No cut policy?

[RTZTAS]

I think maybe I can lend some insight to this discussion. All the talk about whether a group or school can cut, has to cut, doesn't have to cut, etc. is all based on a new NPC guideline called "Release Figures." Usually the general membership of the sorority isn't made aware of how this works, not that it is a secret, its just that advisors sometimes feel the chapter shouldn't know that they are required to cut 12 girls that round or else the chapter might feel the need to get cut happy early on just to make it to 12 and then end membership selection and get to bed at a decent hour.

Basically the way it works if your campus has adopted this guideline, is this. Panhellenic keeps statistics on the percentage of returns for each round for each sorority. That means Panhellenic keeps track of how many rushees selected to return to a particular group after a round, regardless of whether she will get an invitation to the next round. So say you had 100 girls at your party in round 1 and that evening 80 rushees selected that they would like to return to your round 2 party. Your group would have 80% returns for that round.

Now once those statistics are known, Panhellenic will use the percentage returns for round 1 to round 2 for the last 3 years of rush, average them and give the group a number. So say your group had 80% return last year, 85% the year prior and 75% the year before that. You have an average of 80% returns for round 1 to round 2. Using that figure there is a mathematical calculation for figuring out how many rushees the group can invite to the next round. Panhellenic estimates quota before it has been set, based on number going through rush, prior year quotas, and history of drop outs. Let's say in round 2 there are 3 parties and let's say quota is 20. In a perfect world your group would want to invite back as many rushees as the members feel meet their criteria so to ensure that quota will be met. But what you do is take estimated quota and multiply it by the number of parties in the next round (20 x 3) = 60. Now you divide that number by the percentage returns average for the last three years, (60 / .80) = 75. The group can invite back 75 people to the next round.

The calculation allows groups who have lower percentage returns to invite back more rushees because there is the likelihood that 80% of those they invite back won't accept the invitation to return to the next round, putting that group at a deficit. The calculation also forces the groups who have near 100% returns, to release enough rushees to allow them to consider some of the other groups. The groups with 100% returns cannot possibly take all the rushees that want bids from them so it keeps the group from holding out their hopes all the way until preference and then let them down because they are not far up enough on the bid list.

Basically this keeps the big groups from getting bigger and the smaller groups from getting smaller. I believe the release figures began being used around 1990 and I think they are a good idea.

Someone mentioned newly colonized groups that don't have to cut. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but if you figure that a newly colonized group doesn't have return statistics for the last 3 years, that would make sense. Its almost like they have statistics of 0% so can invite back everyone they want. It may not be that drastic, but it probably works something like that.

So if you are in a smaller group that tends not to have as full parties, your chapter might have a "no cut" policy that is self-imposed or imposed by your advisors, basically because Panhellenic release figures are such that you can invite back many more rushees, so many so that you don't have to do any cutting during that round, maybe just for grades, which is done behind the scenes and doesn't require formal membership selection sessions.

I hope that makes some sense to everyone and let me also say I am not an expert on release figures, I just have a general idea of how it works and have advised chapters during Rush but have not been responsible for calculating these figures before.