OK, so for the first time in...well a long time, Otterbein sororities will be taking spring pledge classes. Not all chapters are, but several have expressed preliminary interest in doing so.
Now, this leads to a couple big problems. We don't have a formal informal (irony?) structure. We have no idea how to do parties like this. Some chapters aren't going to do any parties. There were mistakes with the off quota lists of juniors/seniors during winter, so some of these women are already familiar with the chapter. Women who have not participated in formal recruitment are permitted to be recruited/pledged.
Now, this is where I get a bit miffed. Quota during formal was 20. 3 of 6 took quota and then some. 2 of those remaining chapters were close to quota, and my chapter is the last one, which took quite a bit less than quota (by design, we had 18 actives, couldn't handle a pledge class of 20 girls!). Now, the other chapters have rather large sisterhoods. They take quota (and plus) every year.
I, me, personally, feel that this spring class is not going to bring parity between my chapter and the other smaller chapters, especially because the other chapters are taking EVEN MORE girls next quarter. Big get bigger, small get smaller. This isn't a dig against them, more power to them, I just feel that it won't help bring everyone to level ground.
I also worry what this will do for the single-intention-preference (suicide signing) rates. They're already ridiculously high. There's no "penalty" for it (7 out of 9 in my pledge class did it!). But I worry that this will bring about the mentality of "Oh, I'll sign XYZ and nothing else. If I don't get a bid, I'll just wait till spring". I worry that girls won't give other chapters a chance because they hedge their bets that the chapter will want them in spring, which may or may not be true.
I wish we had a ceiling in place. Apparently there used to be one, but it hasn't been in place for several years. I dont say this because I want to restrict the other chapters, I just wish there was more parity. I feel like we've dug ourselves in a hole as a campus.
I'm not sure how this is going to work out. BUT! I am confident that it will be for the better for my chapter in terms of girls and numbers. We are going to have a spring pledge class. We've decided to have a couple of little events this quarter (ahhh! during week10! Stress!) and begin pledging next quarter. I'm excited to be doing something new as a chapter, and I'm ridiculously excited about some of the girls who have expressed interest in our event. I think we're going to get some girls who were intimidated by rush or didn't have time to commit to rush/pledging in winter (it is a notoriously stressful quarter).
Hooray for even more new Deltas
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