information for informal rush: please read

Informal rush is conducted when a chapter doesn't meet quota, or the school-wise total for each pledge class set by Panhel. Quota is determined by how many people are rushing that year as well as the relative size of each sorority. This year, since many people dropped or were not offered a bid, quota was roughly about 25, compared to 30+ from the previous years.

Because quota was so low, a lot of chapters had small pledge classes. This means that chapters who got 25+ girls will NOT do informal rush, despite how small the class is. Basically, only chapters who did not meet quota will conduct informal rush. Which ones those are, I'm not really sure about.

Informal rush is done differently in every chapter, but usually through someone either contacting you or you reaching out to their recruitment chair about wanting to join informally. Keep in mind that informal is a smaller process and most chapters that do informal rush will only be looking to add at most 6-7 people.

1. Quota is determined by how many people actually stick though the recruitment process. Many girls who wanted to be in a sorority but got cut by the ones they wanted didn't give the ones they had left a chance. They dropped out of recruitment because they wanted a SPECIFIC sorority, not to be in A sorority. Them dropping out lowered the total number of people who stuck through, and therefore quota.

2. Quota is NOT changed based on how many people want to do informal rush. Quota is strictly set during formal rush, so groups that have already met quota or exceeded quota will NOT do informal. There are a few groups that were 3-4 girls shy of quota, which means that they will be looking for 3-4 girls to fill up their new PCs. This makes sense because if you could rush informal, and informal will change quota, no one will choose to go through the hell that is formal recruitment.

3. MANY people did NOT maximize their options. If you don't know what that means, it just means that on pref round, they list ALL the sororities they got invited back to. If they suicide, there's a chance they won't end up with a bid at all. This year, so many people suicide rushed that 30-40 girls ended up not getting a bid. These no-bidders also affect quota, because they don't count as people who "stuck through." I guess for lack of a better term, quota is determined by the total amount of bids that are given out.

It's a national rule that if someone makes it to pref round, they are GUARANTEED a bid to a sorority that they went to pref for. This sounds pretty good, but it's not, because they are not guaranteed their first choice, just one of the two. People suicide rush because

1. If they only list one of the two, the chances of them getting the one they don't want is 0%. Because if you don't list a chapter on your card, they automatically don't have you in their system.

2. They are confident they can get their first choice.

If it doesn't work out, then that's when people get denied bids.

Therefore the reason the PCs are so small is because people were so quick to drop after they didn't get their top pick.