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DGTess: You don't say where you went to school or when but hopefully this will help.
Up until 20 or so years ago, the max number a chapter could pledge was quota. No one could take more than that number. No matter how many women were left over or what happened, that was it. Quota was usually set at pref or the day before by dividing the number of rushees left by the number of chapters on campus. 100 women, 5 chapters, quota is 20. If someone got a bid to AAA and didn;t want it and all the other groups already took quota, she was left out. Sorry, end of story.
Then, they (Panhellenic) decided too many women were being left out by this method so they invented a thing called quota additions. In this case, if a woman maximized her opportunities - that is, went to as many prefs as allowed and listed all on her bid card - she could be considered for quota additions if she somehow missed out on matching otherwise. QAs were limited to 5% of quota. So if quota was 20 then QA would be a max of 1. So, a chapter could conceivably pledge 21 against a quota of 20. This added a few more women back into the system who would have otherwise been left out. But some still got left out.
Fast forward to this century. PH is looking for a way to ensure more women are matched. RFM (Release Figures Method) is born. In this model, a "quota range" is determined before pref that is a range of numbers that will give the best opportunity to pledge all the women. So, if range is 23-26, final quota could be any of those numbers, based on what the computer determines places the most women. When this is done, the computer runs the lists at each potential quota and choses the one that places the most women. It could be under the old method that quota would have been 23 and 5 would have gotten left out. Under RFM, it might be that quota is 24 and everyone gets a bid....which is what we want. It also does away with the cap on quota additions and allows for all the women to be placed if, once again, they have "maximized their options."
As an example, at UAB this week, there were 115 women left after pref. Quota was determined by the RFM to be 26. It gave 26 to one group, 27 to two groups and 37 to the 4th group and all women were placed. It may be that at quota of 25, someone was left out. But it will always track to the number that places the most women.
I do have to brag just a tiny bit...DG was the one who got the 37! YEA!
This, of course, is oversimplified but I hope it helps make sense of the quota system for you. Let me know if you have further questions.
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