national tiers

Kappa Sig, Pi Kapp, Pike, are all fairly good in the South if not "historically big." That might be accurate to say from a historical standpoint, but I'd say they're all basically rising in Southern profile and their success is more recent aside from a few campuses (like Bama). EN, EX, SAE, Phi Delt, Fiji, and KA are the clear frontrunners of the region, but Pike, Pi Kapp, and Kappa Sig are present on a lot of Southern campuses and have solid chapters at them. ATO is historically strong in the South, but have fallen off lately and are probably more comparable to the other 3 these days. They're all top tier at a lot of smaller Southern public universities, and tend to be middle or upper middle at most SEC/ACC schools. Sig Ep is huge nationally, and definitely deserves a mention in the "big but not historically good in the South". EN and ATO are a lot stronger outside the South than KA from what I've seen, but KA is a fair amount stronger than those 2 in the South. TKE is interesting because they have a great alumni list and even have more good chapters than they're given credit for, but they just have such a large percentage of terrible chapters that they discredit the other ones.

Also, Lambda Chi and Beta are fairly accurately placed. Both are very strong outside the South and even have strong Southern chapters here and there, but overall just aren't on a ton of Southern campuses. DKE deserves an honorable mention for the sheer enormous of their national alumni pull despite only having like 50 chapters.

I would agree with this

The two with the most chapters are DZ and AOPi, there's definitely more to the equation. You have to consider what campuses they're on, strength on those campuses, etc. national tiers aren't a precise science, and shouldn't dictate how you spend your undergrad regardless.

Pi Phi, Kappa, Theta, DG, XO and DDD are generally considered to be the top 6 nationally. PKT are super picky about campuses and are at most Ivy League, top academic, and D1 schools. Theta isn't usually great in the South aside from fairly strong academic schools like Texas, Georgia, Vandy, Florida and a few others, but they have very prominent alumni and are very campus selective. Pi Phi is better than Theta in the South, but not quite a Southern powerhouse. Kappa is easily the best of that group in the South, having top tier chapters at half of the SEC schools, UT, etc. DDD and XO are major Southern powerhouses, are somewhat selective about where they put chapters, and are more prominent outside the South than other big Southern chapters like KD, Phi Mu and ADPi. DG is pretty strong basically everywhere but the South, but do have very good chapters at schools like Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Florida and Florida State, and other solid ones. Zeta is hard to place, they are strongest in the South but shy of a Southern powerhouse, and they're decent but not great in every other region.

Thats a good assessment. ..
Kappa, PiPhi, Theta
DDD, XO, DG
ADPi, KD Would all be the top tier if there was one

Look at the region from which you are coming unless you are planning to live in Alabama. Example ...Phi Mu is strong at University of Alabama... not anywhere up north

APhi is colonizing all over the place right now, wouldn't say they're that selective about campuses, and they are primarily strong in the Western US and just decent in other regions. XO is indiscriminate about campuses they colonize, but they're still on most of the top Greek and academic campuses, and they are top 6 based on the strength of their chapters at good Greek schools. DDD is a bit more selective about campuses, but otherwise same boat. Alpha Phi could probably make a claim for 7 or 8, but I don't see them being above Pi Phi, Kappa, Theta, XO, DDD or DG.

Alpha Phi is also huge in the Midwest....Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana for starters. And in the east. Only place they aren't strong really is in the south and they are apparently working on that.I looked on their website and their newest colonies are: Harvard, Stanford, Clemson, LSU, Carnegie Mellon, and currently preparing to colonize at Mississippi. Sounds fairly selective to me. But I agree they aren't top 3, but maybe top 5. Certainly top 10. PKT (Texas term there, sorry) definitely top 3, I should think.

Pi Phi, Kappa and Theta are top 3 nationally followed by DDD, XO and DG. ZTA is good, but they're probably 8 top. ZTA doesn't have as many chapters at top schools, and outside the South they're generally pretty middle tier.

im a student here from california and i can tell you that zta has no presence there at all, especially at the big schools. zta is very weak on the entire west coast so they dont belong in the national discussion.

Pi phi, Kappa, Theta are really strong, along with regional powers like AlphaPhi and DG.

For guys in the PAC, its all about Sigma Chi and SAE, with an edge to Sigma Chi, just like SAE has an edge in the SEC