University of Southern California Recruitment Begins

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by DTD Alum

Football Fan,
Although the huge drop in numbers is shocking, I could buy that. Just from what I know about Panhellenic recruitment, what I'm really confused if all the numbers are correct that Tri Delt would have 50 and ADPi 64. Without getting too much into "tiers", neither is a chapter that struggles getting quota, and neither has been much larger than the other in the past 6-7 years. So the reason I'm curious about other numbers is to see what exactly went down this year.

Also worth mentioning that I know in 2007 that at least four chapters had 69 PNMs, but I have no idea what quota was. That year most chapters were within 3-4 PNMs of each other. This year it's 14? Just really, really abnormal.

Because they traditionally have lower return rates to their parties, they are allowed to invite more women to their parties, including prefs, than the more "popular" chapters who have higher return rates. This is meant to assure that they meet quota, but often times, this number is either overshot or leads to a situation where they also have a list filled with PNMs who only have them left as an option. When it comes to bid matching, quota additions are added to place as many women as possible. If you have a longer bid list than another chapter with a situation such as I described, you end up with a very large class. The chapters with higher return rates are usually running on a razor sharp margin and competing against the other highly competitive groups for the same girls. It makes it more difficult to go way over total when RFM is done correctly.

[DTD Alum]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

Because they traditionally have lower return rates to their parties, they are allowed to invite more women to their parties, including prefs, than the more "popular" chapters who have higher return rates.

I know everybody hates tiers here, and I'm not going to talk specifically about chapter reps, but unless tiers have changed drastically in the last two years, and unless tiers have no impact on return rates, DG with 60, Tri-Delt with 50, ADPi with 64 and Gamma Phi with 68 doesn't make a ton of sense if it was all based on return rates.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by DTD Alum

I know everybody hates tiers here, and I'm not going to talk specifically about chapter reps, but unless tiers have changed drastically in the last two years, and unless tiers have no impact on return rates, ABC with 60, DEF with 50, GHI with 64 and XYZ with 68 doesn't make a ton of sense if it was all based on return rates.

1) GA's have a lot of leeway in placing QA's, and to some degree, they should take parity into mind. So, QA's may have gone to GHI and XYZ, even if they had listed those chapters behind ABC and DEF on their bid cards.

2) If a chapter has historically done very well, they get few invites for pref. Let's say that quota is estimated at 50, and for the last three years, every girl attending prefs at ABC put them first on their bid card. ABC may only get to invite just over 50 girls to pref. This is one of the big changes that RFM made: looking at how chapters were ultimately ranked on bid cards to help determine pref invites. ABC just barely taking quota doesn't mean that they didn't recruit as well as other chapters, it could just mean that they didn't recruit as well as in previous years.

[SigKapSweetie]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

2) If a chapter has historically done very well, they get few invites for pref. Let's say that quota is estimated at 50, and for the last three years, every girl attending prefs at ABC put them first on their bid card. ABC may only get to invite just over 50 girls to pref. This is one of the big changes that RFM made: looking at how chapters were ultimately ranked on bid cards to help determine pref invites. ABC just barely taking quota doesn't mean that they didn't recruit as well as other chapters, it could just mean that they didn't recruit as well as in previous years.

Couldn't that mean that ABC did extremely well at recruiting over the past few years, and that they only got to invite (let's say) 55 women for prefs? Even if all 55 of those women put them first and are matched/quota added to their chapter, they still won't end up with more than 55 from quota additions because they aren't on anyone else's bid card, because they were only allowed to invite back those 55 for prefs. Other chapters who were permitted more pref invites because their return rates weren't quite as high might end up with more QAs because there is a bigger pool of women who attended their pref party and then ranked them on their bid cards, and therefore those chapters would have larger pledge classes overall.

Crazy run-on sentences, but I can't figure out a way to phrase it better. Best return rates -> limited # of pref invites -> limited opportunity for quota additions -> smaller (but still quota or quota +) pledge class?


ETA: Which could also explain why quota seems to be low. If they are limiting pref invites for the chapters with the best return rates, Panhellenic/the RFM software must be 'forecasting' quota to some degree. If ABC is only permitted to invite 55 women for prefs, with the expectation that quota will be around 50, and then it turns out that more women sign bid cards than they anticipated (say no one drops out after prefs), they would be penalizing ABC by making quota 60, since ABC was only permitted to invite back 55 women for prefs. ABC will automatically not be able to make quota, even though their # of prefs invites was limited in the first place because their return rates were so strong.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by DTD Alum

I know everybody hates tiers here, and I'm not going to talk specifically about chapter reps, but unless tiers have changed drastically in the last two years, and unless tiers have no impact on return rates, DG with 60, Tri-Delt with 50, ADPi with 64 and Gamma Phi with 68 doesn't make a ton of sense if it was all based on return rates.

You have to get the idea that numbers = popularity of the house out of your head. It no longer means anything. Getting a big class may be due to having large numbers returning each day due to traditionally being a weak recruiting chapter, it may mean that you are this year's IT chapter and every girl that you issued an invitation to decided to come back to you but cut the other big chapter. Strong chapters have been known to not make quota because they miscalculated and only invited back girls that were interested in their biggest competitor. RFM can be very tricky. Quota additions can go to strong and weak chapters. Trying to read too much into it will make you crazy.