From Pref Night to Bid Day: What happens?

[DubaiSis]

A lot of what you're saying sounds like Iowa in the late 80's, early 90's. My chapter is VERY old and wasn't going anywhere regardless of how small we got, but out of 15 chapters, 5 were regularly not making quota, and yet they brought on SK and AGD within 4 years of each other! What they were thinking and why AGD didn't bail before it was too late is beside me. And both of them bought/rented (whatev) crappy houses that were like single family homes compared to the mansions that the older chapters had. Not that they had a choice. The other choice would have been to tear down build.

Iowa's not quite ready for expansion yet, but I could see it in the next couple years. And hopefully SK and/or AGD will have the opportunity to make it right. But when they do, they will have to be prepared to do the tear down/build up mentioned above. Housing is expensive, as it is in all college towns, but not so much that you couldn't justify it with an expectation of years of success. A lovely house, well located that sleeps 40-50 and doesn't have the problems that old houses do could be a real draw, as long as all other things are equal of course.

[33girl]

Or, if the women in the sororities would have been a little kinder and released the women they had zero interest in, rather than stringing them along to make themselves look good, we wouldn't have needed to implement RFM in the first place. Even if they were a few short on bid day, those are the kinds of chapters that can fill 5 spots with 3 phone calls.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Or, if the women in the sororities would have been a little kinder and released the women they had zero interest in, rather than stringing them along to make themselves look good, we wouldn't have needed to implement RFM in the first place. Even if they were a few short on bid day, those are the kinds of chapters that can fill 5 spots with 3 phone calls.

But RFM isn't just about forcing chapters to release more women. It's also about better predicting return rates. Under the old system, even if a chapter followed suggested invite numbers, the suggestions weren't as good. Forecasting is very difficult, and RFM uses better methods.

[TriDeltaSallie]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

A lot of what you're saying sounds like Iowa in the late 80's, early 90's. My chapter is VERY old and wasn't going anywhere regardless of how small we got, but out of 15 chapters, 5 were regularly not making quota, and yet they brought on SK and AGD within 4 years of each other! What they were thinking and why AGD didn't bail before it was too late is beside me. And both of them bought/rented (whatev) crappy houses that were like single family homes compared to the mansions that the older chapters had. Not that they had a choice. The other choice would have been to tear down build.

Iowa's not quite ready for expansion yet, but I could see it in the next couple years. And hopefully SK and/or AGD will have the opportunity to make it right. But when they do, they will have to be prepared to do the tear down/build up mentioned above. Housing is expensive, as it is in all college towns, but not so much that you couldn't justify it with an expectation of years of success. A lovely house, well located that sleeps 40-50 and doesn't have the problems that old houses do could be a real draw, as long as all other things are equal of course.

This is also an issue at MSU. The city of East Lansing is not supportive of Greek life and trying to do ANYTHING to a house is a major ordeal. Gamma Phi Beta did build a house while I was in school, but IMHO the location was less than desirable - on a wedge with heavy traffic roads going by on both sides. We had a primo location, but didn't have the house to go with it.