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To Mevara: The way it worked out was that we had to stick to RFM. Our national org was adamant that we stick to the figures (I think someone from our GLO was involved in the system's development and it would have been controversial for us in particular to break? That was what we were told at the time, anyhow.) We were in a total panic, because we were only allowed to release a handful of women out of a pool of nearly a thousand, and we knew Round 2 would be a total mess. As we expected, our invitation acceptance rate had spiked that year because our rush chair had done such a fabulous job prepping our ladies to recruit well, and we were then left with the entire house double rushing. I think that after the advisors all saw how Round 2 went, they relented and allowed us to release more, but the "damage" had been done, and we still were double rushing into Round 3 and pref.
Looking back, I can understand why our HQ and Panhellenic said "stick to the figures." I'm sure every exec board at a WRC thinks they are the special snowflakes that are going to "turn the house around" and so our protests of "no, but really, I think our return rates are going to be much higher this year, our girls are vastly more prepared to successfully recruit" were probably not taken seriously.
To OneHeartOneWay and AZ-AlphaXi: You're right, I think the double rushing was brutal. We were able to spin it into a plus for morale for our women ("look how many are back! Our return rates are breaking chapter records!") but I'm sure the message it sent PNMs harmed us. We were not the weakest recruiting chapter on our campus, but I'd say we were maybe the third or fourth weakest out of a competitive system of sixteen.
However, I'm not sure how I feel about adding extra parties, either. Our campus did this as well, and it was a really obvious signal for which chapters were and weren't strong recruiting chapters. About ten chapters out of sixteen got to have one party "off" and it was a little rough on morale for our women to see the houses next door with an empty tent for a party because they didn't need to have one.
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