UGA Recruitment Winds Down

[jwright25]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I thought this whole "regret with interest" thing was being used more frequently? Or isn't that the case?

It is actually becoming more and more obsolete. Campuses are increasingly switching to Priority away from A/R. Some super big ones switched just this year and really benefitted from it. Priority allows for the use of Flex Lists, and flexing makes sure chapters have an adequate number of women coming to their parties.

[breathesgelatin]

Originally Posted by jwright25

It is actually becoming more and more obsolete. Campuses are increasingly switching to Priority away from A/R. Some super big ones switched just this year and really benefitted from it. Priority allows for the use of Flex Lists, and flexing makes sure chapters have an adequate number of women coming to their parties.

OK - this is all odd.

My campus switched to priority away from accept/regret my senior year.

We definitely still re-invited people. And were encouraged to even more than we had been during accept/regret time, because it looked less pathetic - with accept/regret, they would see that we kept inviting them back and they'd keep regretting... with priority, if they kept going to other groups, they'd never know they had an active invitation with us. They would only see it in this scenario (using my campus's numbers)

Round 1 they went to all 5 houses, and they ranked my chapter lowest
Round 2 they went to 4 houses - all their top choices
Round 3 they went to 3 houses - only two houses cut them, so they ended up back at my house

Most people didn't experience that drastic cut - most people would be released upfront the first night - so they would never know we were still inviting them. Only a few people would "slip through" so to say, and helped boost our numbers.

That said, we tended to release people if they had not attended our house for two nights in a row.

But our Greek advisors would actually get on us about that because it was usually exceeding the number of releases recommended by Panhellenic!

I'm probably saying too much here, but honestly it seems like what happened at my campus is the opposite of what y'all are saying.

Frankly, though, that could be 'cause y'all are talking about UGA and I'm talking about teensy W&L.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by breathesgelatin

OK - this is all odd.

My campus switched to priority away from accept/regret my senior year.

We definitely still re-invited people. And were encouraged to even more than we had been during accept/regret time, because it looked less pathetic - with accept/regret, they would see that we kept inviting them back and they'd keep regretting... with priority, if they kept going to other groups, they'd never know they had an active invitation with us. They would only see it in this scenario (using my campus's numbers)

Round 1 they went to all 5 houses, and they ranked my chapter lowest
Round 2 they went to 4 houses - all their top choices
Round 3 they went to 3 houses - only two houses cut them, so they ended up back at my house

Most people didn't experience that drastic cut - most people would be released upfront the first night - so they would never know we were still inviting them. Only a few people would "slip through" so to say, and helped boost our numbers.

That said, we tended to release people if they had not attended our house for two nights in a row.

But our Greek advisors would actually get on us about that because it was usually exceeding the number of releases recommended by Panhellenic!

I'm probably saying too much here, but honestly it seems like what happened at my campus is the opposite of what y'all are saying.

Frankly, though, that could be 'cause y'all are talking about UGA and I'm talking about teensy W&L.

I never had any real knowledge of how stuffed worked, even when I was there before release figures, but it might have something to do with the size, like you said. On your campus, it might be easier to hold over a separate list of girls to re-invite, especially because the number of chapters is smaller. Someone may have even done the inviting by hand after the regular parties were matched or something.

[breathesgelatin]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

I never had any real knowledge of how stuffed worked, even when I was there before release figures, but it might have something to do with the size, like you said. On your campus, it might be easier to hold over a separate list of girls to re-invite, especially because the number of chapters is smaller. Someone may have even done the inviting by hand after the regular parties were matched or something.

LOL - I was membership chair for my chapter and then president - which in Pi Phi at that time were the two officers privy to membership selection (the offices have since been reworked). I did all the re-inviting via computer program. It really wasn't that hard to manage! heh. I doubt it added 2 minutes, at least from the chapter side. And Panhel never said anything about it like it was a problem for them.

[jwright25]

Originally Posted by breathesgelatin

I'm probably saying too much here, but honestly it seems like what happened at my campus is the opposite of what y'all are saying.

Frankly, though, that could be 'cause y'all are talking about UGA and I'm talking about teensy W&L.

I do seem to recall some discussion that W&L has a few recruitment practices/traditions that aren't necessarily the same as others. And hey - if it works for them, great. The only way I could see it actually working out is if PNMs were allowed to rank all chapters every night - even if they didn't attend. 99% of campuses out there don't allow that - they only allow PNMs to rank the chapters they attended.

Plus re-inviting just makes a big ole mess for trying to keep up with how many women chapters have in their pool vs. how many they are really releasing. Kinda makes my head spin from a statistical perspective!

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by jwright25

I do seem to recall some discussion that W&L has a few recruitment practices/traditions that aren't necessarily the same as others. And hey - if it works for them, great. The only way I could see it actually working out is if PNMs were allowed to rank all chapters every night - even if they didn't attend. 99% of campuses out there don't allow that - they only allow PNMs to rank the chapters they attended.

Plus re-inviting just makes a big ole mess for trying to keep up with how many women chapters have in their pool vs. how many they are really releasing. Kinda makes my head spin from a statistical perspective!

Typically from a release figure perspective, is the number that a chapter can invite back based on the number of PNMs overall or simply the number of PNMs who attended the last round?

[jwright25]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

Typically from a release figure perspective, is the number that a chapter can invite back based on the number of PNMs overall or simply the number of PNMs who attended the last round?

It's based on many different numbers. (Does that help? ha!) Most importantly it is based on how many women a chapter needs at Preference to have the best chance at making Quota. Also based on an estimate of how many PNMs will actually complete the process so the PNMs can be spread out appropriately amongst the chapters. So the number of PNMs attending the previous round weighs in, but not as a primary factor. It's all a function of making sure there are enough women at Preference. Does that make sense?

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by jwright25

It's based on many different numbers. (Does that help? ha!) Most importantly it is based on how many women a chapter needs at Preference to have the best chance at making Quota. Also based on an estimate of how many PNMs will actually complete the process so the PNMs can be spread out appropriately amongst the chapters. So the number of PNMs attending the previous round weighs in, but not as a primary factor. It's all a function of making sure there are enough women at Preference. Does that make sense?

I think I understand what you are saying from an overall perspective kind of thing: preference numbers drive the rest of the releases. But, what I'm trying to get at is that if a group can't effectively re-invite, how do they compensate from too many PNMs not returning to a given round if their target number is already getting too small?

If they got dropped by girls after second, but could re-invite them for third, they'd be in better shape for pref, right?

[jwright25]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

I think I understand what you are saying from an overall perspective kind of thing: preference numbers drive the rest of the releases. But, what I'm trying to get at is that if a group can't effectively re-invite, how do they compensate from too many PNMs not returning to a given round if their target number is already getting too small?

If they got dropped by girls after second, but could re-invite them for third, they'd be in better shape for pref, right?

Well, two things help with that situation.

#1 - A chapter won't be releasing down to their Preference number on the first round. So if a chapter underperforms (as compared to previous years) in that first round, they will be asked to either not release any the next round or to release fewer than originally planned. If they underperform the night before Preference, they are in a bit of trouble (if they use A/R rather than Priority - see next). But this underperforming is rare.

#2 - Flex Lists. These are used only with Priority as opposed to Accept/Regret. They are the backup plan and in all actuality are re-invitations. So if a chapter has too few PNMs accepting to the next round, some extra PNMs can be added back to the invitation list. Flexing is done before invitations are given to PNMs, so they never know if they were flexed or not.