Question About Quotas

[Zillini]

Speaking from a highly competitive Recruitment standpoint, there is good and bad in the Release Figures System. We all know the (potential) good for the small/less successful chapters. More PNMs get invited back and since many of them may have been cut early from large/more successful chapters, they are hopefully more open minded and realistic about their chances. Along with that, the large/successful chapters aren't inviting back X# of PNMs just because they can, stringing them along with no intention of offering a bid.

But there is a down side. Just like with Panhellenic's assumption that every chapter should be happy to invite/pledge every PNM, they also have the assumption that every PNM is willing to join any chapter. Let's face it, on highly competitive campuses there are a lot of PNMs who firmly state "I want to be an ABC or nothing". There are some who take the position "I'm willing to be anything except an XYZ". No matter how many times they get invited back to a certain chapter they will never consider accepting a bid.

There's also a significant drawback for the large/successful chapters that I haven't heard talked about much. Having to cut such a large percentage in the early rounds means these chapters have to make drastic decisions without much information. You've got the 15 minute 1st round party where maybe 2-3 actives talked to a PNM, Recruitment application and recs to base decisions on. That's not a lot of info to make huge percentage cuts. There is less chance for those unknown "discovery" PNMs (especially out of state) to be invited back, someone who the chapter didn't know squat about before Recruitment and ended up falling in love with her. A chapter that is blessed with being highly successful has to practically set their bid list already on day 1 of recruitment.

[carnation]

Yeah, and it's hard to have that bid list when a big university has, say, 8 chapters at the top that are more or less alike and they're all competing for the same 200 or so girls. They usually don't know exactly which 2-3 chapters their preferred PNMs will love at the end.

[AnchorAlumna]

Originally Posted by Zillini

...Having to cut such a large percentage in the early rounds means these chapters have to make drastic decisions without much information. You've got the 15 minute 1st round party where maybe 2-3 actives talked to a PNM, Recruitment application and recs to base decisions on. That's not a lot of info to make huge percentage cuts...

Zillini, you are absolutely correct. But having the recs does help a lot...I don't understand why our national/international officers are not emphasizing this MORE.
I never understand why a chapter member would say "you don't need recs" when our Constitutions and requirements for membership explicitly state that they are necessary for pledging. Often a chapter member doesn't know that there is a committee actively sending out requests to alums for recs all summer.
I also never understand why an alum refuses to fill out a rec...we clearly need to do a better job educating our new members.
That said...overall, the new release methods DO help the smaller groups. But there's a limit. Tent talk will trump release methods any day.
So we need to educate our members better on why talking down a group hurts us all...

[33girl]

Originally Posted by AnchorAlumna

Zillini, you are absolutely correct. But having the recs does help a lot...I don't understand why our national/international officers are not emphasizing this MORE.
I never understand why a chapter member would say "you don't need recs" when our Constitutions and requirements for membership explicitly state that they are necessary for pledging.

But are they necessary to advance in rush and/or receive a bid?? (I know I'm asking TMI, just pointing up your wording). I mean, I know there are DG chapters at IUP and Penn State and I have a VERY hard time believing that the majority of those rushees have recs before rush starts. They just aren't used a lot in these parts and if your girls were restricted to only rushees who had recs, the chapters would be screwing themselves.

Originally Posted by AnchorAlumna

I also never understand why an alum refuses to fill out a rec...

Because the PNM sucks and she doesn't want to put her name on something recommending her?

Because she doesn't know the PNM from Adam and she doesn't want to recommend someone who she knows nothing about?

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by 33girl

.

Because the PNM sucks and she doesn't want to put her name on something recommending her?

Because she doesn't know the PNM from Adam and she doesn't want to recommend someone who she knows nothing about?

If an alumna knows a PNM is not a good candidate for membership, it would seem like filling out a rec is even more important.

And in the second instance, you could at least pass along the information that you did have, particularly if it's a campus that doesn't have potential new members fill out a ton of information. I don't think anyone is advocating just filling out recs at random for strangers. But if you could easy get information of benefit to the chapter and the girl, is it really asking that much? I'm also kind of cynical because I don't think chapters pay that much attention to who recommends candidates anyway unless they are current active members or recent alumnae. But filling our a RIF with honest information about how you know the candidate or where you got your info. isn't really putting yourself out there that much, but it might help the chapter a lot.

[33girl]

I am confused, it seems like AA was addressing a question that wasn't asked..."Why would a chapter member say 'you don't need recs'?" My guess is that a chapter member at a competitive school would say that if she WANTS the girl asking the question to be cut.

Oh, and alums might also not want to fill out recs because they just plain don't want to bother. Not everyone gives a crap about that sort of thing.

I would never fill out a rec or write a letter of recommendation or even introduction for a woman I didn't know personally.