keep and release lists. So if a chapter is doing uncharacteristically bad, they get to bring back more women from their release list (the ones they have indicated on Flex that would have been invited if they could). If they are doing uncharacteristically well, some women can get pulled from the keep list (the ones they have indicated on Flex that they would release if they had to.)

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

I am certain that software could handle these suggestions with little additional work for the greek life office, so what do you guys think the pros and cons are?

You are correct. ICS handles it quite nicely!