Effects of the New Release Figures

[UGAalum94]

In hindsight, I think I knew that, but I wouldn't have called out a campus for her anyway if I had been thinking.

Discretion is the key, Alphagamuga, duh.

I'll edit it some more if I can.

[NUBlue&Blue]

No problem.

Her sister is very involved both on campus and in Greek life, so she will not be able to remain anonymous.

And, sadly, my group is not on their campus...which in some ways is good, it takes the pressure off!

[SWTXBelle]

My group is not at all but one campus my daughter is considering. Of course, she keeps saying she doesn't think she wants to go through rush - but ultimately I think she will. Either that, or she will kill me.(!!!!)

[carnation]

None of my oldest 5 chose a campus that had Pi Phi. This was both good and bad. Number 6 has narrowed it down to 2 schools for the fall and of course, neither has Pi Phi. Dangit, I want to go to a daughter's initiation. I'll have to work on the next one, even though she's only 12.

[NutBrnHair]

Originally Posted by carnation

None of my oldest 5 chose a campus that had Pi Phi. This was both good and bad. Number 6 has narrowed it down to 2 schools for the fall and of course, neither has Pi Phi. Dangit, I want to go to a daughter's initiation. I'll have to work on the next one, even though she's only 12.

Which two schools, carnation? Come on -- give us a hint -- throw us a bone! I'm ready for Fall Recruitment stories!!!

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by carnation

None of my oldest 5 chose a campus that had Pi Phi. This was both good and bad. Number 6 has narrowed it down to 2 schools for the fall and of course, neither has Pi Phi. Dangit, I want to go to a daughter's initiation. I'll have to work on the next one, even though she's only 12.

Well, I'm sure the UGA Pi Phis would love a member of the Carnation family if they could get one.

Just think about UGA: a chance at a Pi Phi daughter initiation, another SEC school for the signature (although I think those are all your schools, if I’m not mistaken), and use of the sweet, sweet HOPE grant. What more could any mother want?

[alum]

Originally Posted by carnation

None of my oldest 5 chose a campus that had Pi Phi. This was both good and bad. Number 6 has narrowed it down to 2 schools for the fall and of course, neither has Pi Phi. Dangit, I want to go to a daughter's initiation. I'll have to work on the next one, even though she's only 12.

I'm working on my 13 y.o. niece, my bio/Kappa sister's daughter!

[Football Fan]

Alpha,
This is from an alumna of a California university. Chapters there are old and established. It may be just as competitive as at large SEC colleges. I really like the idea of Regret With Interest. I also like the practice mentioned in the thread of a pnm being able to pick up a chapter later.
Releasing 50% of the pnms after one meeting must be extremely difficult both on the houses and the girls who came with unrealistic expectations.

[UGAalum94]

I suspect it's terrible to have to release that many after first round and cut again by almost half after the second.

Someone who is the panhellenic advisor someplace really did walk me through how inviting back girls who weren't at your last party messes everything up (it's probably in one of the old recruitment threads from August or September), but maybe it could almost be like a waiting list for both sides: when girls who did go to second round indicate they aren’t coming back for third, either because they prefer other groups or because they dropped out, then girls who regretted with sincere interest who don’t have full parties could get the chance to go. Maybe this could happen for any group, regardless of previous return rates. Maybe there could be a way to "snap invite" back someone the group released if the group's returns failed to match previous projections and the girl had ranked the group high on her list. (Why do we let people snap bid girls they cut at the end of the process but not in the middle?)

I don’t think the girls should have to pick up groups they don’t want: I think that would hurt the groups. It’s nice for a girl to have full parties, but the groups need to be able to tell who is really interested too.

But that rare girl who gets invited back to second round everyplace at UGA cuts six houses after first party. She might not be at all interested in her bottom two or three, but I bet there wasn’t much difference between the chapter ranked 12 and the chapters ranked 13 and 14.

It’s one of the reasons why Carnation pointed out that it might be better to be cut hard after first because you don’t have to worry about accidentally cutting a chapter that you realize in hindsight you might have joined.

[TxGirl]

The idea is that each chapter has to release a percentage that should get them to the ideal number of PNM's to have back for that round.

So say there are 100 PNMs, 4 chapters on campus, 3 rounds (open, 1st invitational and pref) and quota is usually about 18, PNMs go to 4 3 2. Chapter total is 100

This is what we know from historicall data (meaning the last three years - just like old release figures):

For the 1st invited the historical return rate is: ABC- 98%. XYZ - 93%, MNO - 80% and TUV - 35%.

For Pref we know that the historical return rate is: ABC - 90%, XYZ - 97%; MNO - 90% and TUV - 15%

Historically - ABC and XYZ always make quota; MNO makes quota or misses by a couple and TUV never makes quota and is usually matches in the single digits. ABC, XYZ and MNO are all at total after bid match and only if they have women that don't accept their bid or they miss quota can they extend any bids. TUV is never at total and is continuously COBing throughout the year.

***This is not a specific campus. Actually, I can think of 4 campuses that I've worked with that would fit into this scenerio! : )***

Old release figures might say that ABC get to invite back 80 women. Do they to invite 80 to their second round when we know they have 98% of women accept? Of course not. Do they need to invite 70? I'd say no to that too.

Even if you go with the 2x quota for pref knowning that quota is about 18 that means they only need 36 invited to pref. If you go backwards using their returns that means that you need to invite 40 to pref to get 36. So they would probably be able to invite 45. This means that they have at least that many at the 1st invitational, but they probably have more like 50 at the round. So to get 50 at their round they would have need to invite 51 PNMs. This means that they had to release 49 PNMs after the open house round or 49%. So ABC starts with 100 releases to 49 releases to 40 and gets quota.

Problem with this scenario is that it still figures in the "old school" 2x quota at your pref events. With RFM you don't get that. We know that ABC always makes quota. We also know that they historically match quota within the first 25 PNM's on their bid lists. This means that they don't really need to have 36 at their events to get quota, they really only need 25. Giving them 28 (25 + a little cushion) and going backwards gets you a completely different set of numbers.

So ABC starts with 100 releases to 43 releases to 31 and usually still gets quota.

This is a 57% release of PNM's for the top chapter after the open house round of events and is not unusual for a chapter with this type of historical data. It also means that 9 women (or HALF a new member class) were release that probably wouldn't have been using the old release figures.

Someone wanted to know if snap bids were higher. I can't say for sure, but I would say that with the campuses I worked with they weren't any higher than normal. I think it's more WHO is snap bidding (meaning they didn't make quota) then how many are being snapped.

It's like 33girl said. PNM's need to think of sorority recruitment the same way they think of college recruitment. You need to apply to a variety of colleges to make sure that you have choices.

[UGAalum94]

So is a 60% after first round now normal for the top chapters at a campus?

And the case is now that groups don't get to invite quota times the number of events at all the rounds?

[jwright25]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

So is a 60% after first round now normal for the top chapters at a campus?

And the case is now that groups don't get to invite quota times the number of events at all the rounds?

Yes and yes.

Lovely explanation above by TxGirl. And regarding snap bidding. From what I've seen (and only one year of RFM in depth on 4 campuses), snap bidding isn't really increased. That's because the intent of the new RFM is to allow more chapters to hit quota - therefore lowering the need for snap bidding. This is also achieved by using Quota Range. The RFM Specialist and Greek Advisor will work together on the bid matching until they hit a desirable level of most chapters making quota PLUS a desirable level of few mismatches. Most campuses will then take those mismatches and make Quota Additions out of them. Some don't - which makes those women eligible for snap bidding by any chapter that didn't match to quota.

I've seen the new RFM work brilliantly when implemented properly.

[UGAalum94]

Certainly, you would think the need for snap bids would go down. I think it may just take a little time for everyone to get calibrated, and I'm not surprised at a few solid chapters may over-release and need to snap bid a little.
I was hearing, but certainly not from official sources, that more chapters or unexpected chapters were having to snap bid, and I was curious.

At campuses on which we feel like we're also seeing a lot of rush drop outs, it may been that the groups have to snap, not so much because of mismatching, but because some girls remove themselves from the pool completely. The data would certainly be thrown off, it seems to me, but maybe that's accounted for in the formula too.

ETA: Yes, thank you TxGirl, that was very helpful. I didn't know they were shaving it that close.

[jwright25]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

Certainly, you would think the need for snap bids would go down. I think it may just take a little time for everyone to get calibrated, and I'm not surprised at a few solid chapters may over-release and need to snap bid a little.
I was hearing, but certainly not from official sources, that more chapters or unexpected chapters were having to snap bid, and I was curious.

You are correct on all accounts. Some chapters who have never had to snap bid or COR are now finding themselves in that situation. And not because they did anything wrong. It has been my experience - and that of others - that chapters "cycle" with regard to return rates and recruitment strength. Chapters on a bit of a downswing (quite natural!) might be left with a couple of open spots after bid matching. The strong chapters will take advantage of this and find fabulous women who either dropped out, never showed up, or tried to sign up too late. If they do it quickly, no one is ever the wiser that they didn't match to quota, because technically they pledged to quota.

[seraphimsprite]

I'm definitely a fan of the new release figures method. I was an adviser at George Washington University in DC for the last three years and we implemented the release figures method in my first year there. (The campus is about 17% greek with quota generally ranging between 25-30.)

The chapter I advised had very high historical return rates so it was definitely a bit of a shock when they realized they had to release over half the women after the first round. But they didn't have a problem making quota with a great group of girls and the chapters on campus who had traditionally done poorly in recruitment did actually have stronger numbers on bid day, although not up to quota. I understand the frustration of the girls who are heavily cut after the first day but I really do think that's far more fair to them than stringing them along for the week only to cut them before pref.

I think the big issue with the new release figures method is that it really does take a couple of years to work out the kinks - both administratively and with the chapter's recruiting. Most of the complaints tend to be in the first year after implementation, but a lot of that seems to be just because its a different system and we're all a little bit resistant to change.

The legacy issue that carnation mentioned is something I've definitely seen as a problem though. The first year it was pretty well known that one sorority on campus had cut all of the women who were legacies to other chapters after the first round. And this isn't a campus where there really are a large number of legacies like you have at the SEC schools. Of course a large part of the problem is that the computer system told us who was a legacy of any chapter that year and the problem was mostly fixed by changing the program so it only displayed each chapter's own legacies.

And there was one case, in the third year, where a chapter who had always made quota fell short by 4 or 5 women. But I don't see that as a flaw in the system. They were able to pick up the extra women through COB anyway. And if ABC getting five short of quota means that XYZ was five members closer to quota than they usually were, then I don't really see the problem there.