How do people know return rates

Exact numbers for every house are only known by Panhel and maybe that gets shared to some in-house sisters. That being said, every house recruitment team knows what their cut numbers are each round. Houses that have to make heavy cuts due to higher return rates get the advantage of having less parties each round.

The houses with higher return rates cut more every round, all the way to pref, and their new member class numbers reflect that. While quota is the same for everyone, the quota additions are the tell. Some houses take a lot to pref and end up with the most quota additions, so their new member classes are much higher than quota. Houses that have the highest return rates end up with exactly the numbers for pref they need to make quota so they end up with no or few quota additions.

It's important to remember that each chapter's release numbers are percentage based and their hard numbers are determined as each round progresses, adjusting for how many pnm's stay in the process overall and how each chapter's return rate is tracking. Each chapter has a close idea of their hard release number when they submit their lists but their final cutoff number is up to the algorithm after each round concludes.

Tweaks can be made as necessary, but chapters don't deviate THAT much from projections.