UGA to implement upperclassman quota
 

Hope this has not already been posted because sometimes alums are the last to know :-) but our alumnae chapter just got the word that starting with recruitment this upcoming fall ('09) UGA Panhellenic will be implementing an upper classmen quota for all chapters on campus. We are very excited about this news!!!!:)

For non-NPC people, can you please help us understand the implications of this?

It means that chapters may now pledge upper class (jrs. and srs. - or do they count sophomores also?) students without it impacting the number of undergraduates they can pledge.

EXAMPLE - Quota is 50 for lower class/10 for upper classmen. Each chapter can take up to 60 new members - this will enable chapters to freely bid upperclassmen without worrying that they will end up with fewer freshmen.

To anticipate a possible follow-up question - chapters prefer to pledge freshmen because they will be able to be active for a full 4 years, as opposed to a junior who will only be active for 2. This is great news - I've always hated the fact that if you didn't decide greek life was for you early on you hurt your chances to land in some chapters.

Thanks.

You are 100% right.
Interestingly, we had the UGA Director for Greek Life here for our sorority info session last month and she said there was interest (not with her though) in pushing UGA formal recruitment to Spring....this could be a way to avoid Spring formal rercuitment without "penalizing" those who wait.

Another mother of a UGa student told me months ago that this was expected to happen due to the large number of students whose acceptances are being put off until spring semester. She said that that was the reason for the formal spring recruitment--that a lot of parents were upset because their daughters wouldn't be given full consideration next fall because they'd be sophs.

I'm glad to hear about the upperclass quota!

Do they think this is going to keep happening? Or was this year a fluke?

I would imagine so; if Greek Life only did an upperclass quota for a year and then went back to the old method, some Greek parents would probably torch the building. It's so difficult to get into Georgia as a freshman that if their children can't get in then, at least they want a more equal footing for them to go Greek.

I'm all for upperclass quota--I wish that Auburn would start one--but wow, I don't see how the chapters function with over two hundred members now! My own chapter is absolutely massive and I can't imagine the logistics of chapter operation these days.

This is great news for UGA! Bama has an upperclassmen quota and I think it is one of the best decisions the University/Panhellenic ever made in regards to Recruitment. (Especially since I was a sophmore pledge at another school.) I always believed it was highly unfair to cut an upperclassman for the sole reason that she was an upperclassman. Soph's and Jr's have already proven they can pull grades at the college level, have shown how involved they will be on campus, etc.

I hope that's true. Many years ago Bama's previous Univ Pres/Admin wanted to push formal Recruitment to spring. Even back then there were large pledge classes and losing an entire fall semester of those new members' dues would have been financially catastrophic. The accounting agency who handles most of the GLOs on campus ran the numbers and the loss would have been a massive blow to the entire Greek system. Some of the smaller chapters and the larger ones who had a lot of debt (typically due to major construction/remodelling) might not have been able to weather that loss.