which houses did you pref and which did you pick?

There is no way to answer your question in the space given on this website. My only general advice is to present an image during recruitment that represents 'your best self'. I truly believe that if you come across as authentic and interested as well as interesting that you can find a home in our system. The beauty (for lack of a better word!) of our system is sheer diversity amongst the houses. I know other threads are questioning diversity and what I am talking about is not a racial definition of diversity (although that does exist to) but rather we do not have a system comprised of houses where everyone looks the same, comes from the same place, has similar majors etc. There is no such thing as a cookie-cutter member of our community. I know some might disagree and that's ok, but having seen the scene at other schools I believe the Cal system to comprised of people that are largely themselves and I for one think this is a major strength of our system vs. what you might find at other schools. This is strictly my opinion and I hope as you move through recruitment that you ask for other people's opinions as it will help you figure out what you believe. I wish you the best!

@readitall. You are correct in the way you are reading the posts. After last year and many houses having large classes, there has been a push back in some houses against another year of huge classes. Can't predict how all this will shake out as the houses do have some leeway on this issue. My view and that of many in my house is that Panhel should have done something last year to bring in another house this year. But Panhel took a very conservative view based on the fact that we still have some houses that are newish and the fact that XO and DS need to substantially rebuild this year. Its a tricky calculus to figure out the best path forward for the system. This year recruitment results will tell us many things about what needs to be dealt with in the future. I don't know what to tell you other than what has been said a million times on here: keep an open mind, keep it real and meet as many people as you can during recruitment and see if you can find a place that you would feel comfortable calling home. If you don't find a home that works for you its not the end of the world to try again next year. But for my money the first year greek experience is one of the best of all the years in the system.

At other schools, if a house decides not to meet quota they cannot participate in COB later. Does anyone know if that will happen at Cal?

Most of the 'top 6 houses' haven't done COB in many years (Kappa however hdid super secret COB last year as did DG I think). So, to answer your question I do believe that not being able to do COB is an issue for most houses so I expect to see 1-2 houses go under quota. My house voted on this issue and we overwhelmingly don't want another large pledge class this year as it skewed the balance of the house and brought so many other issues. We won't know of course until spring on who will do COB but my guess is that there will be a few COB opportunities but if we have more large classes combined with some houses voluntarily taking smaller classes then spring COB will be very very small.

I think what @nance meant was that the 'top' houses haven't never done COB so its no penalty for them to go below quota. My house voted to go below quota assuming its in the same range as last year as we don't want a repeat of huge class from last fall. I also think its the only way our house can send a message to panhel that we aren't happy with the way the house situation has been managed. If just a couple houses go below quota it will have huge ripple effect and perhaps panhel might listen and change course. We decided not to wait for panhel and are going to keep it small this year. Sorry but true. We hope PNMs embrace all 12 houses and don't flee when the brutal cuts happen rounds 1 & 2. The management of our system is quite poor and so we decided to take our destiny into our own hands and management membership accordingly.

Sorry, auto correct killed my sentence! I meant to say that most of the top houses don't participate in COB. So, if the 'penalty' for going under quota is no COB then for our house its really no big deal.

Are you meaning the top houses may choose fewer than quota because even at those lower numbers they will still be over house total IE not having to COB?

Yep, there is general disagreement on this issue and at least one or possible two houses are going to possibly buck the system in protest to protect their in-house sisterhood experience. Panhel is notoriously hands off and poorly managed so what happened last year was no surprise. Hope 2017 is better but the best we can do is hope for the best. More than this I cannot say. From talking with friends at other schools over the summer it seems like our system is not unique at all on these issues.

It seems like a house choosing to stay under quota is like a PNM deciding not to maximize all her options (both are voluntarily dropping people or houses and not keeping full numbers). So if a house decides not to take quota, it shouldn't really be allowed to cherry-pick girls later by any form of COB. Does that make sense? If houses were allowed to do that, a lot of houses might decide they didn't want to play by the Panhellenic rules, would not take quota, and would find at least some of their own girls outside of it. Total would only figure into it because a house above total wouldn't be allowed to add girls by COB anyway, I think.

I agree the big pledge classes are tough. Are there any new houses scheduled to come on to campus? That may be a long process and not so easy to do -- where would they find an actual house to start with? lol

I'm not sure to focus on the numbers at this stage of the game is useful to anyone as each year things are different. There is no simple easy to understand definition for quota but in general its a system used to equalize the number of members in each house. It means the number of girls who may be pledged by each group in Recruitment (think about it almost like a maximum but know its possible to go over quota as well as under quota depending on other circumstance). The quota is set by the Panhellenic and depends on the number of potential new members (around 1,050ish) and houses on campus (we have 12). I hope they go over the basics of this in recruitment. In general I think its safe to say to there won't be alot of spring COB activity if we have another large fall experience. Spring COB activity is driven by a number of factors and its pretty impossible to predict it until after fall is done. Its a safe assumption based on last year that KKG, PiPhi, APhi, SK, ADPi, DDD, DG (maybe) won't have COB but this is all highly speculative. Honestly my suggestion is to just focus on having the best recruitment experience that you can and truly absent any computer disasters the numbers should all work out.

Going over the basics of quota for pnms during recruitment is a tad silly, as pnms have no control over who gets chosen and how many are in the quota number other than when pnms choose to drop-out of recruitment, then quota goes down. PNMs have enough to think about during recruitment, let's give them only the information they have some control over and skip the stuff the initiated women need to for sure know.

And you know this how? And may we ask what is in it for you to bring up this alleged subject of interest NOW right before 2017's formal recruitment rather than in any of the many complaining posts here during the past 12 months?

The ONLY reason to put this information out there is let PNMs know to speak to someone if they question their results at any point and especially if they don't get a bid (yes this did happen last year to multiple people). Any person that gets on here and defends the admin of last fall is a fool in my book but if you want to defend the indefensible then feel free and go for it. Mistakes are made and will be made again this year. No system is perfect. My only point was that rather than slink off into the sunset that PNMs check out what happened to them and make sure it wasn't a mistake.

I'm with @hug on this one. I was a rho chi last year and did the best I could to field inquiries but I didn't feel like I had the best information all the time. There were a few mistakes made in my group and while they were eventually fixed they did leave bad feelings. A few people that got late bids felt like their houses didn't want them and nothing I tried to say changed their minds. The comments from last year happened for a reason and I'm honestly sad panhel didn't seem to get the messages.