2015 Indiana Recruitment

[Just interested]

I am so glad I live in Texas.(At least from October-June) We think cold is 40 degrees and a week of 32 degrees is all over the news. Y'all stay warm up there.

Just wondering why some on the list don't have numbers posted from last year... Kappa, Chi O, AGD... and speaking of Chi O I've heard that they only asked 400 girls back for the "16" Party.. is that possible? How can they be that harsh after what is basically an Open House?

[IndianaSigKap]

Originally Posted by Life is good

Just wondering why some on the list don't have numbers posted from last year... Kappa, Chi O, AGD... and speaking of Chi O I've heard that they only asked 400 girls back for the "16" Party.. is that possible? How can they be that harsh after what is basically an Open House?

The number of women a chapter is allowed to invite is calculated using RFM, which uses the acceptance rates from the previous years to predict how many women the chapter will need to invite back to make quota. For example if a chapter has a 90% return rate that means that 90% of the women they invited to the same round last year ranked them in their top group (accepting the invitation). So if a chapter's quota is 45 and they have a 90% return rate, they will only be allowed to extend a small number of invitations to preference.

[DubaiSis]

The numbers here are self-reported, reported by others who get the numbers or are published (like in the school newspapers). At least one sorority NEVER posts their numbers so if you see a number listed for them, a non-member gave it. That is their prerogative. Some think it's none of your business how many new members they took. Others don't want to post an unsuccessful number. Others it just never gets reported for no clear reason. Or in other words, don't read anything into a chapter not having a quota number listed here. At IU they all made quota, whatever that number may be.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Life is good;23again224

Just wondering why some on the list don't have numbers posted from last year... Kappa, Chi O, AGD... and speaking of Chi O I've heard that they only asked 400 girls back for the "16" Party.. is that possible? How can they be that harsh after what is basically an Open House?

How long is IU's rush again? Because if someone needs life flighted in a helicopter they're going to be SOL as all the helicopters are busy.

In all seriousness, as I stated in a previous post, this is deferred rush and the rushees have had a whole semester to get to know sorority members. So no sorority is going solely on what happened at an open house.

[Katmandu]

RE: Chi Omega invitation numbers.

1st: We don't know how many they invited back. Rumors swirl around during recruitment and most of them are inaccurate.

2nd: If they are a strong recruiting chapter with stellar returns, yes, their invitation list will be small, because almost everyone says, "yes". Chapters with strong returns don't need to invite a lot of PNMs to have a full house and a full pref and a full NM class.

3rd: If that number is correct, its not "harsh", it's reality. It would be less kind to pad their numbers, invite massive numbers of girls who fell in love with the group, get their hopes up because of an invitation and then get dashed in the end. Early cuts allow girls to re-focus and dance with someone else.

ETA: love it 33girl. Whap, whap, whap.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

That's a great way to do name tags! Right before I started school they eliminated the custom name tags the chapters at Iowa did. They did cutesy and VERY involved construction paper name tags for every girl attending every party. It was a huge amount of work. With all the other crap going on can you imagine keeping all that straight before parties? And the girls spending all summer cutting and gluing the name tags together for the several hundred that would have been needed! Oh the horror. And this was before RFM so everyone invited more girls and you never knew how many girls were gonna show up the next day.

I just found my Alpha Gam scrapbook from college and I have all my name tags from all the parties! So fun But yes, tons of work- and my alma mater had a small greek system.

Originally Posted by ItsGreekTooMe

I'd figured that an objective criterion that disqualifies girls from consideration would be disclosed to PNMs, just as the 2.8 is. Silly me.

I'll use a non-recruitment related analogy here. My college academic program was Occupational Therapy. In my program, they accepted 50 students per year and there were typically more than 250 applicants. Although the program had specific GPA requirements (must have a 2.5 overall and at least a 3.0 in some specific courses) and requirements for health care field volunteer hours (at least 60), nobody with a 2.5 and only 60 hours was accepted because it was so competitive. In reality, the lowest GPA accepted was a 3.5.

ETA: I have a rec girl at IU this time around

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Katmandu

RE: Chi Omega invitation numbers.

1st: We don't know how many they invited back. Rumors swirl around during recruitment and most of them are inaccurate.

2nd: If they are a strong recruiting chapter with stellar returns, yes, their invitation list will be small, because almost everyone says, "yes". Chapters with strong returns don't need to invite a lot of PNMs to have a full house and a full pref and a full NM class.

3rd: If that number is correct, its not "harsh", it's reality. It would be less kind to pad their numbers, invite massive numbers of girls who fell in love with the group, get their hopes up because of an invitation and then get dashed in the end. Early cuts allow girls to re-focus and dance with someone else.

YES. To all of this.

Originally Posted by AGDee

I'll use a non-recruitment related analogy here. My college academic program was Occupational Therapy. In my program, they accepted 50 students per year and there were typically more than 250 applicants. Although the program had specific GPA requirements (must have a 2.5 overall and at least a 3.0 in some specific courses) and requirements for health care field volunteer hours (at least 60), nobody with a 2.5 and only 60 hours was accepted because it was so competitive. In reality, the lowest GPA accepted was a 3.5.

Yeah, and the fact that *one* applicant with a 2.6 got into the program after single-handedly curing cancer does not change the fact that YOU need to have a 3.5.

[KDCat]

Originally Posted by Life is good

Just wondering why some on the list don't have numbers posted from last year... Kappa, Chi O, AGD... and speaking of Chi O I've heard that they only asked 400 girls back for the "16" Party.. is that possible? How can they be that harsh after what is basically an Open House?

Think of it like interviewing for a job. Resumes matter and connections matter. They looked at resumes and they looked at who the chapter knows and decided who gets the interview.

[irishpipes]

Think of a presidential election. A person has to be 35 and a natural-born citizen to run for president. Doesn't mean they'll win. Then pundits try to determine why a certain candidate didn't win when he/she was so qualified. These pundits can speculate that it was because of the candidate's religious views, military history, race, or position on this issue or that. But really, voters don't have to have any reason at all to not vote for a candidate. It can be all of those reasons and it can be none of them.

Some PNMs just don't make a good enough impression, for whatever reason, to that group of young women, at that particular moment. Moms (and sometimes alumnae) may prefer that membership selection would lean heavier to the objective criteria, but once minimum criteria are met, it can be any reason or no reason that a PNM isn't selected. The reason one member didn't vote for a girl could be an entirely different reason from why another member didn't.

[wsucalsigmakapp]

Originally Posted by Katmandu

RE: Chi Omega invitation numbers.

1st: We don't know how many they invited back. Rumors swirl around during recruitment and most of them are inaccurate.

2nd: If they are a strong recruiting chapter with stellar returns, yes, their invitation list will be small, because almost everyone says, "yes". Chapters with strong returns don't need to invite a lot of PNMs to have a full house and a full pref and a full NM class.

3rd: If that number is correct, its not "harsh", it's reality. It would be less kind to pad their numbers, invite massive numbers of girls who fell in love with the group, get their hopes up because of an invitation and then get dashed in the end. Early cuts allow girls to re-focus and dance with someone else.

ETA: love it 33girl. Whap, whap, whap.

These are all excellent points, and in the long run, every women going through recruitment should strive to be in a chapter that she fits in with the members and that wants her to be a part of that chapter. Who wants to be surrounded by women who were "pushed or forced" to accept you. Regardless of how harsh it sounds, getting cut from a group may be a blessing in disguise! =)

[Just interested]

DG at IU on Ellen right now!!!
So cute. They are looking for "dancer"

I goofed. It was at Butler. They are darling girls and represented DG and Greek Life in such a positive way.

Sorry for getting off track with recruitment at IU.

[navane]

Originally Posted by Life is good

Just wondering why some on the list don't have numbers posted from last year... Kappa, Chi O, AGD... and speaking of Chi O I've heard that they only asked 400 girls back for the "16" Party.. is that possible? How can they be that harsh after what is basically an Open House?

I really want to drive the point home here that the chapter(s) are not being "harsh". They are being *required* to cut more girls.

My understanding of the RFM (Release Figure Method) style of sorority recruitment is: the more successful a chapter is at recruitment (the more popular they are), the more girls they have to cut. In effect, it is expected that they won't have any trouble filling their parties and, therefore, are not allowed to over-invite a surplus of girls that don't statistically have a chance of getting a bid. That way, as others have pointed out, the chapters don't get the hopes up of girls that aren't as likely to make it to the end.

The chapters that historically have a lower return rate are allowed to issue "extra" invitations in order to increase their chances of getting a full pledge class. Again, by the stronger recruiting chapters releasing more women earlier, it allows those PNMs to more realistically focus on the chapters that want them and not on "dream chapters" that they didn't have as good of a chance with.

[navane]

Originally Posted by IndianaSigKap

The number of women a chapter is allowed to invite is calculated using RFM, which uses the acceptance rates from the previous years to predict how many women the chapter will need to invite back to make quota. For example if a chapter has a 90% return rate that means that 90% of the women they invited to the same round last year ranked them in their top group (accepting the invitation). So if a chapter's quota is 45 and they have a 90% return rate, they will only be allowed to extend a small number of invitations to preference.

I apologize for the double-post; but, I wanted to separate this out.

So....for those readers still trying to work this out. Here's how I interpret what IndianaSigKap said:

Sorority ABC is a strong recruiting chapter and Sorority XYZ is a weaker recruiting chapter. Quota is set at 45.

ABC historically has a 90% return rate. Therefore, 45 x 100 = 4,500. 4,500/90 = 50. ABC can only invite 50 girls to preference round.

XYZ historically has a 70% return rate. Therefore, 45 x 100 = 4,500. 4,500/70 = 65. XYZ can invite 65 girls to preference round.

Some people might look at this and say, "OMG! ABC is sooo mean! How can they be so harsh?!" When, really, the system is trying to give the PNMs a statistically higher chance of getting a bid.

Thanks for the explanations... it makes sense. Just trying to understand the process. I don't do helicopters.