When did the NPC start using Quotas?

[naraht]

My belief is that when Sororities started that there was no requirement that the number of pledges/new sisters that a sorority had was in any way affected by any group other than perhaps the University administration and the recruitment would have been closer to that of the Fraternities of the time and Fraternities of today.

When did the concept of each of the sororities on campus having a specific quota of pledges come about?

[LucyKKG]

I don't know the answer to your question, but I know girls could also be given a bid to more than one group, then they had to choose one. I've heard older alumnae talking about 2 or 3 groups which gave them bids and why they chose Kappa. So different!

[WVU alpha phi]

Originally Posted by LucyKKG

I don't know the answer to your question, but I know girls could also be given a bid to more than one group, then they had to choose one. I've heard older alumnae talking about 2 or 3 groups which gave them bids and why they chose Kappa. So different!

A girl from my high school rushed at University of Maryland in 2003, and I remember her away message saying that she was going to pick up her bidS. I didn't think anything of it at the time because I was still in high school and knew nothing about rush. Did College Park give out multiple bids as recently as 03?

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by WVU alpha phi

A girl from my high school rushed at University of Maryland in 2003, and I remember her away message saying that she was going to pick up her bidS. I didn't think anything of it at the time because I was still in high school and knew nothing about rush. Did College Park give out multiple bids as recently as 03?

UMD has formal in the spring and informal in the fall. So if she went through formal in the spring, she may have been confusing "invites" for "bids". However, I think for informal in fall 03, there was a bid matching, almost like formal, so again, just one bid.

However, beginning in fall 04, PNMs can receive multiple bids. Since every chapter participates in fall informal, a PNM could theoretically receive 14 bids, or as many bids as chapters she visits. This is still in effect for the fall.

[AGDAlum]

Though I don't know when the quota/total system began, I know was in place in the late 1960's.

It's interesting to look through old college yearbooks (many of them have been digitized and can be found via university websites either as part of their libraries or their archives) and see the variation in size among the sororities on one campus. One might have a pledge class of five one year and ten the next, and vice versa for the group next door. (And in those olden days the yearbooks often listed a GLO's entire chapter roll, and "sorors in facultate (sp)" and "sorors in urbe (sp)" -- that is, the alumnae on the faculty and in town -- as well as the undergraduate members.)

From www.npcwomen.org:
"Early histories of women's fraternities contain accounts of "rushing and pledging agreements" or "compacts" among fraternities on various campuses, and also many stories of cooperation and mutual assistance. However, no actual Panhellenic organization existed and no uniform practices were observed. By 1902, it was obvious that some standards were needed, so Alpha Phi invited Pi Beta Phi, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Delta Gamma, Gamma Phi Beta, Delta Delta Delta, Alpha Chi Omega and Chi Omega to a conference in Chicago on May 24. Alpha Chi Omega and Chi Omega were unable to attend. The remaining seven groups met and the session resulted in the organization of the first interfraternity association and the first intergroup organization on college campuses. (National Interfraternity Conference for men's fraternities was organized in 1909, now called the North-American Interfraternity Conference).

"This meeting, and the next few, resulted in several mutual agreements, especially regarding pledging. Up to this time, no guidelines had been set, and women could be pledged to groups before enrolling in college and, indeed, even belong to more than one group." [emphasis added]

[crescent&pearls]

Quota/total was used in the 1950's. How much earlier than that I'm not sure!

One thing I remember from my history book was that prior to the formation of NPC, ribbon pinning or "pledging" girls that had not yet graduated from high school was a common practice. Apparently some chapters exerted considerable pressure on their hometown friends and relatives in the practice.

I don't know for sure but I think that by the 1920s most NPC orgs had adopted pledge pins and probably were involved in campus Panhellenics that held a more formalized "rush" process. NPC also set standards for the type of campus open to NPC groups- it had to be a four year college or university, not a "finishing school" or boarding school like the one my grandmother attended in Texas after WW1! She was definitely of the generation when very few women applied to, were accepted or were able to attend college. One of her greatest gifts to me, and one that made her so prous, was purchasing my sorority pin! She just thought it was so amazing that my mother and I were both college graduates, something that in her day, was really something only men really aspired to do!

[DGTess]

I was at a small school with a relatively small greek system (and a relatively small number of women) in the 70s. There was such a thing as quota/total, but we never bothered with it. None of the five NPC sororities could, I'll bet, even describe to you what it was at the time.