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.

[carnation]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

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.

If you're talking about many SEC schools, it would create three more Icky Iotas, not Secondary Sigmas.

And because they were IIs due to housing issues, it really wouldn't be their fault, which is sad! I know that we encourage PNMs to maximize their options, but face it: many Icky Iota chapters are that way due to something they do or have done and you can't blame PNMs for avoiding them. When I was at Auburn, there were 2 little chapters. One was new and trying to build up and had no reputation problems--they just needed time. The other--several of their members, even the new ones, did some really gross stuff out in the open at parties.

I know I'm rambling but the point I wanted to make is that some IIs are that way due to reasons they can't help--housing, new chapter, colonized at a bad time, etc. This would be these new groups and I would really feel for them in an SEC situation.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by carnation

If you're talking about many SEC schools, it would create three more Icky Iotas, not Secondary Sigmas.

And because they were IIs due to housing issues, it really wouldn't be their fault, which is sad! I know that we encourage PNMs to maximize their options, but face it: many Icky Iota chapters are that way due to something they do or have done and you can't blame PNMs for avoiding them. When I was at Auburn, there were 2 little chapters. One was new and trying to build up and had no reputation problems--they just needed time. The other--several of their members, even the new ones, did some really gross stuff out in the open at parties.

I know I'm rambling but the point I wanted to make is that some IIs are that way due to reasons they can't help--housing, new chapter, colonized at a bad time, etc. This would be these new groups and I would really feel for them in an SEC situation.

See if people look at the new chapters, just starting up, etc. as 'II' no matter what, then there's no options and everyone's just going to have to deal with a quota of 250 eventually. Something on the campus culture will HAVE to change to support new chapters until they get to a point where HQs feel comfortable expending $millions on a house.

[carnation]

Campus culture doesn't have as much to do with it as the perceptions of PNMs. Even women who've never set foot on the campus before will look at these sororities with the gorgeous houses and compare them to living in the dorms/having meetings in the Union and which do you think that a teenager will prefer? And then if they end up involuntarily in an unhoused chapter, most are not going to think, "I will now lead my chapter into such glory that we'll be up there competing with the Awesome Alphas!" Most are gonna have serious second thoughts about Greek life.

And even though the members of the housed chapters will pay lip service (sometimes) to the unhoused chapters, do you think they'd trade their membership for one in an unhoused chapter?

I wish it were different because some of my daughters had great Greek experiences on campuses with no sorority housing.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by carnation

Campus culture doesn't have as much to do with it as the perceptions of PNMs. Even women who've never set foot on the campus before will look at these sororities with the gorgeous houses and compare them to living in the dorms/having meetings in the Union and which do you think that a teenager will prefer? And then if they end up involuntarily in an unhoused chapter, most are not going to think, "I will now lead my chapter into such glory that we'll be up there competing with the Awesome Alphas!" Most are gonna have serious second thoughts about Greek life.

And even though the members of the housed chapters will pay lip service (sometimes) to the unhoused chapters, do you think they'd trade their membership for one in an unhoused chapter?

I wish it were different because some of my daughters had great Greek experiences on campuses with no sorority housing.

I don't know any member that's going to want to switch her membership to another chapter besides trolls here.

But I maintain, that if there's "no solution" then removing RFM isn't the answer either. Those campuses will either have to find a solution or deal with the pledge class size.

ETA: and no, I don't think PNMs are unavoidably dazzled by houses and such either. Some dazzle yes, complete inability to consider anything else no.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

I don't know any member that's going to want to switch her membership to another chapter besides trolls here.

I think what carnation means is that no matter how much Gorgeous House GHI says Unhoused UVW is awesome girls with great involvement and GPAs and all looking like Scarlett Johanssen, and probably honestly mean it, if GHI dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow and all its members could join elsewhere, they'd rather go to their bitterest rival than the unhoused chapter full of girls they were saying were awesome 2.5 seconds ago.

Tangent, and sorry if we talked about this before, but why doesn't Auburn have houses? Is there just not room?

[carnation]

33, that's exactly what I meant!

When I was at Auburn, each sorority had one or more floors of a dorm with a chapter room and kitchen at the end of the hall. Now they have individual --townhouses??, I don't know what they're calling them--in a Greek area. West Georgia and Birmingham Southern also have this setup. People used to throw around various reasons as to why the sororities didn't have houses but no one really seemed to care much. We were right in the middle of campus, we had everything we needed, and our dues were much lower than on the housed campuses.

[DTD Alum]

Pardon the lane swerve, but I think the issue is that with SEC schools and other schools with a similarly strict, rarely changing hierarchy (Indiana, USC, Texas, etc), is that the information about tiers doesn't often change and is readily available. I think what everybody here is forgetting is the culture that all these PNMs (and fraternity rushees, for that matter) came from...high school.

Ah, yes, high school, where you were either popular or not. In high school essentially the popular kids have the parties, the popular kids are the face of the school, the popular kids are the guardians of everything hip and cool and start all the trends. Although non-popular kids can enjoy high school as well, look at how much angst and social climbing there is to be popular in high school...at many schools, it seems like it is the only opportunity to have fun and be involved.

And then flash forward to college. Juniors and seniors have by now realized that college is a whole different beast...ANYBODY can have fun at college and be involved. Hell, even the biggest Icky Iota on campus has fun parties, has people on student government and dance teams, dates fun guys, etc. But to a freshman PNM who is just months out of high school, I think she (and he, to be fair) hears about the tiers the second she starts rush and is going to be focused on that throughout the whole process. If she wasn't popular in high school, this is her chance to redeem herself. If she was, she certainly doesn't want a downgrade. I think in most of their minds, popular = the only chapters that will have fun, just like in high school.

The issue here is that I'm not sure this mindset is something that can be changed, even with RFM and patient recruitment counselors and whatever. This is something that comes with maturity, and with living on campus long enough to realize, "Oh, nobody really cares about high school status anymore, anybody can have fun and be themselves."

So I guess my question is (and I know absolutely nothing about sorority rush, so flame away if I'm way off) do the nationals of Icky Iotas (and I'm sure everybody has a couple, just like everybody has amazing chapters) put together a plan for them to recruit a little differently? Obviously go through formal rush, but also with the understanding that this isn't our main way to get new members? I know all those chapters COB already, but it seems to me that even with RFM there are still problems for Icky Iotas...at what point does everybody stop trying to make the system perfectly fair and change, frankly, the immature mindset of 1,000+ PNMs, and instead admit that maybe Icky Iota will never shine during formal recruitment, and that's an OK thing, and then tweak and work on improving COBing instead?

If all of this is dead wrong from a sorority perspective, then tell me so. But it seems like from reading all the stories around here that it is damn near impossible for an Icky Iota at a super-competitive campus to change their status by formal recruitment.

[carnation]

Originally Posted by DTD Alum

And then flash forward to college. Juniors and seniors have by now realized that college is a whole different beast...ANYBODY can have fun at college and be involved. Hell, even the biggest Icky Iota on campus has fun parties, has people on student government and dance teams, dates fun guys, etc. But to a freshman PNM who is just months out of high school, I think she (and he, to be fair) hears about the tiers the second she starts rush and is going to be focused on that throughout the whole process. If she wasn't popular in high school, this is her chance to redeem herself. If she was, she certainly doesn't want a downgrade. I think in most of their minds, popular = the only chapters that will have fun, just like in high school.

The issue here is that I'm not sure this mindset is something that can be changed, even with RFM and patient recruitment counselors and whatever. This is something that comes with maturity, and with living on campus long enough to realize, "Oh, nobody really cares about high school status anymore, anybody can have fun and be themselves."

Well said.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by DTD Alum

So I guess my question is (and I know absolutely nothing about sorority rush, so flame away if I'm way off) do the nationals of Icky Iotas (and I'm sure everybody has a couple, just like everybody has amazing chapters) put together a plan for them to recruit a little differently? Obviously go through formal rush, but also with the understanding that this isn't our main way to get new members? I know all those chapters COB already, but it seems to me that even with RFM there are still problems for Icky Iotas...at what point does everybody stop trying to make the system perfectly fair and change, frankly, the immature mindset of 1,000+ PNMs, and instead admit that maybe Icky Iota will never shine during formal recruitment, and that's an OK thing, and then tweak and work on improving COBing instead?

If all of this is dead wrong from a sorority perspective, then tell me so. But it seems like from reading all the stories around here that it is damn near impossible for an Icky Iota at a super-competitive campus to change their status by formal recruitment.

It's not just recruiting, it's retention. Even if you're able to - with a combo of formal rush and COB - get up to total or average chapter size every time, if the best fraternities still don't want to mix with you, if you still have to see Icky Iota grafitti everywhere, no matter how many stops you pulled out during rush, your new freshman members are going to be dropping like flies. This is why I'm such a deferred rush pimp. Yeah, the girls hear all the stereotypes and tent talk and maybe even see some truth in them (like the mixer situation), but they come in and KNOW that and have accepted that. "Yeah, maybe I won't go to as many mixers or get nominated for homecoming, but I really like the women in the chapter. I don't really care about the other stuff, but maybe I can help it to improve." Women who aren't into that shouldn't have to go there - or feel hornswaggled that the chapter who seemed like social butterflies in rush (or COB) is...not.

There are chapters out there that rely too much on COB, just as there are those who think formal rush is the be-all & end-all. You need to do BOTH to succeed.

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by DTD Alum

So I guess my question is (and I know absolutely nothing about sorority rush, so flame away if I'm way off) do the nationals of Icky Iotas (and I'm sure everybody has a couple, just like everybody has amazing chapters) put together a plan for them to recruit a little differently? Obviously go through formal rush, but also with the understanding that this isn't our main way to get new members? I know all those chapters COB already, but it seems to me that even with RFM there are still problems for Icky Iotas...at what point does everybody stop trying to make the system perfectly fair and change, frankly, the immature mindset of 1,000+ PNMs, and instead admit that maybe Icky Iota will never shine during formal recruitment, and that's an OK thing, and then tweak and work on improving COBing instead?

If all of this is dead wrong from a sorority perspective, then tell me so. But it seems like from reading all the stories around here that it is damn near impossible for an Icky Iota at a super-competitive campus to change their status by formal recruitment.

Actually you're pretty spot on. Unfortunately many NPCs still put immense pressure on their Icky Iota chapters to make quota and reach total during formal recruitment. Of course, you want to encourage such chapters to do their best in FR. I assume it's partly for financial reasons; I hope they are more patient with II chapters on unhoused campuses.