Quota Additions at Super Competitive Schools

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by gee_ess

Just a quick note: Because the problem has gotten so dire at Arkansas, the sororities on campus are very supportive of expansion and would support a new house or two. I don't think there is anyone who is not on board with this, unless it is the one, eternal Icky Iota house that struggles despite RFM (and suffers all of the problems discussed in this thread)RFM has helped them, but it has not put them on equal ground.

That's good, although if it's support that would waver after the chapter colonizes and becomes 'competition' it won't last.

I agree that the large pledge class problem is fairly isolated around the country, but if you go back and look, it is expanding each year. Arkansas has been dealing with it for at least 5 years, then Alabama, then Ole Miss, etc.

Unfortunately as long as it costs '$X' to colonize at those schools it's probably going to be worse before it gets better.

Drolefille, you are right, it is a systemic problem partly. But weren't crosscuts, and bidless girls also systemic on campuses prior to RFM?

They were, which is why I see it as a campus-system problem rather than a RFM system-wide problem. Because without RFM you would have the alternative, artificially small 'elite' Greek population on a campus that will only engender animosity because half of your 500 PNMs get cut because quota is 45.

I am not advocating the end of RFM, far from it. I am simply saying that RFM needs to be tweaked to find some answers for these large quotas. Or maybe National Pan needs to provide some help to groups trying to get on those campuses begging for expansion. IMO, the general attitude that "RFM is working for weaker houses" is kind of reverse discrimination and causing ripple effects across the country. Some campuses are more apparent, but I think others will begin to have issues.

I don't see how it involves reverse discrimination-something that rarely exists anywhere- at all. The stronger chapters didn't need help and were benefitting from the old system at the expense of the 'weaker' chapters. And, overall, they're still benefiting from RFM. It seems like RFM's weaknesses are in the lowest end of the recruiting spectrum. I don't really agree that quota size is RFM's fault, but that it's the campus system's fault.

I'd love to see the NPC provide some sort of support to help at campuses like UA.

The houses filling these huge quotas, despite being able to brag about their recruitment success, don't want NM groups this large. It causes all sorts of the same problems for a stronog chapter (drop outs, uninvolved, lost in the crowd) that bid lists filled with girls who get their 3rd choice cause for weaker houses.

Right, and i get that. Those are simply too big.

Originally Posted by carnation

No. They might paste on smiles and act like they were going to but you wait and see how long that new chapter lasts.

Then they'd rather have huge pledge class sizes than be panhellenic.

LOL. Not going to happen. Even a smaller house would brand a chapter.

I wonder if 3 or 4 chapters colonized at once, all not having housing. I know in reality it would created a secondary 'tier' but at least it wouldn't be ONE Icky Iota, but three Secondary Sigmas or something.

Originally Posted by violetpretty

This is probably why schools with no housing/cheap housing are able to extend the easiest. I don't see how a chapter at an SEC school such as Arkansas could survive without a house even with the "support" of everyone on campus. PNMs will see an unhoused chapter at such a campus as inferior, no matter what anyone says. So unless a sorority is content to have a lower, but hopefully stable membership than the rest of the Panhellenc sororities, they won't start a colony without plans for a house. Even then, it would do little to alleviate the massive quotas because chances are such a chapter would win over women they know personally, rather than those who sign up for formal recruitment.

Yeah, I know. I'm kind of just brainstorming here because I don't think RFM itself is the problem, I think it's the situation on campus itself.

RFM can only force a PNM to attend a chapter's parties 4 times per formal recruitment. It can't force them to rank them on their pref card (well maybe shouldn't is more correct; I think misleading PNMs needs to stop), it can't force them to accept a bid, it can't force them to initiate, it can't force them to be members for 4 years, and it can't force them to become active alumnae.

I agree with Barbie that RFM does a great job for helping the middle and "upper lower" chapters. On my own campus, around when I joined in 2004, there were several chapters that didn't regularly make quota, and now everyone makes quota regularly and has good retention, except for one chapter. "Icky Iotas" are afforded the chance to win over a lot of PNMs. RFM can't solve every membership problem, but I still maintain it helps.

I agree 100%. It doesn't solve all problems, but it is, I believe, a better system for doing recruitment.

Thinking of schools with a distinct "pecking order" like Barbie's, it is true that no matter how much RFM shoves Icky Iota down PNMs' throats, if they do match quota, it's most likely because PNMs were tricked into ranking them. In such scenarios, I think that Icky Iota's (and their HQs!) need to realize that formal recruitment will probably never be the only place to get all their members. They need to realize they need to build relationships with women they meet in class, in their dorms, at other activities, at campus jobs, through mutual friends, to win them over, not have eleventy thousand COB events every semester.

I also agree with this, HQs need to 'get' that (and maybe they do but it doesn't always come across to actives that way) and so do the actives.