New flash being hot doesn’t get you into “top” houses

Very true, that is the way it works. It's a numbers game. The chapters just send in a ranked list of their pnm's without knowing where their cutoff is going to be. Every member pulls for her favorite pnm's, but in the end it's a chapter decision. The chapter members don't even see the final list that is submitted, only the chapter's recruitment chair/advisor and PHA do, and then after submission the RFM percentages are applied to each chapter and their cutoff is their cutoff. The numbers change from round to round depending on how many pnm's stay in the process and how a chapter's return rate is trending. We often don't know if we cut you or you cut us when you don't return, and those of us who really wanted you get VERY upset either way.

But to avoid confusion for this type of explanation, the term "Quota" in recruitment is very specific to bid matching and bid matching only, and "Quota" sets itself based on the standard formula for everyone; it is not assigned by PHA. For the other rounds, it's actually a chapter's "RFM number" that is assigned by panhellenic, and that number determines a chapter's required releases. The system works though. It's better that pnm's know where they stand as early in the process as possible instead of being led on and then discounting chapters where they have a much better chance at a bid.